The United States has announced plans to send another 130 military advisers to Iraq in an effort to bolster the force of 300 already in the country to help advise Iraqi forces on how best to deal with the expanding threat posed by the Islamic State.
A helicopter carrying journalists and a parliamentarian that was delivering aid to Yezidis stranded on the Sinjar Mountains crashed after trying to take off again.
A new report has said that the Kurdish militia known as the pesh merga refused to confront the Islamic State, choosing instead to flee and leave thousands of Yezidis at the mercy of IS.
President Barack Obama has suggested that the airstrikes and humanitarian aid drops he recently authorized in Iraq may go on for months.
Testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee revealed that the United States knew that the Islamic State was advancing on Iraqi territory from Syria and tried to warn the Iraqi government of the growing threat, but the Iraqis refused to listen and take appropriate defensive measures.
The Islamic State has issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, ordering that all women in the city of Mosul undergo female genital mutilation.
