US President Barack Obama has said defeating Islamic State in Syria would only be possible if President Bashar al-Assad stepped down.

Russia is considering whether to follow the US and its allies in conducting air strikes against Islamic State (IS) targets, President Vladimir Putin says.

France claims to have carried out its first air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria following nearly three weeks of surveillance flights.

European Union leaders pledge another €1bn (£700m, $1.1bn) to help UN agencies support Syrian refugees in the Middle East, as part of renewed efforts to tackle the EU's migrant crisis.

Splits within the EU on the relocation of 120,000 migrants are further exposed as leaders gather for an emergency meeting in Brussels.

European Union ministers are to meet to try to resolve a dispute over how to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers who have recently arrived in Europe.

Syria's civil war has prompted the first withdrawal of crop seeds from a "doomsday" vault built in an Arctic mountainside to safeguard global food supplies.

The United States will increase the number of refugees it takes in by 15,000 over each of the next two years, bringing the total to 100,000 by 2017, US Secretary of State John Kerry says.

Austria saw the arrival of at least 10,000 migrants, amid bitter rows among EU nations on how to handle the growing crisis.

Migrants stranded in Croatia are making renewed efforts to head north despite moves by Slovenia and Hungary to hold them back.

Croatia closes seven of its eight road border crossings with Serbia following a huge influx of migrants.

The flow of migrants through the Balkans picks up again with thousands entering Croatia, and the number doubling in a day for Germany.

The Australian government has confirmed it has launched its first air strikes inside Syria against targets of the so-called Islamic State (IS).

Hungarian riot police fire tear gas and water cannon to force back migrants who broke through gates at the now closed Serbia-Hungary border.

Hundreds of migrants are stranded at the Serbia-Hungary border after the Hungarian government closed the frontier with a new razor-wire fence.

Russia's recent movements near Syria's city of Latakia suggest that Moscow plans to establish a "forward air operating base" there, the US has said.

Jumaa Ibrahim and his wife Hasnaa Karam, a Syrian couple in their early 60s, arrived in Mecca on Friday, and headed straight to Islam's holiest site, the cube-shaped Kaaba.

Ending the conflict in Syria and Iraq is key to solving the migrant crisis facing Europe, a senior US official tells the BBC.

Germany is to introduce some form of border controls with Austria, German and Austrian media report, as thousands more migrants arrive this weekend.

The number of migrants entering Hungary from Serbia hit a new record on amid tension in eastern Europe over how to deal with the crisis.