"Urgent. Soldiers of the Islamic State captured 21 Christian crusaders," was a barely noticed statement issued on social media last month by Isis - not in Syria, Iraq, but in Libya.

A document from an all-female wing of Isis spells out what's expected from women living under the strict regime - starting with marriage from age nine.

The Kingdom of Jordan seems to have miscalculated badly in its dealings with Isis (Islamic State) to negotiate the release of its captured pilot.

John Key used his speech on Te Tii Marae to justify sending troops to Iraq after he was questioned whether it was simply to please "the family" of Britain and the US.

A Twitter campaign ran in the days after the capture of a Jordanian pilot, in which Isis supporters suggested sick methods of his execution.

Buildings lie in waste, reduced to rubble. Others, their faces are shorn clean off. Bullet casings litter the streets, unexploded mortars burrow into pavements.

The Isis group's release of a video showing its fighters burning alive a captured Jordanian pilot sparked street protests calling for vengeance and threatened to draw Jordan's usually low-key monarch towards ever more direct confrontation with radical Isl

Disturbing images appear to show a man charged with having a homosexual affair being stoned to death after he survived being thrown off a building.

Exclusive: NZ has been asked by Britain to contribute 100 defence personnel to a joint training mission in Iraq with Australia.

Jordan yesterday renewed its offer to swap a convicted terrorist for the return of its air force pilot held captive by Isis.

Prime Minister John Key says Isis has to be confronted but accepts that there is danger involved.

Japan says the death of journalist Kenji Goto is an 'atrocious act' as Isis threatens to kill a Jordanian pilot if a female prisoner isn't returned by Friday.

Japan's deputy foreign minister has said negotiations with Isis have become "deadlocked".

Governments increasingly view human rights as "a luxury" they can ill afford, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

However tragic the ending, the weird and unprecedented prisoner swap has only one purpose for Isis: recognition that its Islamic State exists and that foreign nations acknowledge its power.

The Sydney siege hostages who sold their stories to TV networks for large sums of money have the right to do so, an inquest has been told.

A flydubai airliner was shot at as it came in to land at Baghdad airport, injuring a young girl.

Prime Minister John Key says any final decision on New Zealand's contribution to fighting Isis (Islamic State) in Iraq is still weeks away and he downplayed any risk of retaliation against New Zealanders.

Japan is vowing to "never give up" its struggle to save two hostages held captive by Islamic State (Isis) militants.

Prime Minister John Key says New Zealand's likely military contribution to the fight against Islamic State "is the price of the club" that New Zealand belongs to.

PM John Key says NZ's likely military contribution to the fight against Isis is the 'price of the club' we belong to with other Five Eyes members.

Many girls from the Yazidi community in Iraq are committing suicide after being raped and sold into sexual slavery by Isis fighters who captured them last August.

Facebook pages encouraging violence on behalf of Isis are among factors increasing NZ's official terrorism risk and leading to a recruitment drive for new spies.

The controversial anti-Islamic Pegida movement and terror attacks in neighbouring France are polarising Germany.

The US military's Central Command social media accounts are back online after apparently being hacked by Isis.

'You are a woman, we don't kill women.' A survivor of the Charlie Hebdo massacre recalls how she stared into the eyes of a gunman who'd shot her colleagues dead.

The hostage-taker who killed four people in a Paris supermarket siege was on a US terror watchlist.

Charlie Hebdo says it will "cede nothing" to terrorists - and has defiantly placed a new cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad on its cover.

The Pentagon has played down the hacking of the US Central Command Twitter and YouTube sites, saying it's 'annoying', but just a 'prank'.