A 31-year-old man has been arrested in London on suspicion of terror charges linked to extremist Islamist terrorism, Scotland Yard has said.
The man was detained in south London just after 5 p.m. local time on December 22.
Car bombings in the Shi'ite majority town of Khalis 80 kilometers north of Baghdad have killed at least seven civilians, Iraqi officials have said, AP are reporting.
The first car was parked inside a bus station and killed three and wounded 10 more, a police officer said. The second car bomb exploded in an outdoor market killing four civilians and wounding eight.
The Taliban has said that Britain has made a "stupid decision" to send troops back to Afghanistan's Helmand province, Britain's Channel 4 reports.
Britain sent a team of around 10 soldiers to Camp Shorabak in Helmand as part of a wider NATO initiative to help local Afghan forces after Taliban militants overran Sangin, where fighting is ongoing.
In its statement, published by Channel 4, the Taliban wrote:
"Our message to the British government and people is before attacking Afghanistan is to read the history of your forefather's (sic), and you should have learnt from their repeated defeat in Afghanistan.
They suffered great losses and left this place now once again they came here that’s a stupid decision."
AFP has reported more details about the Afghan government's deployment today of reinforcements to Helmand after Taliban militants captured large areas of the Sangin district, where fighting is ongoing.
Government reinforcements began arriving in Sangin after food and ammunition were air-dropped to besieged Afghan forces, deputy Helmand governor Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar told AFP on Wednesday.
"I am confident that we will not lose Sangin," said Rasoolyar, just days after he warned that Helmand was teetering on the brink.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman said his government was striving to maintain Syria as a unified nation inclusive of all sects, according to the Twitter account of the Saudi Shura Council, Reuters reports.
The king blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government for the rise of militant groups in Syria.
A suspected French extremist carrying cans of chemical mace was caught trying to enter Australia two days after the Paris terror attacks, Australian officials have revealed.
Attorney-General George Brandis said the French national was detained at Melbourne airport on November 15 after arriving from the Middle East. The unnamed man, who also possessed "extremist literature," was later deported.
Using extraordinary powers granted to them by France's National Assembly in the wake of the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, French police have conducted over 2,700 raids, arrested hundreds of people and even shut down mosques, the New York Times reports.
But these tactics have alienated the country's Muslim population.
“The Muslim minority in France feels like it’s being treated as the public enemy,” said Yasser Louati, spokesman for the Collective Against Islamophobia in France. “They are afraid of the government.”
Palestinian-born extremist Islamist preacher Abu Qatada, who was deported from Britain to Jordan in 2013, has told AFP that his 23-year-old son had been released after almost three weeks in detention in Jordan.
Abu Qatada was once described as the right-hand-man in Europe of late Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.
American counter-terrorism analyst Daveed Gartenstein-Ross tweets that 70 members of Yemen's IS affiliate have defected. The defectors have not announced which if any group they have joined, but pro-Al Qaeda observers are saying the 70 will join Al-Qaeda.
Analyst Ali Soufan offers this sobering comment on the current state of the Syrian conflict ahead of talks: