Live Blog: War against Islamic State

US airstrikes in Syria have had an "important impact," US national security adviser Susan Rice said Wednesday, but it is unclear if they have killed the head of the Khorasan group, an Al-Qaeda offshoot.

The strikes by US warplanes and cruise missiles targeted the Islamic State movement as well as the little-known Khorasan group, which Washington said has said was plotting attacks against US targets. 

"We think the strikes had an impact, important impact," Rice told NBC news, 36 hours after Washington expanded its bombing campaign from Iraq to Syria, backed by allies in the region.

"Obviously, this won't be the last of our efforts. But this was a first wave."

She added: "We feel very good about our success. We'll continue to take a look and we'll be doing more."

Rice said the United States at this point is unable to confirm that the airstrikes succeeded in killing Khorasan's alleged leader, long-standing Qaeda operative Muhsin al-Fadhli.

"We can't confirm that at this stage. We've seen reports on social media to that effect. We will continue to look for signs as to whether or not that's, in fact, the case," Rice told NBC.

A United Nations Security Council committee blacklisted on 23 September more than a dozen foreign  fighters, fundraisers and recruiters tied to militant groups in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tunisia and Yemen, including a senior leader of the Islamic State.

Individuals from France, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Senegal and Kuwait are among those targeted by the Security Council's al Qaeda sanctions committee for an arms embargo, global travel ban and asset freeze.

The Islamic State has executed lawyer and human rights defender Samira Saleh al-Naimi in Mosul, Iraq, said the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR).

According to the NGO, reports confirmed that on the evening of 22 September, a group of masked armed men who belong to IS opened fire and killed her in a public square in Mosul.

She was kidnapped by IS from her home the week after she described as “barbaric” the widespread damage that IS inflicted on her city.

Samira Saleh Al-Naimi is a prominent lawyer and human rights defender known for her work to defend detainees and support disadvantaged families in Mosul. 

Turkish president Recep Tayyib Erdogan said that Turkey will provide all the support it can to the US-led coalition against the Islamic State in Syria. 

He declared that Turkey will support the operations whether militarily or logistically. 

Western-backed rebels fear US-led airstrikes on IS and other extremist groups in Syria will ultimately tip the balance in the multi-sided civil war in favour of President Bashar al-Assad’s government. 

Leader of a little-known militant group in Syria, known as Khorasan, was killed in a US airstrike on Tuesday in Syria, militant sources confirmed on Wednesday.

Muhsin al-Fadhli, a Kuwaiti-born al-Qaida leader, was killed along with his wife and daughter in the raids that targeted several group sites in the northwestern province of Idlib, the sources, which have close links to al-Fadhli's family in Kuwait, told Anadolu Agency.

"It was obvious that Washington had set its eyes on al-Fadhli for some time now," one of the sources told AA, citing US media reports quoting officials that Khorasan could pose a more direct threat to the United States than the militant Islamic State in Syria.

Al-Fadhli's reported death could not be verified by an independent source.

No comment was issued by the Kuwaiti authorities or his family on the matter either.

A Syrian woman who allegedly carried a hidden camera films how life is like inside Syria's northern city of Raqqa, which has been under the control of the Islamic State.

The report was aired on France 2.

Syrians who fled from clashes between the Islamic State militants and pro-Kurdish Democratic Union Party forces, wait in Suruc province of Sanliurfa, Turkey on 24 September to be sheltered by humanitarian groups. 

The Western-backed Syrian political opposition is criticising US-led airstrikes in Syria for focusing on IS and other extremists while leaving President Bashar Assad's government untouched.

Syrian National Coalition chief Nasr al-Hariri says it regrets that the "international community has come up with partial solutions to the Syrian conflict in which hundreds of thousands were killed or detained by the Assad regime."

In a Coalition statement released on Wednesday, al-Hariri also said that any effort other than helping Syrians overthrow Assad will only further fuel extremism.

Turkey has said that its airspace and air bases were not used in latest anti-IS strikes.

When tens of thousands of members of Iraq's Yazidi minority fled from Islamic State (IS) early last month, they became the focus of international attention.

But now they say the world has forgotten their plight, reports the BBC.

Three Iraqis arrested in Switzerland in March are suspected of having planned an attack in the name of the Islamic State group, Swiss media reported Wednesday.

The daily newspaper Tages Anzeiger reported that Switzerland's Federal Intelligence Service had been tipped off by a western counterpart which intercepted the men's phone calls.

Switzerland's national prosecutor's office has confirmed the arrest but declined to give further details.

The newspaper said that the Swiss were informed that the three men were believed to have formed a pro-IS cell.

"There were indications that the trio planned an attack in their adopted country," Tages-Anzeiger said, without elaborating.

The US airstrikes will not be enough to defeat the Islamic State without ground forces in Syria and Iraq capable of fighting the terrorist group, several analysts said.

Parliament is expected to be recalled on Friday to discuss the UK's role in air strikes against Islamic State, the BBC reported. 

There has been no official confirmation but an announcement could come later.

It is understood there has been a reluctance to make the announcement while Labour's conference is under way.

It is also understood that there will be a formal request from the Iraqi Prime Minister later on Wednesday for the UK to join in air strikes.

The US-led coalition has launched raids against militants near a Kurdish town in Syria surrounded by Islamic State fighters.

Planes carried out several strikes on IS positions and supply lines west of the northern border town of Ain al-Arab, or Kobane, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The strikes took place just before and after midnight on Wednesday, it said.