U.S. Coalition Denies It Hit Syrian Army Base
This just in from AFP -- the U.S.-led coalition is denying that it hit a Syrian army base.
Agency: Nearly All Russian Tourists Brought Home From Turkey
Russia's Federal Tourism Agency, Rosturizm, has completed a program for bringing home Russian tourists from Turkey, TASS reports this morning.
Russia announced that it was banning the sale of package tours and charter flights to Turkey and bringing Russian tourists in Turkey home following the November 24 downing by Turkish F-16s of a Russian Su-24 jet near the Syrian border.
Over 9,000 tourists who had gone to Turkey on package tours have been brought home, a spokeswoman for Rosturizm said.
Only around six to 10 tourists remain in Turkey and they will be returned home via scheduled flights by December 26, the spokeswoman added.
Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter IS, tweets this denial of Syrian claims that the U.S.-led coalition struck a Syrian army base in Deir Ezzor.
California Shooter Malik Attended Religious School In Pakistan, Intelligence Officials Say
Pakistani intelligence officials say California shooter Tashfeen Malik attended a religious school while living in Pakistan, where she studied pharmacy in the central city of Multan, AP is reporting.
The officials say the school is the Al-Huda International Seminary, a women's only madrasah with branches across Pakistan and in the United States and Canada. The school has no known links to extremists, AP say.
Malik and her husband Syed Farook shot dead 14 people in San Bernardino last week.
Malik is believed to have pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a Facebook post made around the time of the attack.
Russia Reportedly Conducts Air Strikes On Syria-Lebanon Border
Lebanon's state National News Agency reports this morning that the sound of shells heard this morning were the result of air strikes by Russian jets on the Lebanon-Syria border.
The strikes hit around Jarrod Arsal in the Anti-Lebanon mountains, a mountain range that forms most of the border between Syria and Lebanon.
Lebanon's NOW media reports that Lebanese Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk said on December 4 that the area around Arsal was "occupied" by militants including Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate the Al-Nusra Front and others.
The U.S.-led coalition has told AFP that there is "no evidence" its planes hit a Syrian army base in Deir Ezzor.
The only coaltion strikes on Sunday were 55 kilometers away, the coalition told AFP.
Syria has accused the U.S.-led coalition of carrying out the strikes on Sunday that it says killed four of its soldiers.
Deir Ezzor is mostly held by the IS group.
Russia's Life News, which has ties to the security services, is continuing with reports on "Jihadi Tolik," the nickname given by the Russian media to Anatoly Zemlyanka, the Russian IS militant who appeared in a video last week beheading another Russian national.
Life News has spoken with a woman in Zemlyanka's hometown of Noyabrsk, who claims to be Zemlyanka's mother.
The woman, Irina B., said that she has kept in touch with her son, who sends her messages from various phone numbers.
"He doesn't phone, he just writes text messages, usually with just two or three words, 'Mom, everything's OK, I'm alive'," Irina said.
Irina said that she only found out her son was in Syria after agents from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) visited her. Before that, she believed Zemlyanka was in Egypt.
The fight against IS is only possible if all countries coordinate, the spokesman for Russia's President Putin told reporters this morning in response to U.S. President Obama's speech last night on IS and terrorism.
In his daily press conference, Dmitry Peskov said that all countries fighting against IS should unite into a single coalition.
"We believe that international terrorism and in this case a phenomenon like IS, which actually occupies territory in several states, in this case we're talking about Syria and Iraq, of course, presents an equal threat to us all, to all countries," Peskov said.
"Both President Putin and Russian officials at various levels have unanimously emphasized our belief that an effective fight against this dangerous phenomenon can only be possible with a single coalition and full coordination of joint actions."
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also responded to a controversial opinion piece by London Mayor Boris Johnson in The Daily Telegraph this morning, calling for the United Kingdom and United States to "make a deal with the devil" and work with Russia and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against IS in Syria.
"No deals are needed to create a coalition," Peskov said, upon being asked whether Putin would be ready to make such a deal.
"And a coalition is not founded on the basis of a deal; a coalition is created on the basis of an understanding of the lack of an alternative of other ways to fight against terrorism. But nevertheless, such a readiness for cooperation as we hope London [has] -- that completely corresponds with what I spoke about earlier, with the consistent position Russia has taken."
Iran has arrested 53 people for running websites supporting the IS group, the Tasnim News Agency is reporting, according to Reuters.
Iran's cyberpolice chief Kamal Hadianfar said most of those arrested had been "in provinces near border areas."
The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) said the arrests had taken place over the past 20 months.