Islamic State's execution of a captured Jordanian pilot by burning him alive has backfired on the militant group by galvanizing the U.S.-led coalition that is fighting it in Syria and Iraq, a senior U.S. official said on Sunday.
Japan's government opened a communication channel with Islamic State in the decisive stages of its recent hostage crisis but was unwilling to use it to start negotiations, according to a Tokyo-based Islamic scholar who briefly became an intermediary.
Islamic State said on Friday that an American woman hostage it was holding in Syria was killed when Jordanian fighter jets bombed a building where she was being held, but Jordan expressed doubt about the Islamist militant group's account of her death.
President Barack Obama released an updated national security strategy on Friday that committed the United States to lead on pressing world issues but reflected his cautious policy toward foreign intervention.
Jordanian fighter jets pounded Islamic State targets in Syria on Thursday, before roaring over the hometown of the pilot killed by the militants while King Abdullah consoled the victim's family.
Islamic State's defeat in Kobani and other recent setbacks in Syria suggest the group is under strain but far from collapse in the Syrian half of its self-declared caliphate.
Baghdad's decade-old curfew will end on Saturday and four neighborhoods will be "demilitarized", Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Thursday, as he tries to normalize the capital.
The Islamic State has killed three Chinese militants who joined its ranks in Syria and Iraq and later attempted to flee, a Chinese state-run newspaper said, the latest account of fighters from China embroiled in the Middle East conflict.
Jordan's King Abdullah vowed a "relentless" war against Islamic State on their own territory on Wednesday in response to a video published by the hard-line group showing a captured Jordanian air force pilot being burned alive in a cage.
Jordan hanged two Iraqi jihadists on Wednesday including a female militant in response to an Islamic State video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive by the hardline group.
The U.S.-led air war against Islamic State militants has frozen the immediate threat from that group, and now is the time for Iraq's Shi'ite-dominated government to mend its rift with disenfranchised Sunnis, U.S. military officials said on Tuesday.
Islamic State militants released a video on Tuesday appearing to show a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive in a cage, a killing that shocked the world and prompted Jordan to vow an "earth-shaking" response.
Japanese Prime Minister Abe said on Monday he wants to discuss a framework that would allow Japan's military to rescue Japanese citizens in danger, following the beheading of a Japanese reporter by Islamic State militants.
In making a blaze of largesse and the dismissal of relatively liberal clerics two of his first acts as monarch, Saudi Arabia's King Salman has signaled his approach to big future challenges may differ from that of his liberalizing late brother.
An Egyptian court sentenced 183 supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to death on Monday on charges of killing police officers, part of a sustained crackdown by authorities on Islamists.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday he wanted to debate the possibility of Japan's military rescuing Japanese citizens abroad, a day after Islamic State militants said they had beheaded a Japanese journalist.
Jordan said on Sunday it was still ready to hand over a jailed Iraqi militant to Islamic State in a swap deal if a captured Jordanian pilot was released, even after a second Japanese hostage was beheaded by the hardline group.
Syria's prime minister said on Sunday the country wanted to drive all insurgents out of its territory in 2015 and was prepared to back any attempts to fight global militancy.
Islamic State militants said on Saturday they had beheaded a second Japanese hostage, journalist Kenji Goto, after the failure of international efforts to secure his release through a prisoner swap.
Efforts by Japan and Jordan to secure the release of two of their nationals held captive by Islamic State militants remain "deadlocked" and the situation remains highly unpredictable, Japanese officials said.
New anti-terror legislation in Canada would make it a crime to call for attacks on the country and give a much larger role to the government's main spy agency.
