The UK government is facing accusations of a major security lapse after it emerged that a British man suspected of appearing in the IS group's latest propaganda video managed to slip out of the country despite being on police bail.
The Independent reports that police had sent Siddhartha Dhar a letter to his home address six weeks after he had already left for Syria, asking him to "surrender all travel documents" to a London police station.
There are also unconfirmed reports, citing oil terminal sources in Sidra, that the fighting in Sidra has damaged three crude storage tanks belonging to a subsidiary of the Waha Oil Company of total capacity 1.5M barrels.
Sources in Libya's oil terminal Sidra are reportedly saying that the IS group is planning another attack in the oil crescent and that reinforcements are arriving in the town of Bin Jawad to the west of Sidra.
The reports have not been confirmed.
IS attacked Sidra and the nearby Ras Lanuf for two days in a row.
A documentary about American freelance journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by the IS group in 2014 after being held hostage since 2012, will make its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on February 6, the cable network HBO has said.
AP has obtained a document suggesting that the Obama administration's best-case scenario for political change in Syria does not see Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stepping down before March 2017.
The document contains an internal timeline prepared for U.S. officials, based on a plan endorsed by the United Nations and laid out at an international conference in Vienna in November. According to the plan, Syria would hold presidential and parliamentary elections in August 2017.
The IS group has threatened to destroy Saudi Arabian prisons holding militants after Riyadh's execution of 47 people including 43 convicted al Qaeda militants, Reuters reports.
IS singled out the al-Ha'ir and Tarfiya prisons where many Al-Qaeda and IS supporters have been detained.
"The Islamic State always seeks to free prisoners, but we calculate that the ending of the issues of prisoners will not happen except with the eradication of the rule of tyrants, and then destroying their prisons and razing them to the ground," it said in an article posted online on January 5, according to Reuters.
That concludes our live-blogging of the crisis surrounding Islamic State for Tuesday, January 5. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
The IS group has murdered at least 25 people in Syria for being gay, including two under 18, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has told The Independent.
Six people have been stoned to death, three killed by being shot in the head and 16 killed by being thrown from high buildings, SOHR said, adding that those who survived the fall were then stoned to death on the streets by bystanders.
A 15-year-old boy was reportedly thrown from a rooftop in Syria's Deir al-Zor city after being raped by a senior IS militant named Abu Zaid al-Jazrawi, who was spared killing but forced to leave Syria.
From our news desk:
IS Launches Attacks Near Northwest Iraqi City
Islamic State (IS) fighters have launched several offensives near the city of Haditha in northwest Iraq in the last 48 hours.
The U.S.-led coalition against the IS extremist group said on January 5 that the attacks had been “broken by a combination of coalition air power and Iraqi security forces."
U.S. Colonel Steve Warren said more than 100 IS militants were killed.
Security sources were quoted as saying at least 25 fighters were also killed on the Iraqi government side.
Iraqi officials said IS fighters were able to seize the village of Sakrana in the course of their offensive, which comes after the group lost control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, a week ago.
Haditha is located in Anbar some 200 kilometers northwest of Baghdad. The dam north of the city is the country's second largest.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
Libya's Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) has denied that the IS group has taken over oil reservoirs near Sidra, Al Wasat reports.
IS has published photos and a short video showing its militants near oil storage tanks south of Sidra on January 4.