Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that the problem of terrorism goes beyond the Syrian conflict and that the IS group is gaining strength in Libya as well as continuing to be active in Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.
Lavrov said that both President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama have talked about the need for a more effective war on terror.
Speaking at the opening of talks this morning with his American counterpart John Kerry, Lavrov emphasized that a "political settlement in Syria needs our constant attention in keeping with the objectives and agreements reached in Vienna over the course of the two meetings of the [International Syrian Support Group]."
The next meeting of the International Syrian Support Group is expected to take place Friday in New York.
The IS group has continued to gain ground in the southern countryside of Homs in Syria, advancing on a small village eight kilometers from the Al-Shayrat air base, NOW Media reports, citing the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and pro-opposition media.
SOHR said that initial information suggested that IS had taken control of the villages of Al-Naamah and Al-Hadath further south. Pro-opposition SMART News also reported that IS had taken control of the villages.
Rumors circulated last week that Russia was enlarging the runway at the Al-Shayrat base in order to use it as a second base in Syria. Russia has denied the reports.
The BBC's Gavin Lee tweets that two independent eyewitnesses have told the BBC that they saw the ringleader of the November 13 Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, on the Greek island of Leros in October.
Germany's defense minister Ursula von der Leyen has said that she welcomes Saudi Arabia's announcement of the formation of a 34-state Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism.
"I think it's right that the opposition is forming a group but it needs to be -- and this is important -- part of the Vienna process that includes all countries fighting against IS like the U.S., Europe, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia but also Iran and China," she said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that it is too soon for Moscow to give an assessment of a newly-formed Islamic coalition against terrorism.
Saudi Arabia said this morning that 34 mainly Islamic countries have joined a new military alliance to fight terrorism.
"It will take a little more time to analyze this decision," Peskov told reporters this morning.
"We don't have detailed information yet that we would need, i.e. who has joined the coalition, what aims it has declared, in what way will it oppose extremism. Hypothetically speaking, then of course joint efforts in the fight against extremism in its various forms is a positive step but in order to give an assessment we need to understand the details."
This just in from AFP: a judicial source says that a man linked to the November 13 attacks in Paris has been arrested.
The talks in Moscow between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov have gone on for more than three hours, RIA Novosti points out.
The main topic on the agenda is the Syrian crisis.
Kerry is expected to meet with Russian President Putin after the meeting with Lavrov.
Two people have been arrested in France in connection with a January terrorist attack in a kosher supermarket in Paris, French media is reporting.
The reports say that Claude Hermant, who is already in custody, and his partner are being questioned in relation to weapons used by Amedy Coulibaly, the attacker who held shoppers hostage in the Hyper Cacher supermarket. Coulibaly pledged allegiance to IS at the time of the attack, which came days after other militants targeted the offices of a French satirical magazine, killing 11 people.
A source close to the investigation told AFP that the weapons had allegedly passed through a company managed by Hermant's partner.
Hermant is already in custody in relation to a separate weapons trafficking case, the reports say.
A German Salafist preacher has been arrested this morning on suspicion of supporting an affiliate of the IS group in Syria.
Sven Lau, a 35-year-old convert, was arrested in Mönchengladbach in North Rhine-Westphalia.
German police suspect that he is the main contact person for a group named Jamwa in Germany's Rhine region and that he has recruited two militants and supported the terrorist group financially and logistically.
The terror attack alert level in Belgium is to remain at level 3 -- the second-highest level -- until the end of the year, local media are reporting. The threat level means that an attack is not considered imminent but still serious.
Belgium lowered the threat level from the highest possible, 4, at the end of November.