Russia is supplying weapons to the legitimate authorities in Syria, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
Peskov was responding to questions about comments made earlier today by President Putin, who said that Russia was assisting certain factions of the Free Syrian Army as well as the Syrian Arab Army.
"We're talking about military-technical cooperation. We are also [carrying out] certain supplies of what is called special assets. Deliveries are in strict accordance with international law. We are talking about the army. Russia supplies weapons to the Syrian Arab Republic, the legitimate authorities of the Syrian Arab Republic," Peskov said.
The Netherlands will not decide until next year whether to join US-led air strikes in Syria, Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said.
"We are taking our time (with the decision). Certainly not before Christmas and hopefully in January," Rutte told a press conference after the weekly cabinet meeting.
A 19-year-old student from Blackburn in northern England has been sentenced to four years in prison after trying to travel to fight for the IS group.
Ednane Mahmood, from Blackburn, fled his home after stating his desire to "fight abroad for Allah," the BBC reports.
Mahmood said he was "brainwashed."
Normality has returned to the Libyan city of Sabratha, the center of which IS militants overran yesterday, Libya Alaan reports.
A Russian man from the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria has been arrested in the capital Nalchik on suspicion of having undergone training at a militant camp in Syria, Interfax reports.
The 26-year-old man was born in Nalchik but converted to Islam in Belgium. The man allegedly underwent mines and explosives training in Syria, an FSB spokesman told Interfax.
Interfax did not say which militant group in Syria the suspect had allegedly belonged to.
Overseeing IS's network in Mosul, Iraq are Saddam-era army and intelligence officers, many of whom helped keep Saddam Hussein and his Baath party in power for years, Reuters reports:
The Baathists have strengthened the group’s spy networks and battlefield tactics and are instrumental in the survival of its self-proclaimed Caliphate, according to interviews with dozens of people, including Baath leaders, former intelligence and military officers, Western diplomats and 35 Iraqis who recently fled Islamic State territory for Kurdistan.
Among the most prominent Baathists to join IS, according to Reuters, are:
Ayman Sabawi, the son of Saddam Hussein’s half brother, and Raad Hassan, Saddam’s cousin, said the senior Salahuddin security official and several tribal leaders. Both were children during Saddam’s time, but the family connection is powerfully symbolic.
More senior officers now in Islamic State include Walid Jasim (aka Abu Ahmed al-Alwani) who was a captain of intelligence in Saddam’s time, and Fadhil al-Hiyala (aka Abu Muslim al-Turkmani) whom some believe was a deputy to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi until he was killed in an airstrike earlier this year.
A Libyan source near the town of Sabratha, whose center IS overran for a time yesterday without any resistance, has this to say about the situation:
This just in from Daily Sabah.
Western Calls For Assad To Go As Part Of Fight Against IS 'Unconstructive' - Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that it is "unconstructive" for Western countries to link the fight against the IS group with a desire that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down.
"Right now we are seeing a reluctance to fight a common evil until Assad goes, we don't see any pragmatic approach here, here there's a great deal of ideology," Lavrov told a press conference.
Lavrov said there had been many situations in which people had become "fixated" on the idea that removing one man could fix matters.
"Saddam Hussein, Muamar Gaddafi, and by the way, [former Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych. Look at what happened in all these countries, where the international community said, remove this man because of corruption, dictorship, and these countries will flourish afterward. We hope that we will learn from this experience and, like I already said, we have to make a choice -- like we did when the coalition against IS was formed," Lavrov said.
A new propaganda video by the IS group features footage of Rome, Il Foglio reporter Daniele Raineri says.