Russia's Defense Ministry is using the hashtag "#FAKEAI" to tweet refutations of the Amnesty International report that accused Russia of causing civilian casualties in air strikes.
In this tweet, the ministry writes that the document "has a well-recognized style -- cliches, assumptions, citing anonymous sources and no evidence."
Russia's Foreign Ministry says that remarks by a Turkish official regarding the number of sorties by Russian planes in Syria can be considered "official recognition" that the downing on November 24 of a Russian Su-24 jet was pre-planned, RIA Novosti reports.
Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that the Turkish media had published remarks by Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, who gave precise details of the number of Russian sorties. According to Konashenkov, this meant that the United States Air Force was passing on to Turkey information given to it by Russia.
"Therefore, on November 24 when the Turkish fighter jet treacherously attacked our Su-24 bomber with a rocket, the Turkish General Staff was well aware at what time and in what area a pair of Russian bombers would carry out their military task," Konashenkov said.
Bouthaina Shaaban, a close adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad told Beirut-based al-Mayadeen television today that Damascus was ready to join U.N.-sponsored peace talks, Reuters reports.
Shaaban said her government approved of U.N. resolutions passed last week endorsing an international road map for a Syria peace process.
"We accept these resolutions," she said in the first official Syrian remarks on the matter.
Russia's Defense Ministry tweets that a Su-34 jet has carried out a strike on the Syrian ultraconservative rebel group Ahrar al-Sham in Aleppo province.
While Russia initially said that it was targeting IS in Syria, more recently the Russian media and now the Defense Ministry have said that other groups are being targeted. Pro-Kremlin news website RIA Novosti refers to strikes against IS and Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.
AFP reports on the fate of some of the civilians who had been trapped in the Iraqi city of Ramadi.
Some 50 families the IS group had been using as human shields in Ramadi managed to escaped to safety today, AFP reports, as Iraqi forces closed in on the militants' last strongholds in the city center.
Iraqi forces backed by close air support from the U.S.-led coalition have been moving toward the government complex in the center of Ramadi.
"Ramadi residents who were held by Daesh (IS) in the city centre escaped the siege and went towards the military units in Tal Mshahideh" in eastern Ramadi, provincial council spokesman Eid Ammash al-Karbuli told AFP.
He said thew were mostly children, women and elderly men who raised white flags as they approached the security forces.
Two residents of Ingushetia in the North Caucasus have been declared wanted for participating in fighting in Syria, RIA Novosti reports.
RIA reports that the two men -- a 27 and 29 year old -- are from the Sunzha district of Ingushetia and went to Syria no later than April 2013 and joined the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (JMA) militant group.
RIA's headline says that the two men are allegedly fighting alongside IS, though it then names the group they joined as JMA.
In April 2013, when the two men allegedly went to Syria, JMA was led by Umar Shishani, an ethnic Chechen from the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia who later defected to the IS group late in 2013, taking some militants with him. JMA disbanded in September this year when its leaders and most of its fighters joined the Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda, the Al-Nusra Front.
A Pennsylvania man, 19-year-old Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz, is expected in court for a detention hearing and arraignment today, a day after a grand jury indicted him for allegedly trying to assist the IS group, advocating violence against American citizens and helping people travel to Syria.
Prosecutors say Aziz used Twitter to spread IS propaganda and had a bag with ammunition.
From our news desk:
Pro-Kurdish Turkish Leader Visits Moscow
The leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition party has criticized Ankara for shooting down a Russian warplane last month.
Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), made the comment at talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on December 23.
His trip and the warm welcome he was given in Moscow are likely to unsettle Ankara following comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said last week he saw no prospect of mending ties with Turkey's leadership.
Russia imposed economic sanctions on Turkey after the November 24 incident and has sharply criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan has accused the HDP of connections with armed Kurdish rebels fighting in Turkey's southeast.
Lavrov told Demirtas that Russia was ready to cooperate closely with ethnic Kurds fighting against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
Three IS suicide attacks killed 11 pro- government fighters in Syria in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor today, according to Rami Abdel-Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
IS controls about half of Deir al-Zor city. Abdel-Rahman said that the suicide attacks allowed IS to advance slightly in the city but Russian and Syrian war planes are striking their positions.
However, state news agency SANA is reporting that government forces managed to push back IS militants and that the suicide car bombs had exploded before they reached military posts in the al-Sinaa neighborhood of Deir al-Zor.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Russia made "disingenuous propaganda shows" with the black box flight recorder recovered from the downed Su-24 jet.
Turkey shot down the Russian jet near the Syrian border on November 24.
"It was stated that the black box was opened, but the information was unreadable due to the destruction," Erdogan said, according to the Daily Sabah.
"At a time when all the world has accepted Turkey's rightfulness, these disingenuous propaganda shows do not have any meaning beyond further embarrassing those who seek help from them."