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AUSTRALIA will join a US-led Coalition to help bomb jihadists in Iraq amid warnings the rise of Islamic State and returning foreign fighters represents a direct domestic security threat at home. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Defence Minister David Johnston have confirmed overnight that military assistance for air strikes is likely to be offered when a formal request is made in coming weeks. But the deployment is likely to occur only after a United Nations security council hosted by the US President Barack Obama in the week of September 22 in New York. RAAF F-18 superhornets based in Queensland are...

Syrian warplanes and helicopter gunships struck targets in a central village on Saturday in what appears to be preparations for a ground offensive on the rebel stronghold, activists said. The air raids on Kfar Zeita, which has been under rebel control for nearly two years, came amid a major government offensive in the religiously mixed central province of Hama. Saturday's air raids came two days after troops captured the strategic town of Halfaya, better positioning government forces to defend nearby Christian and Alawite communities that support President Bashar Assad. Central Syria is a communal patchwork home to large groups of...

US airstrikes already making headway, says Israeli official. Israel may play a frontline role in the international coalition forming against Islamic State – the jihadi group sweeping through Iraq and Syria in its bid to reinstate a Middle East caliphate. As world powers unite around a US-led plan for military action to topple the militant group, Jerusalem is signaling that if Islamic State decides to spread out to Jordan – Israel will not hesitate to act. "We will use any means necessary," a senior Israeli official told local television station Channel 2. "Let me make this clear: If Islamic State...

BAGHDAD—France will join the U.S.-led airstrikes targeting extremists in Iraq as part of an expanding international effort to combat the Islamic State group, Iraq’s new prime minister said after talks with the French president on Friday. Haider al-Abadi’s remarks came after talks with Francois Hollande, who was in Baghdad to bolster Iraq’s new government as it struggles to unite the nation amid the rampage by the Islamic State group. “In order to confront Daesh, we need aerial support from our allies,” al-Abadi said, referring to the group by its Arabic acronym. “The French president promised me today that France will...

Press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby confirmed on Thursday that "armed and manned" US aircraft would start to fly from Arbil, capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, reported News 24. (ANI)

Last night, Barack Obama promised America that he would take the fight to ISIS/ISIL, using a four-pronged strategy that he laid out in his much-anticipated war speech. In each phase of this strategy, Obama insisted, we would be “joined by a broad coalition of partners,” emphases mine: Obama ISIS Speech [FULL] 9/10/14: Outlining a Battle Plan | The New York Times First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces...

Last night, Barack Obama promised America that he would take the fight to ISIS/ISIL, using a four-pronged strategy that he laid out in his much-anticipated war speech. In each phase of this strategy, Obama insisted, we would be “joined by a broad coalition of partners,” emphases mine: First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense. Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt...

Germany is not ruling out military action against Islamic extremists Isis in Syria, following US President Barack Obama’s announcement that airstrikes against the terror group will be expanded into the Middle Eastern country. “I won't rule out [German participation] in these airstrikes,” Philipp Mißfelder, foreign affairs spokesman in the Bundestag for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian-Democratic (CDU) party, said on Thursday morning. […] Germany might also send units to take part in aerial surveillance and allow flights over its territory to and from the conflict zone, Mißfelder said, but added that deployment of ground troops “from the West as a whole”...

Peshmerga forces in Mosul dam in Northern Iraq News / Kurdistan PM Barzani: Peshmerga has Freed Most IS Controlled Areas 08.09.2014 Mewan DolamariBasNews, Erbil Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has called IS a state in possession of heavy weaponry, but with the help of US air strikes, the Peshmerga have been able to take back control of most of the Kurdish areas they captured. In an interview with the Turkish Milliyet newspaper, Barzani has spoken about the latest situation on the front lines, ’Due to the capture of Iraqi army heavy weapons by IS insurgents, they are stronger...

The U.S. has launched fresh airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS, in an effort to keep the Haditha Dam in western Iraq in the hands of that country's army. Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby confirmed the airstrikes in a statement issued early Sunday, saying that the strikes destroyed five Humvees, an armed vehicle, and a checkpoint. The strikes also damaged a militant bunker. Kirby also said that the U.S. had carried out one airstrike that destroyed an ISIS humvee at the crucial Mosul Dam in northern Iraq. Sunday's strikes bring the total number...

This was one of the headlines greeting me when I woke up this morning, and in a week filled with generally dreary news it was a small ray of sunshine. A US airstrike six days ago took out Ahmed Godane in Somalia. A leader of the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab has been killed in an American air strike, military chiefs have confirmed.The death of Ahmed Godane was announced on Friday by Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby, who declared it a “major symbolic and operational loss”.The lethal strike in Somalia took place on Monday, but military analysts were...

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has lost his aide after a strike on the ISIS-held city of Mosul, in northern Iraq, the Iraqi defense ministry said Thursday. Another ISIS figure was also declared dead, the ministry added. .... Baghdadi, who was a prominent figure in the Sunni extremist response to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the later Sunni insurgency, has declared himself the caliph of an Islamic State in the territories his organization has seized in Iraq and northeastern Syria.

<p>Jubilant boys flashed victory signs and unfurled a Kurdish flag at the entrance to this abandoned village, signaling the latest advance of fighters known as peshmerga against militants in northern Iraq.</p> <p>On a nearby wall, "Peshmerga," spray-painted in gold scrawl, blotted out the black-and-white insignia of the militant group Islamic State.</p>

Since early Thursday morning, United States military planes have begun shelling the outskirts of Mosul, a Sunni-majority city in northern Iraq and military post of Islamic State (IS) militants. According to a source from the Peshmerga forces stationed near Mosul, US warplanes began bombing the hideouts of IS militants in Mosul and the surrounding areas in the ill-lit hours of dawn. The current shelling began in the neighborhoods of Somar and Intisari, which are on the outskirt of Mosul. US planes also attacked high buildings in the city that have been used as hideouts and supply storage by the Jihadi...

U.S. military forces attacked the extremist al-Shabab network in Somalia Monday, the Pentagon said, and a witness described ground-shaking explosions in a strike that reportedly targeted the group’s leader. Al-Shabab had attacked the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing at least 67 people a year ago this month and the U.S. had targeted planners of the bloody assault. There was no immediate comment from al-Shabab and U.S. commanders were waiting to determine the attack’s outcome. “U.S. military forces conducted an operation in Somalia today against the al-Shabaab network. We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide...

(Reuters) - The United States carried out air strikes on Saturday against Islamic State fighters near the besieged Shi'ite town of Amerli in northern Iraq and airdropped humanitarian aid to civilians trapped there, the Pentagon said. President Barack Obama authorized the new military action, broadening U.S. operations in Iraq amid an international outcry over the threat to Amerli's mostly ethnic Turkmen population. U.S. aircraft delivered over a hundred bundles of emergency supplies and more aid was dropped from British, French and Australian planes, officials said, signaling headway in Obama’s efforts to draw allies into the fight against Islamic State. Iraqi...

Americans are deeply apprehensive about President Barack Obama’s strategy, or his admitted lack thereof, for tackling the threat posed to Western interests by the Islamic State militants. Just one year ago, the president was marshalling support among Americans and around the world for strikes in Syria with the aim of punishing Bashar al-Assad for gross crimes against humanity. He found that the public was deeply skeptical of his proposed military solution in Syria. Today, however, the opposite is true, and the public thinks the U.S. is not doing enough to protect its interests around the world through military force....

August 26, 2014 21:25 Egypt and the United Arab Emirates reportedly attack Libya while leaving US in the dark. Why is the Obama administration so out of the loop?

President Barack Obama faces a familiar question as he contemplates airstrikes in Syria: Should Congress have a say in his decision? […] This time around, the White House is suggesting it may not be necessary to get a sign-off from Congress. …

Senior U.S. officials said Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have launched airstrikes against Islamic militants in the Libyan capital twice in the past week. U.S. officials told reporters that the move caught the United States by surprise, potentially dealing a blow to relations between Washington, Cairo and the Emirates. U.S. officials said Egypt provided the base for the launch of the airstrikes, and the U.A.E. provided the aircraft and pilots. Egypt has not publicly acknowledged any role in the air strikes. The UAE had no immediate comment. The first strike took place in Tripoli a week ago and targeted...