Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem will visit China this week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said, Reuters reports.
Moualem will be in China from December 23-26 and will meet his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing this morning.
Iraq's armed forces have begun an attack this morning to dislodge IS militants from the center of Ramadi, the capital of the western Anbar province, the spokesman for Iraq's counterterrorism units, Sabah al-Numani, told Reuters.
Belgian police have detained a total of five people during house searches in connection with the Paris militant shootings that killed 130 people in November, Reuters has quoted prosecutors as saying.
"A thorough analysis of phone records was the basis for this house search," federal prosecutors said in a statement.
"No explosives or weapons were found."
There are conflicting reports of the number of casualties in the Russian attacks on Idlib, our news desk reports:
Scores of people have been reported killed in a series of air strikes believed to have been carried out by Russian planes in a rebel-held city in northwestern Syria.
The strikes on December 20 were reported to have hit a busy market, several official buildings, and apartment blocks in Idlib, the capital of the province of the same name.
There were conflicting reports on casualties.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 36 people had been killed and many more injured.
But Reuters news agency quoted rescue workers as saying they had confirmed 43 dead but that at least 30 more bodies had been retrieved that had still to be identified.
Reuters added that over 150 people were wounded with some of the serious cases sent to hospitals in Turkey.
Idlib was captured earlier this year by a coalition of Islamist insurgent groups that includes the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front.
Russia has not confirmed whether it carried out strikes in the area.
Separately, the Syrian Army said on December 20 that it had seized -- with the backing of Russian air power -- a rebel-held town in southern Aleppo.
The capture of Khan Touman was seen as a major gain that opened the way for advances further to the west in Idlib Province.
In September, Russia began launching air strikes against armed groups in Syria, saying Islamic State militants and other "terrorists" were targets.
But the United States and its allies claim Russia's military involvement in the Syrian conflict aims at beefing up President Bashar al-Assad.
President Vladimir Putin said on December 19 that Russia’s armed forces had not utilized their full capability in Syria and would use "more military means" there if necessary.
He made the comments a day after the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution that endorses an international road map for a peace process in Syria, where the civil war is heading into its fifth year.
The peace plan calls for a cease-fire, talks between the Syrian government and opposition in early January, a transitional government within six months, and elections under UN supervision within 18 months.
But disagreements remain between world powers over Assad's role in Syria's future. (dpa, AP, and Reuters)
We are now closing the live blog for today. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the latest news concerning Islamic State.
This is just in -- from RFE/RL's news desk:
Turkey Announces Troop Withdrawal From Northern Iraq
Turkey is pulling more troops out of northern Iraq in an effort to deescalate tensions with the Iraqi government, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama urged Ankara to withdraw its troops.
On December 19, the Turkish Foreign Ministry acknowledged a "miscommunication" with Iraq over its recent deployment of troops to the Bashiqa military base, near the IS-held city of Mosul.
The ministry did not say how many troops would be moved or where they would be moved to.
U.S. President Barack Obama urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone call on December 18 to "deescalate tensions" with Iraq by withdrawing its forces from the region.
The deployment of hundreds of Turkish troops -- who moved from Iraq's Kurdish region to Bashiqa earlier this month -- angered the Iraqi government, which said the soldiers had not been invited and should leave.
Turkey says that the force was part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces that want to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants.
Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa
Here's some more reaction to the reported "friendly fire" incident in Iraq: