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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).

13:02 24.11.2015

More from Putin on the downing of the Su-24 in Syria today.

The Guardian's Shaun Walker says the Russian President looked furious as he talked about the incident.

13:03 24.11.2015

Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that his country has the "right to respond" if its air space has been violated, Reuters has just reported.

13:09 24.11.2015

RIA Novosti has more details of Putin's comments on this morning's downing of a Russian Su-24 jet in Syria.

Putin says that the jet was attacked in Syrian territory, one kilometer from the border with Turkey and landed four kilometers from that border.

The jet did not threaten Turkey, Putin said.

Putin also said that the jet was hit by an "air to air" missile, which is different from initial Russian comments on the downing. Earlier today, the Russian Defense Ministry said the plane had been hit by ground fire.

"Our plane was hit on Syrian territory by an "air to air" rocket from a Turkish F-16. It fell on Syrian territory four kilometers from the border with Turkey. It was in the air when it was attacked, at an altitude of 6,000 meters at a distance of one kilometer from Turkish territory. In any event, our pilots and our plane did not in any way threaten Turkey," Putin said.

13:14 24.11.2015

Russia's Defense Ministry has just now tweeted that the Russian Su-24 jet was shot down by Turkish F-16 fighters as it was flying back to the Hmeymim air base.

Earlier, Russia had said the jet was shot down by surface to air fire.

The tweet says, "The Russian war plane Su-24 was shot down by a Turkish F-16 fighters in Syrian territory during its return to the Hmeymim air base."

13:16 24.11.2015

Russia's Defense Ministry added in a tweet that "analysis of objective control data unambiguously shows that there had been no violation of Turkish air space."

13:27 24.11.2015

Putin has said that the Su-24 jet was carrying out operations in northern Latakia province against IS militants, including "those from the Russian Federation."

There are two main Chechen-led groups in northern Latakia province, both of them small -- and neither have any links to the IS group.

The groups are Ajnad al-Kavkaz ("Soldiers of the Caucasus"), a small group of veteran Chechen militants led by a Chechen from Grozny named Khamzat Azhiyev or Abdul Hakim Shishani. His group is independent but has fought alongside Syrian Islamist factions including Syria's Al-Qaeda affililate the Al-Nusra Front.

The second group is Junud al-Sham, another group of veteran militants led by Murad Margoshvili a.k.a. Muslim Shishani. That group has also fought alongside the Al-Nusra front but in recent months has run a training camp in northern Latakia, sources in Syria say.

Both these groups consists of tens of fighters.

In addition, there are two other tiny Chechen factions in northern Latakia.

Putin claimed that these militants could "return to Russia at any moment." The majority of the North Caucasian militants in Latakia are fighting in Syria because they have been unable to return to Russia, since they are on FSB wanted lists. Sources in Syria say that some of Ajnad al-Kavkaz's militants are not on wanted lists, however -- but this is impossible to confirm.

This is Putin's full statement as reported by RIA Novosti:

"They [the jet] were carrying out operations in the fight against IS, northern Latakia -- that is a mountainous region, where militants are concentrated, mainly those from the Russian Federation. In this sense they were carrying out pre-emptive strikes against terrorists, who at any second, at any time could return to Russia."

14:11 24.11.2015

There have been more reactions from Russian lawmakers to the downing of the Russian Su-24 jet by Turkey this morning.

Alexander Romanovich, a member of Russia's social democrat A Just Russia party who is also deputy head of the Duma's international affairs committee, said that the incident has dealt a blow to Russian relations with Turkey, and that Russians would change their attitude toward the country.

"I'm sure that Turkey will suffer serious economic damage if only because of the attitude of Russians," Romanovich said.

14:21 24.11.2015

Russia's Izvestia news site is reporting that the Su-24 jet would not have stood a chance against an F-16, because Su-24s are designed exclusively for bombing from the air, not air battles and have a higher take off weight and lower maneuverability than F-16s.

Turkey and now Russia say that a the Su-24 was shot down by a Turkish F-16.

Izvestia spoke to Mikhail Khodarenko, the editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier weekly magazine, who said that the pilots of the Su-24 may not have even noticed the F-16.

"The Su-24 does not have a rear view mirror in its cockpit. The pilots sometimes even use a hand mirror in order to at least roughly see what's going on behind them," Khodarenko said.

"Regarding ejection, in the Su-24 it's not automatic. There are two levers between the pilot's legs which need to be raised in order to eject."

14:28 24.11.2015

Here's the video obtained by Reuters from a Syrian rebel group calling itself the 10th Brigade purports to show one of the pilots from the Russian plane shot down near the Syrian-Turkish border.

Video Purports To Show Dead Russian Pilot
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No media source currently available

0:00 0:00:49 0:00

14:30 24.11.2015

Viktor Zavarzin, a member of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, has warned that Russia will not leave the downing of the Su-24 jet unanswered, TASS reports.

"Our miitary aircraft did not violate Turkish air space," Zavarzin said.

"Today's incident is a serious provocation for regional and global security, the consequences of which will be irreversible...From the Russian side there will be an appropriate reaction, a response. The actions of the Turkish authorities are completely unacceptable, they have made a huge mistake."

Zavarzin added that "everyone is threatened by IS. And we can only fight it together...But now we see that many are clearly hindering our fight against terror. That's why what happened, happened."

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