AFP has more on the reports that a suicide bomber has killed eight people this morning near a Shi'ite mosque in eastern Baghdad.
Security and medical officials say the blast in the Obeidi area has wounded at least 19 people.
AFP notes that while no group has yet claimed responsibility, in Iraq suicide bombings are a tactic used almost exclusively by the IS group.
Turkey's military says it has carried out aerial raids on suspected Kurdish rebel targets in a new cross-border offensive in northern Iraq, AP reports.
A brief statement said that the raids had destroyed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) targets in four areas of northern Iraq.
Today's strikes are the first since tensions began between Turkey and Iraq at the weekend over Turkey's deployment of troops near the IS-controlled northern Iraqi city of Mosul for a training mission.
Dozens of people have been killed and wounded in an overnight attack by Taliban militants on the airport in the southern city of Kandahar.
At least 37 civilians and members of the Afghan security forces have been killed and 35 wounded, the defense ministry has said. Nine Taliban militants have been killed.
Lavrov: U.S., Allies Attempting To Play 'Sectarian Card' In Syria
Pro-Kremlin news site RIA Novosti has more from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's comments to the Italian media today on Syria.
Lavrov warned the United States and its allies about "playing the religious-sectarian card in Syria."
"The constant refrain that we hear including from our American partners about how the vast majority of the population [in Syria] are Sunnis and don't accept Assad as a represenative of the minority [Alawite] regime, you know, this stinks of not very conscientious efforts to play the sectarian card in the Syrian conflict," Lavrov said.
"In the first place, this is unethical. And second, this is politically very explosive. We were the first to emphasize the need to avoid steps that would one way or another heat up an already significant conflict in the Muslim world. And we are still confident that only by calling Muslims to unity, to overcome their internal sectarian conflicts, can we ensure a stable and long lasting peace."
The IS group has claimed responsibility for this morning's suicide attack outside a Shi'ite mosque in the Obeidi district of Baghdad, according to the SITE Intelligence group.
IS claims that its "Baghdad province" targeted a gathering of Shi'ite militia fighters from teh Saraya al-Salam brigades.
The BBC's Lyse Doucet says that some hundred families and 300 rebels are leaving the Al-Waer neighborhood of Syria's Homs today as part of a cease fire deal with Bashar al-Assad's government,
Russia Boasts Of "High Efficiency" Of Its Kalibr Missiles, As Fired At Raqqa
Russia claimed today that its Rostov-on-Don submarine hit IS targets in Raqqa "with high accuracy," a spokesman for the Defense Ministry has said.
The submarine fired a salvo of Kalibr cruise missiles, the Ministry said, adding that this "confirmed the high efficiency" of the missiles and noting that they have a range of "about 2,000 kilometers."
The missiles are able to hit a target with an accuracy of "a few meters," were equipped with a 500 kilo war head and boasted a low radar signature, Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov was quoted as saying in what seemed like more of a briefing to showcase the Kalibr missiles themselves than about Russia's stated mission of destroying IS targets.
Konashenkov also pointed out that the Kalibr missiles can be fitted with nuclear warheads.
The UK says its war planes carried out more strikes against IS targets in Iraq, including providing close air support for offensive operations by Iraqi government forces against IS in the city of Ramadi on December 7.
Russia's air force has flown 82 sorties against 204 targets in Syria in the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry has said, according to RIA Novosti.
The sorties targeted "terrorists" in Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Hama and Homs and included 32 night sorties, a ministry spokesman said.
Mashable has published an interview with anti-IS activists from the Syrian group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently.
“We get death threats daily," said Abdalaziz al-Hamza, a soft-spoken 24-year-old, who, with two other members of the group, recently visited the U.S. for the first time...
"All of us have received death threats from IS but we thought at least some of us should show our faces, to show the world we genuinely are from Raqqa," said Hamza.