France will carry out its first air strikes on the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria "in the coming weeks," Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday.

The French air force has been carrying out reconnaissance missions over Syria since September 8, and strikes will follow "in the coming weeks, as soon as we have clearly identified targets," Le Drian told France Inter radio.

Australia's new leader Malcolm Turnbull said Wednesday he was committed to having more women in top positions, as he prepares to unveil a cabinet that will replace a line-up criticized for poor female representation.

Under former premier Tony Abbott the 19-member cabinet included just two women, and Abbott himself was responsible for women's policies, a move that rankled after he had been accused of sexist and outdated thinking.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas snapped back at Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun, who has accused him of turning a blind eye to alleged efforts aimed at naturalizing Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

“My answer (to Aoun) is simple … I am not the Syrian ambassador,” Derbas told An Nahar newspaper published on Wednesday.

A disarmament expert from Argentina has been appointed to head an independent panel tasked with determining who is behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria, the United Nations said Tuesday.

Virginia Gamba, who has been the director of the U.N. disarmament office for the past two years, will work with two deputies during the one-year mission to assign responsibility for the use of the banned deadly agents.

Australian warplanes have carried out their first air strike against Islamic State group in Syria, destroying an armored personnel carrier, Defense Minister Kevin Andrews said Wednesday.

"This is part of our logical extension in the fight against Daesh to operate not just over northern Iraq but also to operate over eastern Syria in order to degrade and destroy Daesh Forces," the minister told reporters using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Washington warned Russia on Tuesday that Syrian leader Bashar Assad has no role in coalition operations against the Islamic State group and must step down to allow a political settlement.

Secretary of State John Kerry called his Kremlin counterpart Sergei Lavrov to restate the U.S. position after Russia's President Vladimir Putin promised to maintain military support for Assad.

Mexico's foreign minister called Wednesday for an "exhaustive" and transparent investigation into an Egyptian air strike that mistakenly killed eight Mexican tourists, after she visited survivors at a Cairo hospital.

The Mexicans have said their tour group came under aerial attack on Sunday in what the Egyptian interior ministry described as a botched operation against militants in the Western Desert. Four Egyptians were also killed.

At least 13 people were killed Tuesday by rebel rocket fire on government-held parts of Syria's northern city of Aleppo, state media said.

State television also reported 85 people wounded.

French President Francois Hollande, whose country is carrying out surveillance flights over Syria, said Monday it would be "necessary" to carry out air strikes against Islamic State militants there.

"We announced surveillance flights that would allow us to prepare air strikes if they were necessary, and they will be necessary in Syria," he told journalists after talks with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Russia has sent artillery units and seven tanks to a Syrian air base as part of Moscow's continued military buildup in the war-ravaged nation, a U.S. official said Monday.

The increase of Russian hardware in Syria has caused concerns in the West about the implications of Moscow militarily helping its old ally, President Bashar Assad.