In the biggest day yet in the air campaign against the Islamic State, the US and the UK jointly launched 24 strikes against the group in Iraq and Syria, bringing the totals so far to 233 in Iraq and at least 62 in Syria. The US signed an agreement with the new Afghan government to allow 9,800 US troops to remain in Afghanistan until 2015 to train and advise Afghan security forces; some of the US troops will also conduct counterterrorism missions. NATO signed an agreement permitting up to 3,000 NATO troops to remain in Afghanistan along with the US troops. The State Department tried to define the term “Khorasan group”; the group is simply al Qaeda. The US added Harakat-ul-Mujahideen leader Fazle-ur-Rahman Khalil to its terrorist lists, as well as two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives and two businesses linked to LeT.
