Britain could join air strikes in Iraq by the weekend after Prime Minister David Cameron set the country on the path to war.

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.

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.

The Ukrainian government and separatist rebels agreed to a ceasefire amid flickering hopes of peace.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A British extremist who is one of the suspects in the murder of James Foley is the son of an alleged al-Qaeda terrorist awaiting trial.

Twenty years before our air force split from the Defence Force in 1937, air fever swept the country.

For generations that have not known war, our stories from exactly a century ago are an insight into what it would be like.

An Israeli air strike hit a house in central Gaza before dawn yesterday, fatally injuring five family members, including two women and two preschoolers.

Israel said it would call up 10,000 reservists as Palestinians vowed to avenge Israel's killing of three Hamas commanders in Gaza.

A leading war historian believes millions being spent on World War I commemorations will be wasted if it fails to focus on education rather than remembrance.

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