President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered his forces in Syria to take tough action against any threats, speaking two weeks after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in the war-torn country.

"I order you to act as tough as possible," he told a defense meeting. 

Britain convicted nine men in a case of "industrial-scale fraud" on Thursday after a terrorism investigation uncovered suspect payments into an account of a person who had traveled to Syria.

In a £1 million (1.4 million euro) scam, the men targeted elderly and vulnerable people in the south of England by pretending to inform them of bank fraud, then persuading them to hand over cash to "keep it safe", police said.

Turkish prosecutors Thursday demanded 35-year jail terms for two alleged people-smugglers blamed for the death of a three-year-old boy whose beached corpse came to symbolize Syria's refugee crisis, local media reported.

The suspects, both Syrians, stand accused of "causing death by deliberate negligence" and "migrant smuggling" after five Syrian refugees including Kurdish toddler Aylan Kurdi died when their boat sank in September while on its way to Greece, state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

A Kurdish-Arab coalition fighting the Islamic State jihadist group in northern Syria has announced the creation of a political wing, as momentum builds for a diplomatic solution to the war.

The formation of the Syrian Democratic Council was agreed at a two-day conference in the northeastern town of Al-Malikiyeh where participants also discussed the future of the country after more than four years of war.

The first batch of German troops and aircraft took off Thursday for Turkey as part of a deployment in the battle against the Islamic State group in Syria.

Forty soldiers and two Tornado reconnaissance jets left from the Jagel military airbase in northern Germany's Schleswig-Holstein state.

The relatives of Lebanese people held in Syrian jails announced on Thursday the suspension of the sit-in that they have been staging in downtown Beirut for years.

They declared that during a press conference at the ESCWA square that the sit-in will be lifted, but the tent they were staying in will remain “as a symbol of their cause”.

Only 30 percent of Russian air strikes in Syria target the Islamic State group while the rest are against opposition forces not affiliated with the jihadists, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

"The Russian air strikes in Syria, primarily, are not attacking (IS)," Brett McGurk, U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy for the international anti-IS coalition, told a news conference in Baghdad.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday he would head to Moscow next week to meet Russian leaders and try to build momentum for a push to end Syria's civil war.

Washington and Moscow have worked together to bring a group of regional and world powers together to forge a framework for a Syrian ceasefire and political transition.

Representatives from Syria's fragmented opposition began an unprecedented meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, seeking a united front for potential talks with President Bashar Assad's regime.

While not all groups were invited, the two-day, closed-door gathering marks the first time a broad range of Syrian political and armed opposition factions have come together since the conflict began in 2011.

Los Angeles county leaders voted Tuesday to welcome refugees fleeing persecution, including those from Syria, even as some Americans voice fears they could be linked to terror.

The county board of supervisors voted three to two in favor of a symbolic stand to welcome Syrian refugees fleeing a humanitarian crisis that "is arguably the largest since World War II."