BEIRUT (AP) - The Latest on the conflict in Syria (all times local):
2:30 p.m.
Turkey’s defense minister says two Turkish soldiers wounded in a battle to retake an Islamic State-held town in northern Syria have died, raising the death toll in two days of fighting to 16.
Fikri Isik told Turkey’s parliament that the two died Thursday from wounds that were sustained in three separate IS suicide attacks in the town of al-Bab a day earlier.
Turkey sent ground troops into northern Syria in August to help Syrian opposition forces drive IS from a border area and prevent Syrian Kurdish forces from making further advances.
Thursday’s fatalities bring the number of Turkish soldiers killed so far in northern Syria to 37.
Isik says more than 1,000 IS militants have been killed in the Turkish-backed offensive, entitled Euphrates Shield.
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2 p.m.
Syrian President Bashar Assad says the “victory” in the northern city of Aleppo is not only for Syria but for all countries fighting terrorism, especially Russia and Iran.
State TV says Assad made the comments during a meeting Thursday with Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari.
Iran and Russia have been Assad’s strongest backers since the civil war began in March 2011.
Syrian rebels are withdrawing from Aleppo as part of a Russian-Turkish deal that would bring the country’s largest city under Assad’s control and mark his biggest victory in more the five years.
Assad says the advance in Aleppo is a “major step on the road to wiping out terrorism” in Syria and will contribute to efforts to end the war.
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1:25 p.m.
Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has led a funeral service for Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, who was shot dead on Monday.
In his eulogy at the beginning of the service, held at Moscow’s main Christ the Savior Cathedral, Kirill referred to Andrei Karlov as a “martyr.”
He told mourners that Karlov “will enter God’s kingdom and he will receive the Lord’s grace thanks to our prayers and his death as a martyr.”
Kirill and other clerics, all dressed in ceremonial white robes, led the service, which was expected to last for at least an hour before Karlov’s body is taken to the cemetery.
Karlov was shot dead by an off-duty policeman in front of stunned onlookers at a photo exhibition in Ankara earlier this week.
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11 a.m.
Turkey’s state-run news agency says authorities have released the family members of the policeman who killed the Russian ambassador.
The policeman’s parents, sister and three other relatives were among 11 people detained over the killing of Ambassador Andrei Karlov as he delivered a speech at the opening of a photo exhibition in Ankara. The policeman, Mevlut Mert Altintas, was later killed in a police operation.
The Anadolu Agency says the six family members were released Thursday without charges. Those still in custody include Altintas’ roommate.
A ceremony for Karlov, to be attended by President Vladimir Putin, was being held in Moscow.
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10:30 a.m.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says the evacuation of the last remaining civilians and fighters from a rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo will be completed in the coming hours.
Spokeswoman Ingy Sedky says the few thousand remaining people will be evacuated Thursday in 40 buses and hundreds of private cars. She says another four buses will leave the besieged government-held villages of Foua and Kfarya in the northwestern Idlib province.
Sedky says the operation will take place over multiple stages and be completed later on Thursday.
The evacuations were set in motion last week after Syria’s opposition agreed to surrender its last footholds in eastern Aleppo. Since then, about 25,000 fighters and civilians have been bused out, according to the United Nations.
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