Here are a few IS-related stories issued today by the Reuters news agency's wire service:
Pakistan Taliban reject Islamic State leader's claim to be 'caliph'
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan Dec 19 (Reuters) - Pakistan's Taliban have rejected Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's claim to be the global leader of all Muslims, the movement said in a statement seen by Reuters on Saturday.
The Pakistani Taliban's statement comes after a similar rejection by the Afghan Taliban following pledges of allegiance from low-level commanders of both Islamist movements to the Middle East-based Islamic State (IS).
Last year, IS, an al Qaeda offshoot, proclaimed its leader as "caliph" - the head of the state. Al-Baghdadi aspires to establish a global caliphate with himself at its head.
The latest statement from the Pakistani Taliban comes amid speculation that the movement's leadership, whose goal is to topple the government of prime minister Nawaz Sharif and set up a sharia state, is actually wary of IS, which is driven by different ambitions that have little to do with South Asia.
"Baghdadi is not Khalifa (caliph) because in Islam, Khalifa means that he has command over all the Muslim world, while Baghdadi has no such command; he has command over a specific people and territory," the Pakistan Taliban said in a statement.
"Baghdadi is not a Islamic Khalifa because his selection is not according to Islamic rules," the statement said, adding that the IS leader had little control in Muslim countries like Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban operate separately from the Afghan insurgents of the same name, but are loosely aligned with them.
Late last year, a few breakaway factions of the Pakistani Taliban declared allegiance to Islamic State and ordered militants across the region to join its campaign to set up a global Islamic caliphate.
Pakistani authorities say IS has no financial ties with any Pakistani group. But there are concerns about further turmoil in the region as U.S.-led foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan, with groups like the Haqqani network and IS likely to exploit the security vacuum.
The entry of Islamic State, while its numbers remain small, will also complicate Pakistan's fight against indigenous Islamist militants fighting to overthrow the government.
The Pakistani Taliban have been beset by bitter internal rivalries in the recent past, with the influential Mehsud tribal faction of the group refusing to accept the authority of Mullah Fazlullah, who came to power in late 2013.
IS, in an effort to extend its global reach, could exploit these rivalries to its advantage, wading into a region ripe with fierce anti-Western ideology and full of young unemployed men ready to take up guns and fight for Islam.
In its latest statement, the Pakistani Taliban, like the Afghan Taliban, also condemn the 'barbarity' of Islamic State's rule.
"Baghdadi's caliphate is not Islamic because in a real caliphate you provide real justice while Baghdadi's men kill many innocent mujahideen (fighters) of other groups," the statement said.
Earlier this year, the Afghan Taliban sent a letter to al-Baghdadi to stop recruiting in Afghanistan, saying there is room for only "one flag, one leadership" in their fight to re-establish strict Islamist rule.
(Reporting by Saud Mehsud; Writing by Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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U.S. reports 20 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - The United States and its allies staged 20 strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria on Friday, including one near the Iraqi city of Fallujah that is being investigated as a possible friendly fire incident, the coalition leading the operations said on Saturday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Saturday a U.S. aircraft appeared to have mistakenly carried out the strike that Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi said killed nine Iraqi soldiers.
The coalition statement said 17 strikes were carried out in Iraq. Besides two strikes near Fallujah, Islamic State targets were hit near five other cities including Mosul and Ramadi, it said.
In three strikes in Syria, coalition aircraft attacked militant targets near Ayn Isa and Manbij, the statement said.
(Reporting by Mohammad Zargham)
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Pentagon chief visits French carrier to show joint resolve against Islamic State
By Yeganeh Torbati
ABOARD THE CHARLES DE GAULLE, Dec 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited the French aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle in the Gulf on Saturday to highlight both countries' determination to defeat Islamic State militants.
He also met with U.S. troops on the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship currently deployed to the Gulf in support of U.S. efforts against Islamic State.
France has intensified air strikes against the group since it claimed responsibility for attacks on bars, restaurants, a stadium and a concert hall that killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13.
Carter praised "France's willingness to do more as we do more."
"Both militarily and politically, we and France are completely aligned, and that's the way it should be," he said.
While on the French ship, Carter spoke by phone with French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two see "very eye to eye" on the need to expand air strikes and targeting against Islamic State, for instance against oil and gas infrastructure under the group's control.
Carter's visits to the French and American ships came after trips this week to Turkey, Iraq, and Afghanistan, during which he focused on the threat posed by Islamic State and assessing the U.S. military strategy for defeating it.
The Charles de Gaulle is on a long-planned deployment that began on Nov. 18. For 10 days the carrier was stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, where it launched 10 to 15 flight missions per day targeting Islamic State, a hardline Sunni group that has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.
It arrived in the Gulf on Friday, and Commander Lionel Delort, a French Navy spokesman, said flight missions against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq were expected to resume "in the coming days."
(Yeganeh.Torbati@thomsonreuters.com; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Here's some more reaction to the reported "friendly fire" incident in Iraq:
This is just in -- from RFE/RL's news desk:
Turkey Announces Troop Withdrawal From Northern Iraq
Turkey is pulling more troops out of northern Iraq in an effort to deescalate tensions with the Iraqi government, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama urged Ankara to withdraw its troops.
On December 19, the Turkish Foreign Ministry acknowledged a "miscommunication" with Iraq over its recent deployment of troops to the Bashiqa military base, near the IS-held city of Mosul.
The ministry did not say how many troops would be moved or where they would be moved to.
U.S. President Barack Obama urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone call on December 18 to "deescalate tensions" with Iraq by withdrawing its forces from the region.
The deployment of hundreds of Turkish troops -- who moved from Iraq's Kurdish region to Bashiqa earlier this month -- angered the Iraqi government, which said the soldiers had not been invited and should leave.
Turkey says that the force was part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces that want to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants.
Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa
We are now closing the live blog for today. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the latest news concerning Islamic State.
There are conflicting reports of the number of casualties in the Russian attacks on Idlib, our news desk reports:
Scores of people have been reported killed in a series of air strikes believed to have been carried out by Russian planes in a rebel-held city in northwestern Syria.
The strikes on December 20 were reported to have hit a busy market, several official buildings, and apartment blocks in Idlib, the capital of the province of the same name.
There were conflicting reports on casualties.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 36 people had been killed and many more injured.
But Reuters news agency quoted rescue workers as saying they had confirmed 43 dead but that at least 30 more bodies had been retrieved that had still to be identified.
Reuters added that over 150 people were wounded with some of the serious cases sent to hospitals in Turkey.
Idlib was captured earlier this year by a coalition of Islamist insurgent groups that includes the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front.
Russia has not confirmed whether it carried out strikes in the area.
Separately, the Syrian Army said on December 20 that it had seized -- with the backing of Russian air power -- a rebel-held town in southern Aleppo.
The capture of Khan Touman was seen as a major gain that opened the way for advances further to the west in Idlib Province.
In September, Russia began launching air strikes against armed groups in Syria, saying Islamic State militants and other "terrorists" were targets.
But the United States and its allies claim Russia's military involvement in the Syrian conflict aims at beefing up President Bashar al-Assad.
President Vladimir Putin said on December 19 that Russia’s armed forces had not utilized their full capability in Syria and would use "more military means" there if necessary.
He made the comments a day after the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution that endorses an international road map for a peace process in Syria, where the civil war is heading into its fifth year.
The peace plan calls for a cease-fire, talks between the Syrian government and opposition in early January, a transitional government within six months, and elections under UN supervision within 18 months.
But disagreements remain between world powers over Assad's role in Syria's future. (dpa, AP, and Reuters)
Belgian police have detained a total of five people during house searches in connection with the Paris militant shootings that killed 130 people in November, Reuters has quoted prosecutors as saying.
"A thorough analysis of phone records was the basis for this house search," federal prosecutors said in a statement.
"No explosives or weapons were found."