Turkey's pro-government Star daily has reported that Russia's President Putin may be behind yesterday's deadly bombing that killed 10 people in Istanbul's Sultanahmet district.
According to Today's Zaman, the paper claimed that Russia has a history of supporting terror groups in the region.
German and Turkish interior ministers are set to make a joint press conference at 11.30 a.m. local time in Istanbul following yesterday's suicide bombing in the Sultanahmet district.
The attack killed 10 people, most of whom were German tourists.
Australia has formally declined a request by the United States to increase its military commitment in the Middle East, ABC News is reporting this morning.
"The US has asked 40 or so other countries, including European countries, to consider expanded contributions to the coalition, following the attacks in Paris," a spokesman for Defense Minister Marise Payne said.
"Australia has considered the request from US Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, in light of the substantial contributions we are already making to train Iraqi security forces and to the air campaign.
"The Government has advised Secretary Carter that our existing contributions will continue."
The United Nations is looking into whether the man-made humanitarian calamity inside the besieged Syrian town of Madaya is a war crime or a crime against humanity.
Madaya is a rebel-controlled town but has been under siege by Syrian government forces who have surrounded the city since July.
This concludes our live blogging of the crisis surrounding Islamic State for January 12. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Nearly one-in-ten Turks do not regard the IS group as a terrorist organization, and more than five percent agree with their actions, according to a new survey published today.
The data was released on the same day as a suspected suicide bombing in Istanbul's tourist district which killed at least 10 people.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has admitted that "there aren't enough" moderate rebels in Syria to defeat the IS group and said that some rebels belong to "relatively hardline Islamist groups."
The Independent quoted Cameron as saying:
"Are all of these people impeccable democrats who would share the view of democracy that you and I have? No, some of them do belong to Islamist groups and some of them belong to relatively hardline Islamist groups but nonetheless that’s the best estimate of the people that we have potentially to work with.
“The reason for not breaking down in huge amounts of granular detail exactly who they are is simply this: we’d be effectively be giving President Assad a sort of list of the groups of the people and potentially the areas that he should be targeting and that’s not my approach.”
Syrian state television is reporting that Syrian government forces "took full control" over the rebel stronghold of Salma in Latakia province.
A court in Istanbul has imposed a ban on reporting the investigation into this morning's attack in the city, including “all kinds of news, interviews, criticism and similar publications in print, visual, social media and all kinds of media on the Internet," Hurriyet is reporting.
The move comes after the Turkish Prime Minister's Office announced a temporary gag order into reporting on the attack this morning.
Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition against the IS group blew up a warehouse in Iraq where the Islamic State had stored millions of dollars in cash, the U.S. military has said.
Coalition aircraft targeted a "cash distribution center" near IS-controlled Mosul.