News | Latest Breaking News Stories & Headlines

President Obama said a coalition for a long-term strategy across the Middle East was needed

Obama: the US needs a strategy for defeating ISIL

President Obama has said the US "does not have a strategy yet" when it comes to defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant across the Middle East.

News • 28 Aug 14

Iraqi troops monitor an area west of the shrine city of Karbala in central Iraq yesterday

Further 200 US troops to be sent to Iraq

US President Barack Obama is sending up to 200 extra troops to Iraq to protect the US Embassy and Baghdad airport.

News • 30 Jun 14

There have also been reports of clashes on the outskirts of Damascus

Jihadists crucify nine rebels in Syria

A jihadist group in Syria has publicly executed and crucified eight rebels fighting both President Bashar al-Assad's regime and the jihadists, a monitor said this afternoon, while a ninth man was crucified but survived.

News • 29 Jun 14

Nouri al-Maliki electoral bloc won by far the most seats in parliamentary elections in April

Iraqi prime minister rules out emergency govt

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ruled out forming a national emergency government to confront a Sunni militant offensive that has overrun large parts of the country.

News • 25 Jun 14

Iraqi Shia Turkmen patrol close to locations of jihadist ISIS fighters in northern Iraq

Iranian leader accuses US of trying to retake Iraq

Iran's supreme leader accused the United States of trying to retake control of Iraq by exploiting sectarian rivalries, as Sunni insurgents drove toward Baghdad from new strongholds along the Syrian border.

News • 22 Jun 14

Newly-recruited Iraqi army volunteers take part in a military parade in the shrine city of Najaf, in central Iraq

Sunni fighters seize post on Iraq-Syria border

Sunni fighters seized a border post on the Iraq-Syria border, security sources said, smashing a line drawn by colonial powers almost a century ago with the aim of creating an Islamic Caliphate stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to Iran.

News • 21 Jun 14

A member of Iraq's security forces wave his national flag as newly recruited men gather

Iraq requests US air strikes on insurgents

Iraq has asked the United States to conduct air strikes against Sunni Islamist insurgents that have seized key cities and large swathes of the country.

News • 18 Jun 14

Iraqi volunteers fighting with Iraqi forces chant slogans in Karbala city, southern Baghdad

US sending some troops to Iraq to protect staff

US President Barack Obama has said he is sending a small number of US troops to Iraq immediately to provide extra support and security for the US Embassy and US personnel in Iraq.

News • 16 Jun 14