Army Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-IS operations in Syria, has tweeted this before-and-after image of an IS oil depot near IS's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, which was destroyed in U.S.-led air strikes.
Amnesty International Report 'Cliches & Fakes' - Russian Defense Ministry
TASS has more on the Russian Defense Ministry's response to the Amnesty International report that says Russian air strikes caused civilian casualties in Syria.
Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that the report consists of "fakes and cliches."
"We familiarized ourselves with the report -- again nothing concrete and nothing new has been published. The same cliches and fakes that we have repeatedly denounced before. The report uses the same phrases like "presumed Russian air strikes" and "possible violations of international law" and so on. That is, total assumptions without any kind of proof," Konashenkov said.
Konashenkov said that Russia was not using cluster bombs in Syria.
Russia's Defense Ministry has commented on the report released today by Amnesty International which says Russian air strikes have caused civilian casualties.
The Defense Ministry said the report was selective and did not mention the use of cluster bombs by Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region of Ukraine, according to RIA Novosti.
Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov called on Amnesty to reveal the sources of its information regarding Russian air strikes in Syria.
Russia's air force carried out 302 sorties in Syria between December 18 and 23, hitting 1,093 IS targets, Russia's Defense Ministry has said.
Ministry spokesman Igor Konanshenkov said that Russian strikes had destroyed a training camp in Idlib where there were "a large number of instructors from countries neighboring Syria."
"Information about that camp, where among the terrorists who had come from Turkey were a significant number of citizens of CIS countries, was obtained from the patriotic Syrian opposition," Konanshenkov said.
Britain has provided close air support to Iraqi forces during the push to remove IS militants from the center of Ramadi, the UK Department of Defense says.
With Iraqi troops conducting ground assaults on Daesh positions in Ramadi on 22 December, two pairs of RAF Tornados and a Reaper, provided the Iraqis with continuous close air support alongside other coalition aircraft. When the Daesh fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at Iraqi soldiers tending to wounded personnel, the Tornados intervened with a very accurate Paveway strike. The Reaper, meanwhile, assisted other coalition aircraft in an attack that destroyed an anti-aircraft gun.
Sohaib Alrawi, the governor of Iraq's western province of Anbar, has tweeted about the battle to retake provincial capital Ramadi from the IS group (Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the IS group).
Alrawi also praised the U.S.-led coalition for its role in training Iraqi tribal fighters and providing close air cover for the operation in Ramadi.
'Russia's Interests Coincide With Those Of The Taliban' -- Foreign Ministry
Russia's Foreign Ministry has said that the interests of the Taliban in Afghanistan coincide with those of Russia, Interfax reports.
"The interests of the Taliban, without incentives, objectively coincide with ours," Zamir Kabulov, Vladimir Putin's special representative for Afghanistan and a foreign ministry department head.
"I already spoke earlier about the presence of channels of communication between ourselves and the Taliban for exchanging information," Kabulov added.
Kabulov made his comments in response to a question about whether the Taliban could be used as a partner in the fight against the IS group and whether Moscow was in contact with them on that issue.
Austrian authorities say two teenage Syrian brothers have been arrested at a refugee center in Graz on suspicion of involvement with terrorist organizations, AP reports.
One of the brothers allegedly fought for the IS group in Syria and the second allegedly belonged to Ahrar al-Sham, an ultraconservative Islamist Syrian rebel group.
French authorities say that Yassin Salhi, the man suspected of beheading a businessman at a French gas factory in June has committed suicide in his prison cell, AP reports.
Prosecutors allege that Salhi lured his boss into a van, knocked him unconscious and beheaded him, and that he allegedly carried a long-bladed knife, a gun and two brand-new flags emblazoned with the Muslim declaration of faith.
Sociologist Amy Austin Holmes has undertaken one of the first surveys of the Kurdish Women's Defense Units, the YPJ, who are fighting against the IS group in northern Syria.
The full results have yet to be published, but Holmes found that not all of the Kurdish women are seeking an independent state.
Holmes writes in the Washington Post:
Despite the Western media’s fascination with the Kalashnikov-toting young Kurdish women fighting the Islamic State, there remains a significant lack of basic demographic information about these women. The full results of this research will be released in a forthcoming publication. One of the most surprising findings is that 44 of the 46 respondents did not want to establish an independent state but rather wanted to remain part of Syria.