The Islamic State group has released at least 200 Yazidis after five months of captivity in Iraq, mostly elderly prisoners who may have been slowing the extremists down.

A small group of Syrian rebels have entered the embattled border town of Kobani to help Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State (IS) extremists, according to reports.

The militant Islamic State group has released a video warning the US that fighters await in Iraq if Barack Obama sends troops there.

The US military has stepped up its campaign against Islamic State (IS) militants with five airstrikes across Iraq.

David Cameron has insisted Britain will refuse to pay ransoms to terrorists in return for the release of hostages, as Islamic State (IS) militants threaten a Briton’s life.

Militants from the Islamic State (IS) group carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured when the extremists overran a military base north of Baghdad in June, a leading international watchdog has said.

A grisly video shows Islamic State militants beheading American journalist James Foley, US officials said, in what the extremists called retribution for recent US airstrikes in Iraq.

Kurdish forces took over parts of Iraq’s largest dam yesterday less than two weeks after it was captured by the Islamic State extremist group, as US and Iraqi planes aided their advance by bombing militant targets near the facility.

Islamic extremists in Iraq killed 80 men from a Yazidi village and abducted their wives and children, eyewitnesses said today, insisting the religious community is still at risk after a week of US and Iraqi airstrikes on the militants.

Airstrikes pounded the area around Iraq’s largest dam today in an effort to drive out militants who captured it earlier this month, as reports emerged of the massacre of some 80 members of the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic extremists.

The European Union has sought to forge a unified response to the rapid advance of Islamic militants in Iraq and the resulting refugee crisis.

A journalist and a freelance Palestinian translator assisting him have been killed in an ordnance explosion while working on an assignment in the Gaza Strip.

Another 130 US troops have arrived in Iraq on what the Pentagon described as a temporary mission to assess the scope of the humanitarian crisis facing thousands of displaced civilians trapped on Sinjar Mountain.

Iraq is facing a fierce political power struggle even as the country battles extremists in the north and west, after its president went over the head of incumbent prime minister Nouri Maliki and picked another politician to form a new government.

Iraq’s president snubbed incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and picked another politician to form the next government yesterday, setting up a fierce political power struggle even as the country battles extremists in the north and west.

The Obama administration has begun directly providing weapons to Kurdish forces who have started to make gains against Islamic militants in Iraq.

Iraq’s government has plunged into a political crisis at a time it is fighting advances by Islamic State militants.

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.

Britain is planning to send more advisers to an Iraqi town under threat from Islamic State (IS) extremists amid fears of a humanitarian disaster.

Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq’s Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq’s human rights minister told Reuters yesterday.

A new round of airstrikes by US fighter jets and unmanned drones has targeted Islamic militants in Iraq.

US airstrikes in Iraq against Islamic State militants have succeeded in destroying arms and equipment that could have been used against the Kurdish capital of Irbil, President Barack Obama has said.

After years of resisting the pull of more Middle-East conflicts, US President Barack Obama has sent the military back into action in Iraq, where he once accused his predecessor of waging a "dumb war".

Two US fighter jets have dropped bombs on Islamic militants towing artillery near American personnel in Iraq.

President Barack Obama has authorised US airstrikes in northern Iraq, warning they would be launched if needed to defend Americans from advancing Islamic militants and protect civilians under siege.

Dozens of Indian nurses stranded in territory held by Islamic extremists in Iraq returned home to southern India today aboard a special flight, officials said.

Al Qaida-inspired militants have seized control of Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit.

Suicide bombings tore through a Shiite mosque south of Baghdad and the relatively safe Kurdish area in the north as a wave of attacks killed at least 46 people across Iraq, officials said.

Iraq’s Sunni vice president wanted by the Shiite-led government for allegedly ordering hit squads against government officials has said he is innocent of any charges.

The US is abandoning plans to keep troops in Iraq past an end-of-year withdrawal deadline, it emerged today.

Iran’s state owned Arabic-language al-Alam TV station has confirmed that three US citizens were arrested after crossing the border from Iraq.

Five Iranian officials who were held in Iraq for more than two years by US forces on suspicion of aiding local Shiite militants are back in Iran today.

Oil prices jumped sharply today after Turkish forces entered northern Iraq in search of Kurdish rebels, raising fears that the conflict would cut oil supplies from the region.

The Turkish army sent soldiers about two miles into northern Iraq today, a spokesman for Kurdish security forces said.

Kurdish rebels on today released eight Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq two weeks after capturing them in an ambush inside Turkey, a PKK spokesman said.

Five of Iran's officials held by the US in Iraq have complained about their treatment in detention, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said today.

A parked car bomb struck an open-air market north-east of Baghdad today, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than two dozen, police said.

Iran says it has uncovered spy rings organised by the United States and its Western allies, claiming on state-run television that the espionage networks were made up of “infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers”.

Bomb blasts in two areas of Iraq today left at least 49 people dead and dozens more wounded.

At least 19 people were killed and 80 wounded when a suicide truck bomb ripped through the Iraqi Interior Ministry in the relatively peaceful Kurdish city of Irbil today.

At least 12 people were killed and 53 wounded today when a suicide truck bomb exploded outside the Iraqi Interior Ministry in the Kurdish city of Irbil.

A bomb exploded in Iraq outside the Interior Ministry in the Kurdish city of Irbil today, causing dozens of casualties, security officials said.

Iraq’s foreign minister welcomed the release today of 15 British sailors and marines but said the decision was not the result of a deal to release five Iranians detained by the US in Iraq.

An Iranian envoy is to be allowed to meet the five Iranians detained by US forces in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil, state media reported today.