Reuters has more on U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter's visit to Iraq today.
Carter is hoping to discuss with Iraqi officials Washington's offer of attack helicopters and advisors to help retake the Iraqi city of Ramadi from IS.
Carter said he would also be speaking to U.S. commanders during his visit to Baghdad to get a reading on the battlefield and "their thinking about ways that we can continue to accelerate the campaign to defeat [IS]," Reuters reports.
Thomas Pierret, an Islam expert from the University of Edinburgh, tweets what would be big news if true: the powerful Army of Islam (Jaysh al-Islam) is considering withdrawing from the Riyadh agreement signed by members of Syria's opposition.
Reuters has more on the confusion surrounding Saudi Arabia's new Islamic coalition against terrorism.
Although Western nations have welcomed the announcement of the coalition, "comments from several of the countries that signed up to the initiative appeared to reveal a lack of preparation by Riyadh," Reuters notes.
Some countries, including Indonesia, said that Riyadh had approached them to ask them to join a center to "coordinate against extremism and terrorism" but Saudi Arabia had then announced a military alliance.
Chechen Twitter user Magomed Edilsultanov, who writes for the North Caucasian news website Kavpolit, tweets this in response to Russian Defense Minister Shoigu's announcement that Russia won't be sending ground troops to Syria.
"Shoigu ruled out Russian soldiers participating in a ground operation in Syria. But what about 'volunteers'?"
It's a good question: Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, the head of the Russian parliament's defense committee and the person who announced Shoigu's comments this morning, said in October that Russian volunteers who had honed combat skills in Ukraine will likely "appear in the ranks of the Syrian army as combat participants."
RIA Novosti has more on Russia's Defense Minister Shoigu's announcement ruling out ground troops in Syria.
Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, the head of the Russian parliament's defense committee, told the State Duma this morning that Shoigu had said "we are not inclined" to talk about ground operations in Syria.
Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has ruled out Russian ground troops participating in fighting in Syria, RIA reports.
Saudi Arabia’s inclusion of Pakistan in a 34-nation military alliance against terrorism sparked much confusion on Tuesday after officials in Islamabad said they were unaware of any such development, Pakistan's Express Tribune reports today.
When contacted, a senior official of Pakistan’s Foreign Office said they were gathering details about the newly formed alliance. “We came to know about it (the alliance) through news reports. We have asked our ambassador in Saudi Arabia to get details on it,” he said, suggesting that Pakistan has been caught off guard by the Saudi announcement.
Separately, a senior government functionary told The Express Tribune that he could not confirm whether Pakistan had joined the Saudi alliance.
“We have been cooperating with Saudi Arabia on counter-terrorism efforts but I am not sure we are going to be part of any military alliance,” insisted the official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Turkey will not pay compensation to Russia for the downing of the Russian Su-24 jet near the Syrian border last month, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said.
Bilgic was responding to comments made earlier this morning by Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov, who said that Ankara should compensate Russia for the plane incident.
Bilgic also responded to Meshkov's comments that Turkey should guarantee that such an incident would not happen again.
If Russia did not violate Turkey's air space in the future, then such an incident would not happen, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
Russia insists that the Su-24 was shot down over Syrian air space, Turkey says the plane had been in Turkish air space.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov has also criticized NATO's response to Turkey's downing of the Russian Su-24 jet near the Syrian border last month.
Meshkov reiterated Moscow's stance that NATO's response to the incident had been one of "allied solidarity."
"I would hope that the alliance is aware of the risks and negative consequences of such a short-sighted and entirely situational policy," Meshkov said.
The Provincial Council of Nineveh has blamed the Iraqi government for delaying an operation to liberate the city from Islamic State (IS), Kurdish news website BasNews reports.
Council member Ghazwan Dawoudi told BasNews that Baghdad has completely neglected Mosul and has no plan to liberate it from IS, but claimed that Kurdish Peshmerga militia forces had "shown readiness" to support any operation to recapture Mosul.
“Officials in Baghdad pledged support but failed to keep their promises,” Dawoudi said.