Russia Wants 'Impartial' Investigation Into Su-24 Downing Incident
Russia's Defense Ministry are hoping for an "objective and impartial" international investigation into the incident of the downing of a Russian Su-24 jet near the Syrian border last month, Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov said this morning.
"In the fight against radical Islam, we have not received adequate support from, our one-time, as we thought, partners, but on the contrary, we have received a stab in the back on the sly, Turkish F-16 fighters -- who violated Syrian airspace -- downed our Su-24 jet," Gerasimov said in a briefing for foreign military attaches this morning in Moscow.
Gerasimov noted that Russia had obtained the "black box" flight recorder from the downed jet.
Russia's General Staff Says Russia Carrying Out Daily Strikes Supporting FSA
Chief of Russian army general staff Valery Gerasimov has said that Russian warplanes in Syria are carrying out tens of strikes every day in support of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
Gerasimov said that the opposition groups numbering over 5,000 men are carrying out offensives alongside Syrian government troops.
"The number of such FSA groups is constantly increasing. For their support alone Russian planes are carrying out 30-40 strikes every day. Also we are giving them assistance with weapons, ammunition and material resources," Gerasimov said.
Egypt: Preliminary Report Into Russian Plane Crash Has Not Found Signs Of Terrorism
Egypt has completed a preliminary report on the Russian plane crash that killed all 224 people on board.
The Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement this morning that the "technical investigative committee has so far not found anything indicating any illegal intervention or terrorist action."
Russia says that the plane was downed by a bomb. The IS group claimed responsibility, saying that its local affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula had claimed responsibility.
Breaking news from AFP -- French police are saying that a teacher has been attacked in the Paris suburbs by a man citing the IS group.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said this morning that the IS group was spreading from its stronghold on the Libyan coast to the interior of the country with the aim of getting access to oil wells.
"They are in Sirte, their territory extends 250 kilometers along the coast, but they are starting to penetrate the interior and to be tempted by access to oil wells and reserves," Le Drian told RTL radio.
A detachment of the Turkish troops deployed in northern Iraq are today leaving the Bashiqa camp close to the Islamic State-held city of Mosul and moving north, a Turkish military source told Reuters this morning.
The move comes after Baghdad said it would ask the U.N. Security Council to order the Turkish troops out of Iraq.
Turkey's foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said that Ankara's patience with Russia "has a limit" after Moscow's "exaggerated" reaction to a weekend naval incident between the two countries, Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported this morning.
A Russian destroyer fired warning shots at a Turkish vessel in the Aegean on Sunday to avoid a collision and summoned the Turkish military attache over the incident..
"Ours was only a fishing boat, it seems to me that the reaction of the Russian naval ship was exaggerated," Mevlut Cavusoglu said.
Tensions between Russia and Turkey have soared since the Turkish air force downed a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on November 24.
That concludes our live-blogging of the crisis surrounding Islamic State for Sunday, December 13. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.