New Zealand is not likely to be part of a military intervention in Iraq, according to Prime Minister John Key.

Tony Blair said Britain needed to take action in Iraq and Syria to stop a 'total disaster' that could see jihadist fighters returning to strike in their own country.

The success of ISIS militants nor the swiftness of their advance through Iraq shouldn't come as a big surprise - the seeds were sown as soon as Saddam was toppled.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said that the country is ready to assist Iraq in its battle against extremist Sunni Islamists.

Escalating violence in Iraq has spooked world sharemarkets and pushed up oil to its highest price in nine months.

Islamic militants have captured Iraq's northern capital, Mosul, in a devastating defeat for the Iraqi Government, whose forces fled the city, discarding weapons and uniforms.

Shocking images depicting US soldiers burning the bodies of what appear to be Iraqi insurgents have sparked a military probe.

A truck bomb tore through an outdoor vegetable market in northeastern Iraq, the deadliest of a series of attacks that killed at least 48 people, officials said.

A suicide bomber has slammed his explosive-laden car into a busy cafe in Iraq's capital, part of a day of violence across the country that killed 45 people, authorities said.

An Iraqi sheik cradled his grandson's tightly wrapped body, his face grim and his eyes downcast, trailed by men bearing the coffin of the infant's mother.

Iraq reaches out to travellers as the 'cradle of civilisation', writes Prashant Rao.

A series of coordinated evening blasts in Baghdad and other violence killed at least 67 people in Iraq on Tuesday (local time), officials said.

Iraq's wave of bloodshed has sharply escalated with more than a dozen car bombings across the country.

A New Zealander's dramatic account of a daring secret mission to rescue American hostages has emerged after being left out of the Hollywood hit film Argo.

A wave of bombings has torn through Iraq, killing 65 people on eve of the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion and showing how unstable Iraq remains.

A decade after Australia joined the invasion of Iraq, demands are still being made for an inquiry into the decision to go to war amid fears the nation could again be dragged into a future conflict in Asia or the Gulf.

Iraqis are not naive. Grim experience of their country's rulers over the past 50 years leads many to suspect them of being self-serving, greedy, brutal, and incompetent.

Adventurous travellers are looking to document the exact geographic intersection of several latitude and longitude point in Iraq and around the world as part of an Internet-based project.

Syria's neighbours are increasingly being drawn into the country's civil war in a variety of ways, whether militarily or due to an exodus of Syrians fleeing the fighting at home.

In their unwillingness to face the reality of changing demographics, US Republicans are behaving like King Canute.

The US President must be allowed to build on his Administration's achievements, writes Reverend Jesse Jackson.