Amnesty International says it has uncovered "gruesome" evidence of ethnic cleansing in northern Iraq by Islamic State (IS) militants.

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.

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.

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.

A Russian-built Iraqi military helicopter providing aid to people stranded on a mountain fleeing Islamic militants has crashed and killed the pilot after too many tried to climb aboard.

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.

Islamist militants surged across northern Iraq towards the capital of the Kurdish region yesterday, sending tens of thousands of Christians fleeing for their lives.

Sunni militants from the Islamic State group have seized Iraq’s largest dam, placing them in control of enormous power and water resources.

The number of civilians killed in the Iraq war is incalculable.

Rescuers dug through the muddy wreckage of collapsed clay houses in north-west Iraq today, uncovering at least 200 bodies from suicide truck bombings the US military blamed on al-Qaida.

Fighting eased today on the second day of a sweep through a militant stronghold near the Syrian border as insurgents melted into the countryside - many escaping through a tunnel network they dug under the ancient city in the north of Iraq.

A UN team assessing the feasibility of early elections in Iraq met with local politicians yesterday, amid reports that a suspected al-Qaida operative proposed provoking sectarian conflict between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims to disrupt the scheduled power transfer to Iraqis.

Two US soldiers were killed and six wounded today during a blast that took place as troops were trying to dispose of explosives, a US officer said.