The United States has taken the first step in its expanded fight against Islamic State (IS) militants, going to the aid of Iraqi security forces near Baghdad who were being attacked by enemy fighters.

US air strikes continued in Iraq yesterday as US Central Command said drones and jet aircraft hit Islamic State armed trucks and mortar positions near Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region.

Former CIA boss David Petraeus is “devastated” after being forced to resign over his affair with a younger woman, one of his former aides has said.

Members of the US Congress are demanding more details about the FBI investigation that unmasked an extramarital affair between ex-CIA director David Petraeus and his biographer.

The Nato chief today pledged the alliance will hand over responsibility for securing Afghanistan to the country's domestic forces by the end of 2014 as scheduled.

All four American hostages on a yacht taken by pirates off Somalia have been killed, the US military said.

David Cameron today announced £67m (€81m) in additional funding to counter the threat of Taliban roadside bombs to British troops in Afghanistan, as he made his first trip to the country as Prime Minister.

An American defence contractor said today it would stop stamping bible references on combat rifle sights sold to the US Army and Marines and the Australian and New Zealand military.

A top US military commander has ordered a new investigation into a firefight in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of nine American soldiers and led to claims of negligence by their senior commanders.

The US military yesterday admitted that US airstrikes in Afghanistan on August 22 killed 33 civilians, far more than previously acknowledged.

The bodies of at least 10 children and many more adults covered in blankets appear in videos released today, lending weight to Afghan and UN claims that a US-led raid last month killed more civilians than the US reported.

Two US Marine officers in a unit accused of firing indiscriminately at vehicles and pedestrians and killing as many as 19 Afghan civilians in 2007 will not face criminal charges, the military said.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush has his eye firmly on history, believing he and his actions will be vindicated in the coming years and decades.

The top US military commander for the Middle East resigned today amid speculation about a rift over American policy in Iran.

THE other night in the pub in the quiet seaside village of Courtmacsherry (in September, it returns to its native peace) we had young Brian O’Donovan tell us about what he and his brother Barry, joint skippers of their trawler Sea Venture, caught in their nets a few nights before. He made a great job of the telling. The item wasn’t exactly nature, although it was encrusted with nature. It was a World War II mine.

THERE is mounting evidence that the African continent will become the next Al Qaeda hotbed as the militant group seeks to expand its global operations, a senior expert on terrorism said.

Sri Lankan air force jets and artillery pounded Tamil Tiger rebel positions in the country’s north and east for a second day today, peace monitors said ahead of a mass funeral for 64 people killed a bus bombing blamed on the insurgents.

Sri Lanka's air force today launched a second day of strikes on Tamil Tiger rebel positions in the country’s north, a day after a bus bombing blamed on the rebels killed 64 people.

Gunmen lined up 14 employees working at an electronics trading company in Baghdad this morning and shot them all, killing eight and wounding six, police said.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service denied as “baseless” Pentagon claims that Moscow provided information to Saddam Hussein’s regime on US troop movements and plans during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in the latest spat in an increasingly tense bilateral relationship.

The Russian government had sources inside the American military as it planned and executed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to Iraqi documents released as part of a Pentagon report.

The pilot of a US Air Force U-2 spy plane died in a crash while returning to a base in southwest Asia, the military said today.

The top US commander in Iraq has expressed concern about the ability of Iraqi forces to cope with security in the run-up to elections next month.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush said yesterday that elections in Iraq should not be postponed and a 12,000-troop increase in the US presence there was aimed at bolstering security before January elections.

An American army captain has been charged with murder in connection with the shooting of an Iraqi civilian.

A soldier accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners of war claimed that his commanders silenced his questions about harsh, humiliating treatment of inmates, it was claimed today.

US military commanders are studying options that could mean more troops in Iraq if violence there widens.

Squeezed out of sanctuaries elsewhere in the world, Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror group may be looking to the deserts and jungles of Africa as a haven to train recruits and plan new attacks, the deputy head of US forces in Europe says.

A malicious program attached to seemingly innocuous e-mails was spreading quickly over the Internet, clogging network traffic and potentially leaving hackers an open door to infected personal computers.

The US Navy has seized an al-Qaida boat that was carrying two tons of hashish in the Persian Gulf.

The US, still horrified by the September 11 attacks, will mark the second anniversary tomorrow with moments of silence and bursts of patriotic song, by gathering in peaceful memorial gardens and busy public squares, and by reaching out to each other.

An American soldier was killed today when his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb 16 miles north of Baghdad.

A massive car bomb blast outside the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad today killed up to 12 people, said rescuers.

An American soldier was killed and two others were wounded by small arms fire at their base in northern Iraq, the US military said today.

US President George W Bush yesterday ducked questions over a White House admission that he used flawed intelligence on Iraq’s nuclear programme, while insisting he was right to oust Saddam Hussein.

US forces in Iraq have arrested two more former officials on Washington’s Most Wanted list, Central Command said today.

US FORCES in Iraq detained 180 people in raids to stamp out resistance to their occupation as a reporter attached to an army unit became the latest casualty of the violence, the military said yesterday.

US troops were on the offensive inside Iraq today – hunting Saddam Hussein loyalists in a bid to curb a wave of attacks on coalition soldiers.

Attacks on Allied forces in Iraq continued today and, with shattered glass, blood stains and mangled vehicles littering the landscape, there is growing concern that the occupation could be turning into a fully fledged guerrilla war.

The US military has detained 371 people in Iraq as part of Operation Desert Scorpion, aimed at rooting out armed resistance, according to the American military.

IRAQI forces shot down a US helicopter gunship in western Iraq yesterday, just hours after US fighter jets bombed what they said was “a terrorist training camp” in central Iraq.

ASSAILANTS fired rocket-propelled grenades at a checkpoint in Baghdad’s southwestern suburbs, killing one US paratrooper and wounding another, a military statement said yesterday.

A US paratrooper was killed and another was wounded in Baghdad when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at their position, the military said today.