Sweden has said that it will send a transport plane and logistical support to Mali and other parts of Africa to free up French forces stationed there and let them join the fight against the IS group, Reuters reports.
Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom told reporters France had not asked Sweden directly for air surveillance support.
"What they immediately ... named was what is called 'back fill' - that is you add to support, mainly in Africa: the Central African Republic, Mali because it frees up soldiers and resources for them."
Italy is to send a detachment of around 500 soldiers to defend Iraq’s largest dam, a year after it was recaptured from IS militants by Kurdish forces backed by U.S. air strikes, The Telegraph reports.
The troops will provide security for an Italian firm that has been awarded the contract to repair the Mosul dam, which is around 40 miles north of the IS-controlled city of Mosul.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said that it was unacceptable that the majority of Russian air strikes in Syria continue to target opposition forces rather than IS militants, Reuters reports.
"It is unacceptable that Russian action is weakening the opposition and thus giving advantage to the very [IS] forces that they claim to be engaged against," Hammond said.
The U.S.-led coalition against the IS group has tweeted this infographic explaining its strikes against IS targets between December 8-14.
Russia's Defense Ministry says that in the past 24 hours it has carried out 59 sorties against 212 targets in Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Hama, Homs, Hasaka and Raqqa provinces.
"The terrorists continue to suffer losses in terms of manpower and materiel," the Ministry wrote in a post on Facebook.
Russian airstrikes are systematically targeting the infrastructure of Turkoman areas of Latakia province in northwest Syria to prevent their return, Ahmet Arnavut, a senior Turkoman rebel commander who controls Turkoman forces in the Bayırbucak region, has said.
Arnavut said that the strikes had hit mosques, schools, roads and homes belonging to Turkomans, a Turkic ethnic group living in Syria.
"Within a month, Russia did what the regime could not since the beginning of the war," Arnavut told Turkey's Anadolu Agency.
"They are hitting vacant villages with bombers and helicopters. They are sending a message to Turkmen by destroying houses where no one lives - 'There is nothing left for you here. Don't think about returning'."
Britain's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said that there have been no reports of civilian casualties as a result of the UK's air strikes against IS targets in Iraq and Syria.
Kenyan police are holding a Kenyan woman suspected of having links to the IS group after she was deported from India, according to Kenya's The Nation news site.
Amina Mwaiz Muange had worked in the United Arab Emirates and had then accompanied her employers to India, where she was arrested.
"Earlier in the year while in Abu Dhabi, Amina had started visiting social media sites with links to IS in an attempt to find a way to go to Syria. In the course of this search she got in touch with IS supporters in India, Afghanistan, Burundi, Kenya and South Africa with whom she kept regular contact," says a government report seen by the Nation.co.ke.
Russia Praises Its 'Openness' Over Syria Strikes, Slams 'Inaccurate' Foreign Media
Russia's Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov has commented on what it describes as the "informational openness" of the Russian air campaign in Syria.
Konashenkov also slammed what he said were inaccurate reports in the foreign media regarding indiscriminate air strikes by Russian planes.
"From individual members of the so-called anti-IS coalition we regularly hear criticism of our air strikes against terrorist infrastructure targets in Syria, and there is even a pattern -- the more accurately we strike the terrorists, the more noise there is in the foreign press with references to some anonymous sources about Russian air strikes allegedly being non-selective," Konashenkov said.
"Today, we are the only army in the world which has shown in detail, how and with what Russian high precision weapons on planes and ships we are hitting terrorist targets. At the same time, at best we only know of the results of the anti-IS coalition operations from the words of a few officials."
Russia says that in the past 24 hours its air strikes in Syria have destroyed a convoy of fuel trucks used by "terrorists."
Speaking to reporters in Syria's Latakia province, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the air strikes by Su-34 jets had hit the convoy in near Deir al-Zor city and destroyed 94 fuel tank trucks.
Another Su-34 had destroyed a convoy of 15 fuel tankers in an area controlled by "terrorists" in Hasakah province, Konashenkov said, adding that the jet had been on "free search."