The flight crew of a Saudi Arabian Airlines plane mistakenly pressed a hijack warning button twice as it approached Manila's airport, causing airport officials to mobilise security forces and isolate the jet after it landed, Philippine officials said.

Richard N Haass says the Chilcot Report should be widely read because the Iraq War was costly enough without people learning the wrong lessons from it

Anyone who  believes that suicide bombings are the dying sting of Islamic State is mistaken writes Peter Van Buren

Not all countries in the Middle East aspire to a western-style democratic model and it is this misunderstanding of people’s needs that has led to the inexorable rise of IS, writes JP O’Malley.

The reign of Elizabeth I was the first time that Muslims began openly living in England. It stemmed from the queen’s isolation from Catholic Europe and her excommunication by Pope Pius V in 1570. Attitudes towards Islam then have parallels for us today, writes Josephine Fenton.

A deal over Syria may be the most positive sign the world could overcome its many growing challenges, writes Peter Apps

Behind its strategic manipulations and sham alliance to tackle the likes of IS, a purported ally of the West’s official ideology forms the heart of the terrorist creed, writes Brahma Chellaney

Saudi Arabia is leading a new anti-terror military alliance of 34 Muslim-majority nations, with a joint operations centre based in the kingdom’s capital Riyadh.

Islamic State militants have destroyed a nearly 2,000-year-old arch in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syrian activists said.

Whilst most of our media is firmly on message about our migrant crisis, I, like the majority of ordinary punters I suggest, remain unconvinced of the merits of taking in any more than the government has suggested.

A nuclear deal may have been signed by Iran and Western powers but the regional powerplay is far from resolved, writes Volker Perthes

THE tens of millions of words, in many, many languages, written about last Friday’s terror attacks in Tunisia, and the millions more yet unpublished, are part of the dividend sought by the murderers.

Gunmen have killed 43 people in an attack on Shiites in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, police said.

A double suicide bomb attack has hit a Shiite mosque in north-eastern Iraq, killing at least 18 worshippers including a senior police officer, officials said.

A nuclear deal should be the means for the international community to engage Iran in addressing the difficult issues in the volatile region, writes Carl Bildt.

Iraq has urged the United Nations to look at allegations that Islamic State (IS) extremists are using organ harvesting as a way to finance its activities.

A radical Islamic group that recruited youngsters to fight in Syria was a terrorist organisation that wanted to violently overthrow democracy and replace it with strict sharia law, a Belgian court has ruled.

A bomb blast that ripped through a Shi'ite mosque in southern Pakistan has killed at least 56 people and wounded 40.

Saudi Arabia’s new king promised to continue the policies of his predecessors after the death of King Abdullah at the age of 90.

During the reign of Saddam Hussein, Shias suffered terribly in Iraq. After the US invasion they were in command. And now they are fighting to hold off the threat of Isis. writes Janine Di Giovanni

Syrian Kurds battled to defend a key border town from an Islamic State advance as Kurdish youths from neighbouring Turkey rushed to their aid, heightening the pressure on Ankara to act against the Islamist insurgents.

Newly outraged by the beheading of yet another Western hostage, diplomats from around the world are in Paris pressing for a coherent global strategy to combat extremists from the Islamic State group.

US Secretary of State John Kerry endorsed Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s plans to mend Baghdad’s relations with Sunnis and Kurds, and said Iraq was a partner in the fight against Islamic State militants.

The United States said it had created a "core coalition" to battle Islamic State militants in Iraq, calling for broad support from allies and partners around the world but ruling out committing ground forces.

They were created by imperial powers, but war and terrorism is posing risks to the shape and future of many nations, writes Shlomo Avineri

At least 11 people have been killed in a suicide attack against an Interior Ministry building in central Baghdad, Iraqi officials said.

Germany has said it is prepared to arm Kurdish fighters battling Sunni insurgents in northern Iraq.

The European Union yesterday forged a unified response to the rapid advance of Islamic militants in Iraq and the resulting refugee crisis, allowing direct arms deliveries to Kurdish fighters battling the Sunni insurgents. Several EU nations pledged more humanitarian aid.

British Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his holiday to return to Britain to chair a meeting to discuss the Iraq crisis, but resisted calls to intervene there militarily and ruled out recalling parliament for now.

The al Qaida breakaway group that has seized much of Syria and Iraq has formally declared the establishment of a new Islamic state.

The al-Qaida breakaway group that has seized much of north-eastern Syria and huge tracts of Iraq formally declared the establishment of a new Islamic state.

Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric yesterday stepped up the pressure on politicians to agree on Iraq’s next prime minister, after incumbent Nouri al-Maliki lost the confidence of former allies in the fight against Sunni militants.

A Christian convert who was trying to fly to the United States with her family after being released from death row has been charged on two criminal counts after trying to leave Sudan, her legal team said.

Nearly half of the roughly 300 US military advisers and special operations forces expected to go to Iraq are now in Baghdad.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged Iraq’s top Shiite leaders to give more government power to political opponents before a Sunni insurgency seizes more control across the country and sweeps away hopes of lasting peace.

Sunni militants have blitzed through the vast desert of western Iraq, capturing four towns and three border crossings and deepening the predicament of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad led by Nouri Maliki.