From our news desk:
Evacuation Begins From Syria's Rebel-Held District Of Homs
The evacuation of a rebel-held neighborhood in Syria’s central city of Homs has begun under a deal brokered with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Reports say three buses loaded with 150 people -- mostly civilians, including women and children -- left the city’s Al-Waer neighborhood on December 9.
A total of 3,200 rebel fighters and their families are meant to be evacuated in last week’s deal, which came a week after the start of an evacuation of the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Qudsayya.
Meanwhile, members of Syria’s fractured opposition and rebel groups were meeting in the capital of Saudi Arabia on December 9 to try to forge a common stance at peace talks expected in the weeks ahead.
That gathering in Riyadh includes members of the powerful Islamist insurgent group Ahrar al-Sham, whose founders had links to Al-Qaeda.
However, Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, Al-Nusra Front, and the Syrian Kurds have not been invited.
Syrian Islamist Rebel Group Says Assad Must Face Justice
Ahrar al-Sham, the powerful Syrian rebel group whose founders had links to Al-Qaeda, has issued a statement from a meeting of Syrian opposition groups saying that President Bashar al-Assad must face justice and Syria's "institutions of oppression" must be dismantled, Reuters reports.
Ahrar added that some of those invited to the Riyadh conference were "closer to representing the regime than the people and the revolution", and the rebel representation at the talks did not fairly reflect their presence on the ground.
AFP's Beirut correspondent Maya Gebeily has tweeted Syrian Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham's statement in full in Arabic and this quote from it about Ahrar's demand that Syria is "purified" from "Russian-Iranian occupation & sectarian militias that prop them up."
The United Kingdom's Special Representative for Syria, Gareth Bayley, has this upbeat assessment of the first day of the Syrian opposition talks at Riyadh.
Russia Claims Coalition Aircraft Flew In Deir Ezzor At Time Of Strike On Syrian Base
Two pairs of warplanes from two countries belonging to the U.S.-led coalition against the IS group were in the Deir Ezzor area on the day of an air strike on a Syrian army base, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov has said.
Syria has accused the U.S.-led coalition of carrying out the strike on Sunday evening but the coaltion has denied the allegations.
"If they were not involved in this strike, then why do Pentagon spokespeople, as leaders of the anti-IS coalition, keep silent about the presence on December 6 of planes of their allies in the Deir Ezzor region? Is it not because coalition aircraft get all information about IS targets in Syria from the Pentagon?" Konashenkov said.
"I am sure that the answer to who actually carried out the air strikes on the Syrian soldiers will be revealed very soon. As soon as the Syrian authorities publish the results of their investigation into this incident and the type of ammunition used in the strike."
Russia Claims None Of Its Jets In Deir al-Zor During Strike On Syrian Base
As well as claiming that U.S.-led coalition war planes were flying in Deir al-Zor on December 6 at the time of an air strike on a Syrian army base, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said this morning that no Russian planes had been flying in the area.
Konashenkov said that Moscow agreed all its flights with the Syrian Army and Air Force.
The Defense Ministry spokesman said that the air strike on December 6 had hit a camp belonging to the 168th Brigade 7th Division of the Syrian Arab Army, two kilometers west of Deir al-Zor.
Four people were killed and 12 wounded in the strike that also destroyed three infantry fighting vehicles and four vehicles equipped with heavy machine guns, the spokesman said.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said this morning that Turkey had given "reasons for the outbreak of a war" when it downed a Russian Su-24 jet on November 24 near the Syrian border, RIA Novosti reports.
Russia's TASS news agency has a text transcript of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's remarks this morning including a full quote of his comment about the downing of the Russian Su-24 jet by the Turkish air force on November 24.
"Turkey violated all the norms of international law and gave the grounds for a military response, but the Russian leadership did not go ahead with this," Medvedev was quoted as saying at 13.10 p.m. Moscow time, 10.10 a.m. GMT.
BBC: Third Bataclan Attacker Was Foued Mohamed-Aggad
The third attacker at the Bataclan theater during the November 13 Paris attacks was French national Foued Mohamed-Aggad, 23, from Strasbourg, the BBC is reporting.
The BBC says that French Prime Minister Manuel Valls did not name the man but has not disputed reports naming him as Mohamed-Aggad.
Mohamed-Aggad is believed to have traveled to Syria in late 2013 along with a group of individuals from Strasbourg, some of whom returned to France last year and who were then arrested. Mohamed-Aggad reportedly stayed in Syria.
The Kremlin is reporting on its website that Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken by telephone with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
The two leaders discussed issues relating to the Syrian conflict, the Kremlin says.
"It was noted that Russia and the UK have similar approaches regarding the threat posed by the IS group and other terrorist groups in the region. In this context, issues of establishing bilateral cooperation regarding various government agencies were discussed," the Kremlin said in a statement on its website.