The Libya Observer tweets that some families are starting to leave Ras Lanouf, an oil terminal town around 60 kilometers east of Bin Jawad in Libya, which is now controlled by the IS group. Ras Lanouf is 23 kilometers east of Sidra.
The Libya Observer says that there are clashes between IS-aligned militants and those from the Ibrahim Jadhran group.
The IS group in Libya has announced that it has taken control of the town of Bin Jawad in the Sirte district, tweets France 24 reporter Wassim Nasr.
Bin Jawad is located east of Sirte and is a strategic town located around 60 kilometers west of the oil terminal at Ra's Lanuf.
Pakistan's law minister Rana Sanaullah, has said that counter terrorism officials in the eastern Punjab province have arrested 42 militant suspects with alleged links to the IS group over the weekend.
Those arrested had been tasked with setting up sleeper cells for IS, and include purported IS Islamabad chief Amir Mansoor, his deputy Abdullah Mansoori and the group's chief for Sindh province, Umer Kathio, AP reports.
Khaled Khoja, the president of the Western-backed opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) is to visit China this week, Reuters reports.
Khoja will be in China from January 5-8 will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing this morning.
China has called for a political resolution to the Syrian crisis and is seeking to extend ties with all sides in the conflict.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said that Russia must play a crucial role in fighting terrorism and in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.
The British media has compared the British-accented militant who appears in a new IS video in which five alleged "British spies" are killed with "Jihadi John," a.k.a. Mohammed Emwazi, the notorious British IS militant who "starred" in a number of IS's grisly beheading videos.
The Guardian notes that the militant in the new video is shown "gesticulating in a manner similar to that used by Emwazi."
Britain's security and intelligence agencies are examining a new video by the IS group in order to identify a man and young boy with British accents, the BBC reports.
The 10-minute video appears to show the execution-style killing of five men who IS claims were spying for Britain. The men are shot in the back of the head in a desert location.
The IS militant who appears in the video threatens to attack the UK. The child, who appears to be around seven years old, talks about killing "kafir," meaning "unbelievers."
We are now shutting down the live blog for the winter holidays. Joanna Paraszczuk will be back following developments concerning Islamic State on January 4.
Here's a Syria update from our news desk:
Syrian Army Attacks Rebel-Held Town
Activists say Syrian government forces have attacked the rebel-held town of Moadamiyeh, southwest Damascus, with artillery fire as helicopters dropped barrel bombs.
A local media activist, identified as Ahmad, was quoted as saying that helicopters dropped more than 40 barrel bombs on the town and its surrounding areas on December 23.
The attacks come as opposition groups accused government forces of using poison gas in an assault there the previous night.
The Associated Press quoted Ahmad as saying five people died of suffocation following a missile attack late on December 22.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said reliable sources in the area reported that those killed suffered "redness in the eyes, widening of the pupils, and bleeding in the lungs shortly after the shelling."
Amateur videos from a town clinic, made available on December 23, show medics intubating apparently unconscious patients.
They did not appear to have suffered traumatic injuries.
Washington could not confirm the attacks.