The Washington Post has more on U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter's visit to Afghanistan today, and on the growing threat posed by the IS group in that country, particularly in Nangahar province.
A senior defense official, speaking to reporters en route to Afghanistan on condition of anonymity, said the Islamic State presence was seen by Taliban leaders as a a threat and added a “new dynamic” to an already challenging situation.
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“Nangahar is the region that most distresses us now,” Gen. Dawlat Waziri, senior spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said in an interview Thursday. He said Afghan forces had defeated [IS] in several other provinces and are now aggressively fighting them in four districts of Nangahar, where they have killed between 300 and 400 militants in recent months.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad has said that Russian air strikes in Syria have "weakened the opportunities of IS and other terrorists groups to act."
Mekdad made his comments in an interview with pro-Kremlin news website RIA Novosti.
"I think that the result of the Russian actions is evident across all of Syria," Mekdad said.
"[Turkish President] Erdogan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar are trying to prove that they are different from [IS], at the same time as strikes by Russian jets are really weakening the terrorists, and this is evidenced by the numerous areas liberated in Hama, Latakia, Idlib and Aleppo. There are significant successes, and soon this will be even more noticeable."
Mekdad also praised Russia's deployment to Syria of its S-400 air defense systems, saying that this safeguarded the Russian air force and the Syrian army.
Suspected Russian air strikes have killed 32 civilians, half of them women and children, in three areas in northern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said, AFP reports.
SOHR head Rami Abdel Rahman said warplanes bombarded Raqqa, IS's stronghold in Syria, as well as the towns of Azaz and Al-Bab in Aleppo province, on December 17.
The aim of the investigation into the flight recorder is to construct the flight path of the downed Su-24 jet, Russia's Defense Ministry says.
Russia's Defense Ministry says that the results from the deciphering the flight recorder from the downed Su-24 jet will be announced on December 21.
Turkey downed the Russian jet on November 24 near the Syrian border, claiming that the Su-24 had violated its air space. Russia has insisted that its jet had remained in Syrian air space. At a press briefing at the Defense Ministry this morning, officials said that the Su-24's final flight had lasted 40 minutes.
Germany's spy agency is working again with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's secret service to swap information on Islamist militants, the Bild daily said, despite Berlin's opposition to Assad staying in power under any peace deal in Syria, Reuters reports.
The aim of renewed BND contacts with Damascus is to exchange information about militants, especially those in Islamic State, and to set up a fixed communication channel in case a German Tornado pilot is downed over Syria, Bild said.
The U.S. Department of Defense has just tweeted this photo of U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter shortly after his arrival in Afghanistan this morning.
RFE/RL's Afghan service is reporting that U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has arrived on a surprise visit to Afghanistan to meet with U.S. troops and Afghan officials.
The Russian Defense Ministry tweeted this comment from Russian Aerospace Defense Forces Deputy Commander Sergei Dronov, who told reporters this morning that Russia has evidence that the downed Su-24 jet had not violated Turkish air space.