Accessibility links

Breaking News
A woman rests near rubble in the Syrian town of Darat Izza in Aleppo Province on February 28.
A woman rests near rubble in the Syrian town of Darat Izza in Aleppo Province on February 28.

Live Blog: Tracking Islamic State

Follow all of the latest developments as they happen.

Latest News For February 29

-- The United States Army's elite Delta Force is on the verge of beginning operations to target, capture or kill top IS operatives in Iraq, after several weeks of covert preparation, an administration official with direct knowledge of the force's activities told CNN.

-- Syrian government forces have regained control of a road used by the army to access Aleppo, after making advances against Islamic State fighters, a monitoring group and state television reported.


-- Authorities in Iraq say the death toll from a double bombing at a market in Baghdad’s Shi’ite neighborhood of Sadr City rose to 73 on February 29 after several critically wounded victims died overnight.

-- Tajik media are reporting that a woman known to be the second wife of Gulmurod Halimov, the fugitive Tajik colonel who defected to the IS group, has left for Syria along with the couple's four young children.

-- The UN is poised to begin delivering aid to people living in besieged areas of Syria, making use of a truce brokered by the United States and Russia. The first deliveries are planned for Feb. 29, with aid due to reach about 150,000 Syrians in besieged areas over the next five days.

-- A truce negotiated between Syrian rebels and the government has caused a dramatic decrease in airstrikes around rebel-held territory, but there were few celebrations, with many residents suspecting a trick, CNN report.

* NOTE: Live blog posts are time-stamped according to Central European Time (CET).

10:13 24.11.2015

Russia's Interfax has reported that Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper to say that one of the two Russian pilots from the plane shot down near the Turkish border has been found and detained by local Turkmen in Syria, and the fate of the second pilot remains unknown.

Citing a report by the CNNTurk TV channel, Interfax says that after the pilots managed to eject, the plane fell on the Yamadi refugee camp in Latakia province.

The Interfax report was made shortly before the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that the downed plane was a Russian jet.

10:07 24.11.2015

Turkish media has broadcast footage of a plane crashing into mountains near the Syrian border with Hatay province in southern Turkey, claiming that this is the jet that was shot down this morning.

10:05 24.11.2015

Russia's Defense Ministry has said that a Russian Su-24 jet was shot down in Syria.

RIA Novosti has published a statement from the Ministry, saying that, "Today in Syria, allegedly as a result of ground fire, an Su-24 plane of the Russian air group in the Syrian Arab Republic crashed."

"The plane was at an altitude of 6,000 meters. The fate of the pilots is being confirmed. According to preliminary data, the pilots managed to eject. The Defense Ministry notes that at all times during the flight the plane was only in Syrian territory. This is determined by objective methods of verification," the Ministry added.

09:56 24.11.2015

French police are examining what appears to be a suicide belt that was found abandoned on a Paris street.

The item reportedly resembles belts used by attackers who carried out the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, the BBC is reporting.

18:24 23.11.2015

This ends our live blogging of the aftermath of the Paris attacks for November 23. Be sure to check back here tomorrow for our continuing coverage.

18:23 23.11.2015

France's National Police has put out tweets with details of two of the men believed to be behind the Paris attacks, about whom they are seeking information.

The first tweet asks for information about Abdeslam Salah, the only one of the suspected Paris attackers to remain alive. He has so far evaded a manhunt. The police wanted notice describes Salah as a "dangerous fugitive."

Police are also seeking information about a man they believe is the third suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the Stade de France but who has so far not been identified.

17:55 23.11.2015

The IS gunmen who attacked the Bataclan theater in Paris, where 89 people were killed, were "very nervous, very jittery and confused, like under the influence of drugs," says a hostage negotiator who talked to the gunmen five times on the phone.

The negotiator, known only as Pascal, told the French magazine L'Obs that his talks with the Bataclan attackers -- Ismael Omar Mostefai and Samy Amimour -- were unlike anything he had experienced before.

The two attackers kept repeating the same phrases over and over, Pascal said.

They said, "We are the soldiers of the Caliphate. It's all Hollande's fault. You are attacking our women and children in Syria. We are defending ourselves by attacking the women and children of France."

During one phone call, Pascal asked the attackers to identify themselves. "It's not important," they told him.

After his second phone call with the two attackers, Pascal said he realized that they were not going to surrender and informed the head of the elite police unit that deals with hostage situations, who was given the go-ahead to storm the building.

17:29 23.11.2015

The BBC has noted that French President Hollande will meet four world leaders in as many days as part of a "week of diplomacy" intended to boost support for the fight against the IS group.

This morning, Hollande met with Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron, who flew to Paris to pay tribute to the 130 victims of the Paris attacks as well as for talks with Hollande. Cameron is pushing for the UK to extend its air strikes against IS to target the group in Syria as well as in Iraq.

Tomorrow, on November 24, Hollande will fly to Washington to meet U.S. President Barack Obama.

He then returns to Paris for a November 25 meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

On Thursday, November 26, Hollande will fly to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin is in Tehran today for talks with the Iranian leadership on issues including the conflict in Syria.

17:15 23.11.2015

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia's air campaign in Syria will be "temporary" and that the Syrian crisis will be resolved by political means, the pro-Kremlin RIA Novosti is reporting.

Putin met with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today in Tehran. The issue of the Syrian crisis and the fight against IS were expected to be major issues in the talks, although reports from the discussions have so far focussed on the Syrian crisis and did not mention IS specifically.

Even this RIA Novosti report about Russia's air campaign -- which Moscow has insisted is an anti-IS campaign although most of its air strikes seem not to have targeted IS -- did not mention IS by name.

"This operation will not be continued indefinitely, I initially spoke about it having a temporary character. This is connected with the offensive operations of the National Syrian army to suppress terror organizations," Putin was quoted as saying.

17:07 23.11.2015

France's security services are overloaded and attacks and planned attacks have been thwarted "by pure luck," according to the country's former top terror investigator.

Judge Marc Trevidic, who spent a decade leading counterterrorism investigations for the French courts, told France Inter radio today that French security and intelligence services are "simply overloaded."

"On the whole, during the last few years, we realized that we are not coping anymore," Trevidic said, according to Reuters.

"Those who were really under surveillance... we were not even able to stop them from going to Syria... we couldn't stop them from coming back."

Load more

XS
SM
MD
LG