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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).

15:31 18.11.2015

Britain says it will deploy a Royal Navy warship, the HMS Defender, to support French efforts to bomb IS in Syria.

The warship, a Type 45 destroyer, will support French aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle, which left Toulon for the Gulf today to ease the burden on the 12 French war planes already operating against IS in Syria and Iraq by adding another 20 planes.

British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said in a statement that "France is firmly resolved in its determination to tackle [the IS group] and we need to help too."

"This barbaric terrorist organization must be destroyed and it’s right that we offer all the support we can to confront them...We will consider any further requests for support from France under Article 42.7 of the EU Treaty following Friday’s Paris terror attacks," Fallon added.

15:47 18.11.2015

Amid a flood of criticism on social media about a Daily Mail cartoon about refugees entering Europe, New York Times Beirut bureau chief Anne Barnard points out that none of the Paris attackers identified so far are Syrian.

A Syrian passport found close to the body of one of the Stade de France suicide bombers may have belonged to a Syrian soldier killed several months ago, a source close to the investigation told AFP.

The passport is in the name of Ahmad al-Mohammad, a 25-year-old from Idlib city in Syria, who French investigators believe was a soldier loyal to Bashar al-Assad's government.

A man was arrested in Serbia on November 17 carrying a passport bearing the same details as that found near the body of the Paris attacker and raised concerns that the passport discovered in Paris was fake and purchased from the same forger in Turkey.

16:26 18.11.2015

IS has shared the latest issue of its glossy English-language propaganda magazine, Dabiq, in which it published a photo of what it claims is the improvised bomb that brought down a Russian passenger plane over Egypt's Sinai peninsula last month.

The photo, which is now being widely shared on Twitter, shows a Schweppes Gold drink can and what seem to be a detonator and a switch.

The magazine also carries a photograph of what IS claims are the passports of Russians killed in the plane disaster. The passports were obtained by IS militants, the magazine claimed.

IS said in Dabiq that it had originally planned to "bring down a plane belonging to a nation in the American-led Western coalition against the Islamic State" after "discovering a way to compromise security at the Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport." However, the extremist group claimed it decided to attack a Russian plane instead after Russia began air strikes in Syria on September 30.

The timing of IS's release of its latest issue of Dabiq as well as its title -- "Just Terror" -- comes a day after Russian security chief Alexander Bortnikov said that a bomb had been planted on the plane equivalent to 1 kilogram of TNT. IS's affiliate in Sinai claimed responsibility for downing the plane, which shattered mid-air killing all 224 people on board.

IS's release of its terror-themed magazine comes after the group claimed responsibility for last week's terror attacks in Paris in which 129 people were killed.

17:20 18.11.2015

The hashtag #JeSuisChien ("I Am Dog") is trending after French police announced earlier today that a police dog, Diesel, had been killed in the raid on an apartment in Saint-Denis in Paris, where several suspects in last week's deadly attacks were holed up.

The hashtag is being used to tweet tributes to the police dog. Diesel was killed when one of the suspects, a woman, detonated her suicide vest.

One French Twitter user tweeted to say that her cat supported the #JeSuisChien hashtag.

Some of the tweets have taken on a humorous or satirical air. Twitter user @Pochineko used the hashtag to tweet a picture of a dog clad in black and the caption "Expect us," a parody of the threat issued by the hacker collective Anonymous who have launched an online war against IS. Anonymous claims to have taken down more than 5,500 IS social media accounts.

The #JeSuisChien hashtag is reminiscent of the #JeSuisCharlie ("I am Charlie") hashtag, logo and slogan that trended following the January 7 terror attacks against the Paris office of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.

18:00 18.11.2015

The Belgian Federal Prosecutor's office has told The Guardian that two of the Paris attackers, Brahim and Salah Abdesalam, had been interrogated earlier this year but were not detained because they were not seen as a threat.

Brahim Abdesalam blew himself up outside a Paris bar on November 13. He was questioned in February after being stopped in Turkey on suspicion of trying to travel to Syria to fight.

Brahim denied that he wanted to go to Syria and "there were no signs he was participating in terrorist activities," a spokesman for the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's office said.

"He was just a radicalized youngster."

Salah Abdesalam, who is being hunted by police, was also not deemed to be a threat.

18:11 18.11.2015

Large crowds are gathering in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels in Belgium for a peace rally in solidarity with the victims of the Paris attacks.

Molenbeek, which has a population of around 100,000 and a high rate of unemployment, has been dubbed a "haven for terror" and a jihadi recruiting ground after Belgian police carried out a series of raids searching for suspects in last week's terror attacks in Paris. The neighborhood was also searched during counterterror operations following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January.

People at the vigil lit candles and held a moment of silence for the victims of the Paris attacks.

10:33 19.11.2015

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has warned of the danger of an attack in France using "chemical or biological weapons," AFP reports.

"We must not rule anything out," Valls told lawmakers during a debate on extending a state of emergency following last week's attacks in Paris.

10:39 19.11.2015

The UK Foreign Office has advised British schools against trips to France until after November 22.

The advice is in line with guidelines issued by the French Ministry of Education, which has said foreign schools should avoid traveling to France during this time.

"As part of the national state of emergency, the French ministry of education has cancelled all school trips within France by French schools until [after] Sunday," the Foreign Office said.

10:45 19.11.2015

The FBI and New York police are aware of an IS video suggesting America's most populous city is a potential target of attacks such as those in Paris, but do not consider there to be any "credible or specific threat," Mayor Bill de Blasio has said, according to Reuters.

The IS video shows Times Square and Herald Square and a suicide bomber holding what appears to be a trigger. The video also shows scenes from Paris.

The New York footage appeared in a previous IS video produced in April, suggesting that the new video was produced in haste to maximize propaganda opportunities following the Paris attacks.

11:04 19.11.2015

A doctor and former columnist at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine who treated victims of the Paris attacks last week has said people should rally together in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Patrick Pelloux was one of the first emergency responders at the Stade de France on November 13. Just a few months earlier in January, Pelloux had given his colleagues at Charlie Hebdo emergency treatment after two gunmen opened fire on them, he told Australia's SBS News.

After the Charlie Hebdo attacks, in which 12 people were killed, emergency responders had "read a lot of military medical literature."

Pelloux said IS had "attacked the city of lights, the city that carries all the roots of multiculturalism, [and the city that] accepts tolerance, love, generosity."

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