The UN has brokered a deal between Syria and the Islamic State, which will allow hundreds of members of the militants' families and injured fighters to leave a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.

The head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, told Reuters that the group will be given safe passage to travel to Raqqa and other IS controlled areas, eventually ending the militants' presence in Damascus.

A U.N. spokesman told reporters in New York: "The U.N. is an observer to the agreement concerning Yarmouk, but not part of it, which we understand should come into effect in the coming few days."

The Russian government has rejected a report by Amnesty International, which accused Russia's military of indiscriminate attacks.

Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said he saw "nothing specific and nothing new" in the report and dismissed the claims as "total lies".

"We examined this report," Mr Konashenkov told a briefing in Moscow.

"Once again there was nothing specific or new that was published, only cliches and fakes that we have already repeatedly exposed."

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari says his military was now close to completely defeating Boko Haram militants.

Speaking to the BBC, President Buhari said the militants could no longer mount conventional attacks against security forces or population centres.

"I think, technically, we have won the war," he said.

The militants have been forced to cut back on suicide bombings as a result of the military action against them, President Buhari further said.

An operation by French troops in Mali has left 10 militants, thought to be behind the recent hotel massacre, dead or captured.

The troops raided a location near Menaka, in Mali's east, on Saturday, seizing arms and vehicles.

The target of the raid, the al-Murabitoun group says it was behind the attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in November.

Over 200 civilians have died since Russia launched air strikes in Syria, a report by Amnesty International says.

The human rights group says it "researched remotely" more than 25 Russian attacks in five areas between 30 September and 29 November, and found "serious failures [by Russia] to respect international humanitarian law".

Amnesty said it researched Russian attacks in Homs, Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Aleppo, and "interviewed by phone or over the internet 16 witnesses to attacks and their aftermath", including doctors and human rights activists.

The Supreme Court in Panama has ordered the arrest of former president Ricardo Martinelli over accusations that he used public funds to illegally spy on more than 150 people, including trade union activists, politicians, lawyers, doctors and business people.

Mr Martinelli, who was in power between 2009 and 2014 denied the allegations and said current president Juan Carlos Varela was conducting a vendetta against him. Mr Varela's brother, a lawmaker, was one of the people that were spied on.

Burundi's army is accused of killing dozens of people on December 11, according to Amnesty International.

The rights group says that some of the dead were killed extra-judicially by members of the security forces.

"The violent repression that took place on 11 December represented a dramatic escalation in scale and intensity from previous security operations," the Amnesty report says.

Fire was exchanged across the Israeli-Lebanese border after the death of a senior member of the Hezbollah movement.

Samir Qantar was killed in a rocket attack, suspected to have been carried out by Israel, near Damascus, Syria.

The Israeli army said it fired artillery shells into Lebanon after rocket attacks from across the border.

Mr Qantar, who was Druze, was jailed in Israel in 1979 but released as part of a prisoner swap with the Lebanese militant group in 2008.

Turkey says it will pull more of its troops out of northern Iraq, following a partial withdrawal earlier this week, soon after US President Barack Obama urged President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to "de-escalate tensions" with the Iraqi government.

The Turkish foreign ministry said it acknowledged a "miscommunication" with Iraq over the deployment of its forces, after Baghdad strongly objected to the deployment at the Bashiqa camp near the Islamic State held city of Mosul, where Turkey is engaged in training Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

The International Criminal Court has transferred two former Congolese militia leaders, convicted of war crimes, to a prison in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Thomas Lubanga and Germain Katanga are the first ICC convicts to be allowed to serve sentences in their home country, the BBC reports.