Islamic State has struck back as Iraqi forces close in on victory in Mosul, sending women suicide bombers to target soldiers as the battle for the country's second-largest city nears its end.

Iraqi troops are clearing up a key neighbourhood in Mosul after making significant gains against Islamic State militants in the city and the prime minister declared an end to the extremist group's self-proclaimed caliphate.

Iraqi Kurds will hold an independence referendum on September 25, according to the president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region Masoud Barzani.

Two rockets have landed in Baghdad's Green Zone following clashes at anti-government protests that left five people dead, according to Iraqi officials.

Gunmen have kidnapped an Iraqi journalist after breaking into her Baghdad home.

Iraq has executed 36 men convicted of taking part in the IS group’s massacre of hundreds of soldiers in 2014, officials said.

At least 115 people have been killed in two bombings in the Iraqi capital, including a large-scale attack claimed by the Islamic State group that killed 86 people in a central shopping district, officials said.

Iraqi forces have launched an operation to retake the Islamic State-held city of Fallujah.

At least 13 people were killed and 15 others injured when a group of gunmen, including two suicide bombers, stormed a coffee shop in a town north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said.

Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is exploiting the oil crisis and the threat of Islamic State to reimpose himself, this time as a reformer, despite once leading the Mahdi Army, says Mohamad Bazzi

Hundreds of anti-government protesters have climbed over the blast walls surrounding Baghdad's highly-fortified Green Zone for the first time and stormed into the Iraqi parliament.

The US warned its citizens to be ready to leave Iraq in the event of what it has said could be a catastrophic collapse of the country’s largest hydro-electric dam near Mosul.

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier believes changing the way we live in fear of terrorist attacks would be giving them exactly what they wanted

Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi won the support of his cabinet yesterday to eliminate a layer of senior government positions, part of a push to reduce corruption and save money in the face of mounting unrest.

Britain is to send a further 125 Army trainers to Iraq to help with the fight against the Islamic State terror group, prime minister David Cameron has announced.

Iraq’s military needs more intelligence and action from international allies against Islamic State (IS) extremists, the prime minister has said.

Iraqi forces, trained by the US in recent years and reinforced with US armour, is losing military equipment to Islamic State at a staggering rate, writes Peter Van Buren

Three Islamic State suicide bombers targeted a police base in Iraq’s western Anbar province with explosives-laden trucks, killing at least 35 police and Shiite militiamen.

A military operation has been launched to drive Islamic State out of the western Anbar province of Iraq, where the extremists captured the provincial capital Ramadi earlier this month.

IS militants are thought to have killed up to 500 people — Iraqi civilians and soldiers — and forced 8,000 to flee from their homes as they captured the city of Ramadi, a provincial official said.

Islamic State is exploiting the Mediterranean refugee crisis to smuggle fighters into Europe, an investigation has found.

Iraq’s armed forces, backed by Shi’ite militia, attacked Islamic State (IS) strongholds north of Baghdad yesterday as they launched an offensive to retake the city of Tikrit and the surrounding Sunni Muslim province of Salahuddin.

A large-scale military operation to recapture Saddam Hussein’s home town from the Islamic State extremist group has begun, Iraq’s state TV says.

A series of car bombs today ripped through a crowded marketplace and a Shiite militia’s checkpoint, killing 19 people in separate attacks north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

A suicide bombing in eastern Baghdad has killed at least 13 people and wounded 30, police said.

Iraq’s prime minister said his country’s intelligence operation had uncovered a plot for an imminent attack on subway systems in the United States and Paris.

Declaring the world at a crossroads between war and peace, President Barack Obama vowed at the UN to lead a coalition to dismantle an Islamic State "network of death" that has wreaked havoc in the Middle East and drawn the US back into military action.

World powers yesterday backed military measures to help defeat Islamic State fighters in Iraq, boosting Washington’s efforts to set up a coalition, but made no mention of the tougher diplomatic challenge next door in Syria.

France’s president has said there is “no time to lose” in the global push to combat extremists from the Islamic State group, as reconnaissance planes from his country stand ready for action.

France will join the US-led airstrikes targeting extremists in Iraq as part of an expanding international effort to combat the Islamic State group, Iraq’s new prime minister has said.

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 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.

Iraq’s new prime minister-designate yesterday won swift endorsements from uneasy mutual allies the US and Iran as he called on political leaders to end crippling feuds that have let jihadists seize a third of the country.