U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that progress has been made in Saudi-led talks in Riyadh to try to unite Syrian opposition groups ahead of talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.
"The meeting in Saudi Arabia appears to be very constructive at this point ... but I think everybody is moving in the direction that they want to rapidly get to a political process," Kerry said on the sidelines of climate talks in Paris.
But a possible December 18 meeting in New York to try to advance the peace talks is "not locked in yet," Kerry added.
Five people, including a 15-year-old boy, have been charged today in Sydney, Australia over a terrorist plot targeting a government building.
The 15-year-old and a 20-year-old man were arrested this morning at their homes and accused of conspiracy to commit an act in preparation for a terror act.
Three other suspects aged 21, 22 and 23 were already in jail and were later charged with the same offense.
The plot linked to the arrest was not new but relating to an operation last December in which material about a planned attack on a government building was seized, police said.
The Sydney Morning Herald has more on the 15-year-old boy arrested in Sydney this morning on terror charges.
The boy had become heavily radicalized over the past year and allegedly took part in planning an attack on a government building.
The teenager used the word "banana" as a code word for "firearm" in text messages, saying in one message he allegedly sent that he was "going to get to paradise through banana."
IS militants have destroyed a lock on the Euphrates River that served as a bridge in the Iraqi town of Ramadi as government forces close in on the extremists.
Iraqi Maj. Gen. Ismail al-Mahlawi, the head of military operations in Anbar province, said the lock was the last remaining bridge from the city center to the northwest and its destruction leaves around 300 IS militants trapped in Ramadi's center.
AP has pieced together the movements of Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam in the months leading up to the November 13 attacks that killed 130 people.
Authorities believe that, starting in August, Abdeslam drove thousands of kilometers across Europe to "buy gear,rent cars, book rooms,scout locations and move people into place" for the attacks, AP writes.
Australia's so-called "Ginger Jihadi," a 17-year-old IS recruit who rose to notoriety after running away to Syria and appearing in an IS propaganda video, has reportedly been killed, Australian media is reporting.
Abdullah Elmir is thought by Australian counter-terrorism agencies to have been killed in a bombing raid in Syria around eight to 10 weeks ago.
Fighters and a rebel negotiator in the al-Waer neighborhood of Homs in Syria have said that remaining rebels there have no intention of leaving or turning their weapons over, Syria Direct reports.
Busloads of rebels and their families left Al-Waer yesterday for rebel-controlled areas in northern Syria as part of a truce deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.
But fighters, journalists, civilians and the rebel negotiator told Syria Direct today that rebels will stay in Al-Waer with light and some medium weapons in order to protect civilians.
This just in on progress made at the talks in Riyadh among Syrian opposition groups.
AFP's Ahmad Rubaye has taken these photographs from Al-Tameem, the neighborhood in the Iraqi city of Ramadi retaken from IS by Iraqi troops.
Iran analyst Arash Karami has this to say about recent reports that Iran is retreating from Syria.