Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the recent attack by IS militants on Turkish troops stationed in Iraq's Bashiqa camp justifies Turkey's decision to not withdraw completely from the region, the Anadolu Agency reports.
"I have been told that some 18 Daesh terrorists who tried to sneak into the Bashiqa camp were neutralized," Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul on Friday, confirming that there were no casualties among the Turkish troops.
"Of course this [attack] only proves just how appropriate was the step taken regarding the camp," he said, referring to Turkey's decision to send reinforcement units to the camp in early December.
Suspected U.S.-led coalition airstrikes have killed 11 civilians, mostly children, in a militant-held village in northern Syria, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said.
"Eight children and three women were killed in strikes by the international coalition on Hazima, a village north of Raqqa city" Thursday, said SOHR head Rami Abdel Rahman.
The U.S.-led coalition launched 23 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and three in Syria on January 7, the task force leading the operation said in a statement.
IS has posted photos from the Libyan town of Bin Jawad, captured earlier this week.
Paris Prosecutor Francois Mollins has cast doubt on the identity of a man shot dead yesterday by police in Paris.
"I am not at all sure the identity he gave was real," Molins told France Inter radio earlier today, Reuters is reporting.
Authorities are trying to establish whether the man, shot dead as he tried to enter a police station wielding a meat cleaver and wearing a fake suicide vest, was acting alone or with support.
The incident happened on the first anniversary of the deadly attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warns of the worsening humanitarian situation in Syria as the crisis rages on.
The economy has collapsed, essential infrastructure like water and power networks are hanging by a thread, and on top of that a very cold winter is bearing down
IS has also claimed responsibility this morning for murdering a Christian convert in Bangladesh, Reuters is reporting, citing the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group that monitors militant activity.
IS said it killed the man on January 7 in Jhenaidah about 161 km west of the capital Dhaka, because he had converted to Christianity from Islam.
More reports are emerging about IS's claim this morning that an attack on a tourist bus in Giza yesterday was carried out by its affiliate in Sinai.
IS said that its members carried out the attack on Israeli tourists in response to a call by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to target Jews "everywhere."
Photos of the checkpoint at Ras Lanuf in Libya's oil crescent that were targeted by an IS suicide car bomb on January 7.
Turkey's President Erdogan has accused Russia of not fighting the IS group in Syria, saying that Syrian Turkomans have claimed Russia is bombing their villages.
Turkey has made similar accusations previously.
Relations between Russia and Turkey chilled since Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 jet near the Syrian border in November.