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.
The "black box" flight recorder from the downed Russian Su-24 jet is damaged and special equipment will be used to decipher it, Deputy Commander of Russian Aerospace Defense Forces Sergey Dronov told reporters at a Defense Ministry briefing this morning.
The Su-24 jet was shot down by Turkish F-16s on November 24 near the Syrian border. Turkey says that the jet had violated its air space, a claim that Russia has denied.
Experts from China and the UK will take part in the investigation into the death of the pilot of the downed Russian Su-24 jet, a spokesman for Russia's Aerospace Defense Forces said this morning.
"In order to ensure maximal transparency and openness, we addressed foreign experts from 14 countries with an invitation to take part in the work [investigation] as observers. However, many specialists refused to participate in the investigation citing various reasons, excluding only Mr Liu Chang Wei from China and Mr Jonathan Gillespie from the United Kingdom," Deputy Commander of Russia's Aerospace Defense Forces Sergei Dronov said, according to TASS.
The flight recorder from the downed Russian Su-24 jet did not hit a fire in the crash site, which will make the process of deciphering it easier, RIA Novosti quotes the chairman of the commission in charge of deciphering the "black box," Nikolai Primak, as saying,
But Lieut. Gen. Sergei Baynetov, head of the air safety service of the Russian Defense Ministry, said that interim results suggest that the flight recorder's memory card had suffered mechanical damage. The investigating commission would examine this situation alongside international observers, Baynetov said.
The flight recorder from the downed Russian Su-24 jet may have been damaged by the air-to-air missile that hit the plane, according to Andrei Semenov, head of the Russian aviation flight safety service's information-analytical department.
Semenov said the missile from a Turkish F-16 had apparently hit the Russian jet on the tail where the flight recorder is located.
The flight recorder would have been subjected to impact from the missile as well as from impact with the ground when it fell, Semenov said.
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.
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.