The Syrian activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which documents life in IS-controlled Raqqa, tweeted this message of defiance following the killing of one of its members in the Syrian province of Idlib.
Two other activists from the group were killed in Turkey in October.
Financial difficulties are driving Syrian women into the arms of foreign fighters in northern Syria, according to local residents and officials of the Islamic courts, Syria Deeply reports.
Residents in camps set up for internally displaced residents in rural Idlib and Latakia told Syria Deeply that women whose husbands have died fighting in the civil war are marrying foreign fighters because they have few other options of finding financial security. “Widowed women, including my own wife, agree to marry us foreign fighters, because their prospects are not great – Syrian men do not like to marry widowed women,” said Abu Abdulrahman al-Belgique, a foreign fighter with the Turkistan Islamic Party.
Talks between Russia and the United States have led to improved cooperation on Syria, Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, has said.
"You will recall that previously, the parties met and talked but nothing came of it. Now it has been determined that there is a common goal," Pushkov told a Russian television channel.
Two pro-government militia fighters have been killed in clashes with Kurdish police in northeast Syria, Kurdish and security sources have said, AFP report.
The two fighters were from Syria's National Defense Forces (NDF), a pro-government militia. They were killed late December 16 in a clash with the Kurdish Asayish police force in Qamishli.
The two factions usually collaborate to fight against jihadist groups.
John T. Booker Jr., the 21-year-old man who pleaded not guilty to charges that he plotted to bomb an Army installation in Kansas in support of the IS group is scheduled to change his plea.
Booker filed a motion on December 16 asking for a change-of-plea hearing, and a judge scheduled one for January 12, AP report.
Booker was indicted in April.
He faces federal charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, one count of attempting to damage property by means of an explosive, and one count of attempting to provide material support to the IS group.
Peter Neumann of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at Kings College London tweets these new statistics for Swiss nationals who have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq.
Some 57 Swiss nationals have gone to fight in total and a third of them are women.
That concludes our live-blogging of the crisis surrounding Islamic State for Thursday, December 17. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Kurdish forces backed by coalition air strikes have repulsed the most serious attack by Islamic State group in Iraq in five months, U.S. officials say, the BBC reports this morning.
IS militants mounted a co-ordinated assault on several locations near the IS-controlled city of Mosul in northern Iraq on December 16.
About 180 IS fighters were killed in the strikes that continued until the morning of December 17, the U.S. officials said.
U.S. military spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the assault was the "hardest punch IS has thrown since this summer and the Peshmerga defeated them."
One of the sites attacked by the militants was Bashiqa where Turkish forces are stationed. Four Turkish soldiers were wounded in the assault but evacuated safely.
Canadian Special Forces Trade Fire With IS Near Mosul
Canadian special forces traded fire with IS militants and helped Kurdish Peshmerga fighters repel an IS assault near the IS-held town of Mosul overnight on December 16, the Canadian Department of National Defense said at a press conference Thursday night.
"The attackers employed indirect artillery fire, suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, and ground troops in an attempt to break through the KSF [Kurdish Security Forces] defensive line," Major-General Chuck Lamarre told media, VICE reports.
Russia has all the evidence needed to show that the downed Su-24 jet did not violate Turkish air space, Deputy Commander of Russian Aerospace Defense Forces Sergey Dronov said at a press briefing at the Defense Ministry this morning.