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The United States on Sunday expanded its air war against Islamic extremists in Iraq, sending fighter jets to attack targets near the Haditha Dam in coordination with ground forces from the Shiite Muslim-dominated Iraqi military and local Sunni Muslim tribes. The U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, said in a statement that U.S. combat aircraft destroyed four Islamic State Humvees, four armed vehicles, two of which were carrying anti-aircraft artillery, one fighting position, and one command post. It’s not clear whether the collaboration, coordinated by the U.S. military with the Shiite-dominated central government, will set a precedent. Still, the timing...

LONDON — Alarmed by the suspected presence of hundreds of British jihadis among Sunni militants in Syria and Iraq, Britain increased its assessment of the terrorism threat on its own soil on Friday and said new laws would be introduced to counter what Prime Minister David Cameron called “a greater threat to our security than we have seen before.” The tone of the warnings recalled the days after July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers killed 52 travelers on the London transit system. The show of concern, moreover, seemed intended to bolster the government’s case for contentious new legislation to...

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said that he would not recommend U.S. military airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria until he determines that they have become a direct threat to the U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, speaking to reporters on board a military plane traveling to Afghanistan, said Sunday that he believes the Sunni insurgent group formerly known as ISIS is more of a regional threat and is not currently plotting or planning attacks against the U.S. or Europe.

The Syrian regime says it's ready to accept support from the United States and others working under the U.N. umbrella to fight "terrorists." The comments, by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, were made Monday as ISIS fighters seized control of a strategically important air base in the country. The war-racked nation has been losing control of the northeastern region to ISIS militants. Moallem, however, warned against any unilateral action or strikes in Syrian territory without its permission. "Any effort to fight terrorism should be done in coordination with Syrian government," Moallem said.

Syria's foreign minister said on Monday his country welcomed any potential military strikes by by the U.S. in Syria targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's terrorist bases, but warned that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad should be warned first. The Assad regime is mired in a three-year-old civil war, and has been losing ground to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants. "Syria is ready to cooperate and coordinate with regional and international efforts to combat terror in accordance with U.N. resolutions and respect of Syrian sovereignty," Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told a press conference...

Western intelligence agencies have been assisting the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad fight militants of Isis (now called the 'Islamic State'), by providing details on the location of militant leaders for targeted air strikes. The information was passed to Assad's government by German intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), which acted as an intermediary, a source told the Independent... In recent weeks, Syrian forces have launched a series of airstrikes against Islamic State commanders and headquarters, as they battle to halt the advance of jihadist forces from their stronghold in the east of the country. The Assad regime has been accused...

The United Nations special representative for Iraq has called on the international community to take immediate action to avoid a massacre of civilians in town besieged by Islamic State (Isis) forces. Nickolay Mladenov said he was "seriously alarmed" by reports that the people living in the northern Iraqi town of Amerli had no food or water as the two-month siege continues. He said: "The situation of the people in Amerli is desperate and demands immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its citizens. The town is besieged by [Isis] and reports confirm that people are surviving in desperate conditions."...

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- As violence CONTINUES to wrack Iraq, the United Nations warned Saturday of another ethnic slaughter in the making by Sunni extremists from ISIS. ISIS fighters have besieged the ethnic Turkmen Shiite town of Amerli in the north for two months, and its fewer than 20,000 residents are without power and running out of food, water and medical supplies. "The situation of the PEOPLE in Amerli is desperate and demands immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its citizens," said Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for Iraq. He said the suffering was "unspeakable" and...

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has used a remarkable set of words to describe the militants of Islamic State (IS). He warned of their "apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision", argued that they pose "an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else", and depicted them as "beyond anything that we've seen". Is this reckless threat inflation, or is Mr Hagel correct?

The governor of Iraq's Sunni heartland province of Anbar said he has secured a promise of U.S. support in a battle against the Islamic State, reviving an alliance that helped thwart an earlier Sunni militant threat, from al Qaeda. Ahmed Khalaf al-Dulaimi told Reuters his request, made in meetings with U.S. diplomats and a senior military officer, included air support against the militants who have a tight grip on large parts of his desert province and northwestern Iraq. Dulaimi said the Americans had promised to help.

The US has sent 130 more military advisers to northern Iraq to assess the scope of the humanitarian mission. The soldiers have been sent to northern Iraq to "develop additional humanitarian assistance options beyond the current airdrop effort in support of displaced Iraqi civilians trapped on Sinjar Mountain". The announcement comes as a suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint near the Baghdad home of new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi.

US combat forces will not re-enter Iraq, John Kerry insists, but the US says it will explore more “political, economic and security options” as the country transitions out of political deadlock with a new prime minister. With a new “inclusive, participatory” government in Baghdad, the US would “absolutely look to provide additional options” to help stabilise the country. Kerry made it clear this did not mean a return of US combat troops. “There will be no reintroduction of American combat forces into Iraq,” he said. “Nobody, I think, is looking forwards to a return to the road that we’ve travelled....

Islamic militants fighting in northern Iraq are unlikely to be stopped by targeted airstrikes, a US general has warned. Joint staff operations director Lieutenant General William Mayville told a news conference that 15 airstrikes on Islamic State (IS) positions were focused initially on protecting US facilities and citizens, as well as aiding the humanitarian mission. He said: "These airstrikes have helped check the advance of missile forces around Mount Sinjar and in the area west of Irbil. "We assess that US airstrikes in northern Iraq have slowed IS operational tempo and temporarily disrupted their advances toward the province of Irbil....

The United States has thrown its weight behind Iraqi president Fuad Masum after he was accused by prime minister Nouri al-Maliki of violating the constitution. US state department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement: “The United States fully supports president Fuad Masum in his role as guarantor of the Iraqi constitution. “We reaffirm our support for a process to select a prime minister who can represent the aspirations of the Iraqi people by building a national consensus and governing in an inclusive manner,” she said, echoing an earlier comment made on Twitter by deputy assistant secretary of state for...

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in a surprise speech late Sunday, resisted calls for his resignation and accused the country’s new president of violating the constitution, plunging the government into a political crisis at a time it is battling advances by Islamic State militants. On Sunday night, in a nationally televised speech, al-Maliki declared he will file a legal complaint against the new president, Fouad Massoum, for committing “a clear constitutional violation". “This attitude represents a coup on the constitution and the political process in a country that is governed by a democratic and federal system,” al-Maliki...

Iraq militants have executed at least 500 Yazidi people, dumping their victims in mass graves across the north of the country, an official has said. There is "striking evidence" that Islamic State fighters, formerly known as ISIS, have buried some of their victims, including women and children, alive as they continue their bloody advance across Iraq, according to the human rights minister. The militants have driven as many as 150,000 Yazidis from their homes into the Sinjar mountains, where they are cut off from food and water and struggling to survive. Hundreds are already reported to have died. Yazidis flee...

President Obama said Saturday that U.S. forces will seek to deny a safe haven to "barbaric terrorists" in Iraq and will help create a humanitarian corridor to rescue thousands of religious refugees trapped on a mountaintop, broadening his goals for the latest U.S. intervention in Iraq. Speaking on the White House South Lawn, the president also suggested that the airstrikes by U.S. Navy fighter jets and Predator drones against Islamist militants that began Friday near the major city of Irbil won't be a short-term operation. Obama also said he is confident that U.S. airstrikes and assistance to Iraqi forces can...

The reaction in the Iraqi capital was muted on Saturday after American warplanes and drones struck Islamist militants in the country’s north a day earlier, putting the U.S. military back in action in the skies over Iraq less than three years after the troops withdrew and President Obama declared the war over. “America has abandoned us in our most difficult time,” said Firdous al-Awadi, a parliamentarian with Maliki’s political bloc. “This is too little, too late. We kept asking for airstrikes, but we got nothing. Now they are arming and protecting the Kurds, but the rest of Iraq gets no...

LINK ONLY PER FR POSTING RULES: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/08/08/obama-iraq-isil-air-strikes-baghdad-irbil-terrorists/13783143/

WASHINGTON - The Iraqi government delivered a planeload of ammunition to Arbil, the capital of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, on Friday in an unprecedented act of military cooperation between Kurdish and Iraqi forces, a US official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iraqi security forces, under the command of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Arab, delivered the mostly small-arms ammunition in a C-130 cargo plane to resupply the Kurdish Peshmerga forces as they fight militants from the Islamic State. The Obama administration is working with the Iraqi government to ensure that additional requests from the Kurdistan...