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.

Prime Minister John Key won't rule out sending New Zealand's elite SAS personnel to assist US efforts to counter Islamic State militants in Iraq or even Syria.

Prime Minister John Key is expecting to receive advice over the coming weeks on further assistance New Zealand could offer to help counter the terrorist group Isis.

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.

32: An adventurous Frenchman whose attempts to get New Zealand's fledgling aviation industry off the ground were cut short by the outbreak of World War I.

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.

Australian special forces and aircraft will not be sent into Iraq until the Cabinet considers a risk assessment and the United Nations gives the operation the nod.

Welfare payments will be stripped from people in Australia suspected of supporting terrorism.

He strode out. He spoke well and he "My Fellow Americans-ed" with the best of them. But this speech was one US President Barack Obama never wanted to make, writes Jack Tame.

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

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.

As the Nato summit in Wales ends, Simon Tisdall assesses their choices.

A ceasefire between Ukraine and separatist rebels began last night and appears to still be in place following a five-month bloody conflict left more than 2,000 dead.

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.

President Barack Obama's ban on the import of Russian Kalashnikov rifles.

26: When World War I came, Kiwis were ready. The first foundations of a homegrown army were already in place.

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.

Vladimir Putin has boasted to European leaders his forces could sweep into Kiev in two weeks if he wanted.

The US security services recruited Alaskan fishermen, trappers and bush pilots as "stay-behind agents" to form a secret American resistance network if the Soviet Union staged a widely feared air invasion of the territory.

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

Russia is "practically in a state of war against Europe", with the crisis in Ukraine rapidly approaching "the point of no return", warn EU leaders.

25: In the studio photograph Lieutenant Kenneth Thomson wears the splendid military dress of a British officer in the Indian Army.

Britain faces the "greatest and deepest" terror threat in the country's history, Prime Minister David Cameron warned yesterday as he pledged emergency measures to tackle extremists.