Prime Minister Tony Abbott expects Australia to receive Iraqi government approval to send in special forces members within days.

Prime Minister John Key says it would be "odd" if New Zealand did not play any part in action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria but signalled he was still reluctant to send in....

Bomb camera vision showing Australian bombs obliterating Islamic State targets won't be publicly released.

A “domestic beheading” inspired by foreign fanatics is one of several threats New Zealand potentially faces from the so-called Islamic State, John Key said this morning.

If New Zealand decides to send forces to support an international response to the "Islamic State" in Iraq and Syria (Isis), the decision will be made by the Government not Parliament, the Prime Minister has explained.

Any commitment of military assistance to counter Islamic State militants in Iraq should not make NZ more of a target for terrorism, Prime Minister John Key says.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is playing down the prospect of deploying Australian combat troops on the ground in Iraq.

The argument that if we don't join the American crusade to wipe out Muslim fanatics in Iraq and Syria, they'll swoop down to Godzone and behead us all is a rerun of the old Vietnam War domino theory....

NZ's elite SAS personnel aren't yet on standby for deployment to combat Islamic State militants - but the PM can't rule out sending them in if asked.

New Zealand would back United States airstrikes against Islamic State jihadists in Iraq, Prime Minister John Key and Labour leader David Cunliffe say.

The Prince of Wales has written an impassioned letter to Christians in Iraq speaking of his "heartbreak" at their suffering at the hands of Jihadists.

An Iraqi soldier survived a mass execution carried out by Islamic State militants (Isis) by dropping to the floor and pretending to be dead.

A Briton will be the next hostage murdered by Islamist terrorists, the British extremist known as "Jihadi John" threatened in a beheading video released yesterday.

Obama undeterred as air strikes continue even though jihadists say they will execute more US journalists

David Cameron has said that it is "increasingly likely" that a British jihadist beheaded American journalist James Foley

The heads are stuck on thin metal poles above a wrought iron fence in the Islamic State's Syria stronghold, Raqqa.

Australia is considering joining the United States in a limited military operation to rescue as many as 30,000 Iraqi refugees trapped on a barren mountain in the north.

America is to supply weapons directly to Kurdish fighters in Iraq for the first time, to help the lightly armed forces in the north push back jihadist rebels, assisted by US air power.

US air strikes are boosting Kurdish morale as they hit Isis fighters, and a road is now open for thousands of Yazidis cut off in the mountains.

Up to 150,000 desperate refugees were still isolated on a barren stretch of mountain in Iraq, surrounded by Islamic extremists despite a major international intervention.

Qantas has reassured passengers it's still safe to fly over Iraq, despite network partner Emirates' deciding to steer clear of the conflict-torn nation.

Kurdish leaders accuse Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of being hysterical and unbalanced, while he says the Kurdish capital, Erbil, is a centre for the Islamic State (Isis) and adherents of Saddam Hussein.

Twin sisters have fled their UK home in the middle of the night and flown to Istanbul to join ISIS fighters in Syria, it's feared.

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis) has declared the areas it occupies in Iraq and Syria as a new Islamic state.