Here's another item from our news desk:
U.S. Muslim Advocacy Group's Headquarters Evacuated
The Washington headquarters of a leading Muslim organization in the United States has been evacuated after the discovery of a "suspicious" substance in the mail.
Maha Sayed, staff attorney for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), said the office received an envelope on December 10 containing a note that read, "Die a painful death, Muslims," and a white powder.
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said two employees were quarantined inside the building. He said one was coughing and the other complained of a headache after the piece of post was opened.
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper later said employees were allowed back into their offices after tests showed that the suspicious substance was not harmful.
The incident follows last week’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, by a radicalized Muslim couple.
The CAIR describes itself as an "organization that challenges stereotypes of Islam and Muslims."
(Reuters, AP, BBC)
This concludes our live blogging of the crisis surrounding Islamic State. Check back here tomorrow morning for more of our continuing coverage.
China's Foreign Ministry has reminded citizens to avoid going to danger zones such as Syria, in the wake of reports that a young Chinese man had travelled there to fight with a Kurdish militia group against IS militants.
Pan Yang, from a farming family from a mountainous area in the southern province of Sichuan, went to Syria around September and ended up fighting with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia against IS, media reports have said.
The U.S.-led coalition against IS in Iraq and Syria has killed three IS leaders in air strikes in recent weeks, the U.S. military said late Thursday.
Strikes in late November killed Abu Salah, IS's financial minister and a "legacy Al Qaeda member," Army Colonel Steve Warren told a Pentagon briefing.
The Syrian government is scraping the barrel to boost revenues four years into the country's bloody civil war, with taxes on shawarma sandwiches and telephone lines, AFP reports this morning.
"Last week I had to pay 220 Syrian pounds for my shawarma sandwich instead of 200, and the restaurant owner told me it was because there's a new 10 percent 'reconstruction tax' that's being imposed on each sandwich," 50-year-old Damascus resident Tahseen told AFP.
Interpol has issued a wanted notice for a Russian national suspected of beheading another Russian in Syria.
Anatoly Zemlyanka is believed to be the IS militant who appeared in a grisly beheading video released by the group last week.
The notice on the Interpol website says Zemlyanka is "wanted by the judicial authorities of Russia for prosecution/ to serve a sentence."
The notice says that Zemlyanka is aged 28 and from Noyabrsk in Russia.
Turkey Calls On Russia For Calm
Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says Ankara is calling on Russia for calm but its patience is "not unlimited," Todays Zaman reports.
Cavusoglu made his comments in a live interview this morning on Turkey's NTV.
He also said that Turkey's additional deployment of troops to Iraq was made after an increase in the security threat.
Relations between Turkey and Russia have plummeted since a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian war plane near the Syrian border on November 24.
International efforts to crush the IS group will increasingly have to extend to Libya, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said this morning.
"We are at war, we have an enemy, Daesh, that we must fight and crush in Syria, in Iraq and soon in Libya too," Valls said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
IS militants have been gaining a grip in Libya and yesterday seized control of Sabratha, a UNESCO world heritage site.
French planes carried out surveillance flights over Libya last week.
Priceless Roman treasures are at risk after the IS group in Libya seized the coastal city of Sabratha, a UNESCO world heritage site.
The advance by IS also puts the militant group within 50 miles of Libya's capital, Tripoli. Sabratha is 300 miles west of IS's Libyan stronghold of Sirte.
IS militants stormed Sabratha yesterday but found no resistance, reports say. Sabratha is home to a third century Roman amphitheater.
IS in Syria destroyed temples, burial towers and the Arch of Triumph at the UNESCO world heritage site of Palmyra after capturing that city in May.