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).

14:26 23.11.2015

RIA Novosti is reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spent over 90 minutes in talks that included discussion of the Syrian crisis.

In the first comments to reporters after the meeting, however, Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, did not mention the Islamic State group.

Instead, Peskov said that Putin and Khamenei had stressed that Syria's fate should be decided by the Syrian people.

"There was an extremely detailed exhange of views, and the consensus of Moscow and Tehran was emphasized regardlng it being unacceptable for options for a political solution to be dictated from the outside and that there is no alternative but for the Syrian people themselves to implement this political method," Peskov said.

14:35 23.11.2015

Several photos of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which begins anti-IS air strikes today, have been shared on Twitter.

The U.S. Mission to NATO tweeted these images and pointed out that the Charles de Gaulle is the largest west European war ship in commission.

CNN's security correspondent Jim Sciutto shared these photos of warplanes undergoing test flights on the Charles de Gaulle prior to anti-IS strikes.

The Telegraph shared this AFP photo of a French Rafale jet loaded with bombs catapulted from the aircraft carrier.

14:44 23.11.2015

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) says that the Davis Cup final is set to go ahead as planned in Ghent, Belgium on November 27, despite the current security situation in Belgium.

Belgium hosts Britain in the three-day final.

In a statement on the Davis Cup website, the ITF and the Royal Belgian Tennis Federation said that they are "in consultation with the relevant officials and our risk assessment and security advisers, are closely monitoring the situation in Belgium and specifically in Ghent."

15:11 23.11.2015

Tajik, Algerian and Belgian IS militants have appeared in a new video praising the November 13 attacks in Paris, according to analyst Romain Caillet.

Rita Katz of the SITE Intelligence Group says the video included three Tajik militants and calls for attacks on "Jews and Christians."

Katz also points out that in the days since the November 13 Paris attacks, IS has released 13 videos and three photo reports from its so-called "provinces" commenting on the attacks.

Seven of the videos featured French speakers, according to Katz.

15:18 23.11.2015

Belgian Education Minister Joëlle Milquet has given schools a series of security recommendations following the government's decision to close schools in the Brussels region today amid an ongoing security threat, RTBF reports.

The guidelines include suggestions that schools minimize gatherings of people outside schools and that they close access points during the day, leaving only one entrance that can be continously monitored.

Schools have also been asked to consider implementing "safe rooms" where students could protect themselves in the event of any incidents.

15:46 23.11.2015

France has begun to bury the victims of the November 13 Paris attacks, AFP is reporting.

The families of some of the victims have been reaching out on social media in order to personalize tributes for their loved ones, AFP says, noting that the family of one victim, 33-year-old Aurelie de Peretti, "launched a worldwide appeal for an artist to decorate de Peretti's coffin in a manner that befit the rock fan."

The family have received a number of proposals from several street artists.

Of the 130 people who died in the attacks, 105 were French. They ranged in age from 23 to 41.

16:07 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."

16:15 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.

16:29 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.

16:55 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.

Load more

XS
SM
MD
LG