Russian warships fire missiles at ISIS targets in Syria

Australia says it will resume soon air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria which were suspended following US fighter jet shot down a Syrian warplane this week.

The mosque would have been a symbolic prize for Iraqi forces and the USA -led coalition in the fight for Iraq's second-largest city.

Russian Federation is the most powerful ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, and the rare air-to-air encounter prompted Moscow to suspend a de-confliction hotline with the US-led coalition, created to prevent any accidents in the skies over Syria.

The jihadists are under major pressure in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

The downing of the regime jet led Moscow to say it would sever a vital hotline it uses to communicate with the coalition to avoid mishaps in Syria's increasingly crowded battlespace.

It was the first time the United States had shot down a Syrian aircraft since it began fighting ISIS in the country in 2014.

The drone, downed near a combat outpost in the town of At-Tanf, was the second one shot down by US forces in 12 days; the downing comes as Pentagon officials are working to defuse heightened tensions in southeastern Syria.

Coalition forces use the area - just north-east of the Jordanian border - as a training and staging area for attacks against ISIL.

Handel, 55, will become the first Republican woman to represent Georgia in the U.S. House, according to state party officials.

"It's that fighting spirit, that perseverance and tenacity that I will take to Washington", she said Tuesday night.

"In Syria this type of strike is akin to complicity with terrorism", Russian Federation s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency.

The Russian Ministry of Defense called the downing of the plane "a cynical violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic" and "military aggression".

Syria's government is not involved in the operation and is instead looking further east to the largely IS-held oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor.

"It doesn't look like anyone now intends to deliberately escalate further, but when you've got these little skirmishes. the risk is that you can end up in an escalation by accident", said Sam Heller, a Syria expert at The Century Foundation.

Guterres played down expectations of a breakthrough in the next round of UN-led peace talks on Syria starting on 10 July.