Foreign Minister Murray McCully has addressed the United Nations General Assembly, in a bid to secure New Zealand a place on the United Nations Security Council.

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.

The leader of al-Qaida's Syria affiliate has vowed that his group would "use all possible means" to fight back against airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.

The US-led coalition against jihadists in Syria has struck the entrance to the country’s main gas plant.

RAF jets were unleashed above Iraq as Britain threw its military might behind a US-led air war against the Isis (Islamic State) terror group.

The daughter of the British hostage murdered by Isis militants has spoken out against the terrorist organisation that has ravaged Iraq and Syria, saying it needs to be eradicated.

American air strikes have done little to dislodge Isis fighters trying to take a major Kurdish city on the Turkish border, Kurdish fighters and commanders said yesterday.

A mystery woman has covertly provided the world with a rare glimpse of life in the heartland of the Islamic State using a camera concealed beneath her niqab.

The United States and five Arab countries launched a new offensive against the fighters of Isis, striking targets in Syria for the first time using cruise missiles, drones and warplanes.

A Kiwi jihadist who has links with al Qaeda and has taken up arms in Syria wants to come home -- but first needs a fresh New Zealand passport after burning his old one

American drones are being flown over the Syrian stronghold of Isis (Islamic State) for the first time, in an effort to target the jihadi group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

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.

The video showing the killing of Steven Sotloff is a mirror image of that two weeks ago carrying the last words of his colleague James Foley.

The civil war in Syria has forced a record three million people out of the country as more than a million people fled in the past year, the United Nations refugee agency said yesterday.

This weekend large numbers of Isis jihadists were trying to secure the border area, pushing northwards in armoured trucks looted from abandoned Iraqi military bases.

British and US counterterrorism analysts believe one of the Britons bears a resemblance to the jihadist who beheaded Foley.

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

A secret, failed mission by the United States military to rescue American hostages, including the murdered journalist James Foley, has been described in full to the Daily Telegraph.

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

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.

The people of the mountain can see their villages, and the headlights of the jihadi patrols snaking through the streets they have abandoned, and know they cannot return.

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.

Isis has used military equipment seized from Iraq in its biggest challenge yet to Assad regime forces.

ISIS has launched a series of attacks across Syria, using military equipment seized from Iraq in its biggest concerted challenge yet to Assad regime forces.

A Kiwi with links to al-Qaeda has taken up arms in Syria and says he will fight until he becomes a martyr.