The Government has taken its time to decide New Zealand will not join Western allies in military action against the terrorist group that has taken over part of Iraq and Syria.

Three NZ Defence Force personnel have already left for the Middle East to scope out a role for New Zealand forces to help train Iraqi forces fight ISIS.

The Prime Minister's landmark speech on national security has two messages for New Zealanders, but they are somewhat discordant.

The Cricket World Cup and the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings are being treated as potential terror targets by New Zealand and Australian Governments.

The possibility of NZ soldiers taken prisoner and appearing in beheading videos does not bear thinking about, let alone electorally, writes John Armstrong.

A "group of free thinkers" has been chosen to detect unseen threats to New Zealand's national security, advising the Prime Minister of danger before it arrives.

John Key says any NZ commitment to the campaign against Isis in the Middle East would be for a long time, pointing to the 10-year deployment of troops to Bamiyan.

A large-scale uprising by people living under the totalitarian regime of Isis (Islamic State) is the most likely trigger that will lead to the undoing of the self-declared caliphate.

It is arguably the greatest security challenge of the modern age - how to prevent "lone wolf" fanatics from committing devastating acts of terrorism.

Terrorism is an affront to our freedom, human dignity and right to life.

Islamic State (Isis) jihadists separated virgin women from the Yazidi minority sect in Iraq to take as sex slaves, according to a group that monitors Isis in Syria.

Islamic militants Boko Haram had abducted more 200 teenagers from a Nigerian school in April.

Two teenagers who became poster girls for the jihad in Syria are now desperate to come home after becoming disillusioned with life in the war-torn country.

Police in London have arrested a fifth British man on suspicion of Islamist-linked terrorism, after saying earlier they had managed to avert a "significant plot".

Established as the world's most glamorous plane with top-end carriers such as Dubai-based Emirates, Airbus sees a new niche for the industry's biggest jetliner.

Jihadist fighters have begun preparing defences against American air strikes and a feared land-based counter-offensive in Iraq and Syria, residents living under their rule say.

Few experts disagree with David Cameron and Barack Obama's assertion that by paying ransoms Western governments end up bankrolling the very terrorism groups they seek to combat.

Islamic radicals returning from Iraq and Syria will be forced on to "deradicalisation" programmes to reverse any brainwashing.

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

Hundreds of Yazidi women who were captured by Islamic extremists are being subjected to deliberate attempts to co-opt them into service as the wives of fighters.

An Australian jihadist has tweeted a photo of his young son holding up a severed head of a dead Syrian soldier.

A Sudanese Christian woman spared a death sentence for apostasy after an international outcry, met Pope Francis in the Vatican today.

It was at the corner of Wehada St that the missile hit Mohammed Shaaban's car - and almost certainly propelled Israel's phoney war with Hamas into an all-out conflict.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis (Islamic State), has emerged from the shadows to lead prayers at Mosul's Great Mosque.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State stretching across Iraq and Syria, has promised to lead the conquest of Rome.

The European Court of Human Rights has upheld France's ban on wearing a burqa or a niqab in public.