A U.S. soldier has died in Iraq for the first time since 2011 as the United States continues to increase its involvement in the battle against the Islamic State, which controls large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
A bomb attack ripped through a crowd of demonstrators in the Turkish capital of Ankara as they marched in opposition to renewed violence between the Turkish government and a Kurdish militia.
The government of Turkey has waded deeper into the complex battlefields of Iraq and Syria, sending its warplanes and ground troops to attack positions of both the Islamic State and the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a Kurdish militant group labeled terrorists by the Turkish government and its Western allies.
Turks began voting in an historic poll that may very well determine the future of the country, as the ruling AKP party seeks a parliamentary majority that would allow it to rewrite the constitution and create a presidential system with the dictatorial Recep Tayyip Erdogan at its head.
The leader of a violent, Kurdish nationalist movement has called for the end to their armed struggle.
A political stand off between the Kurdish Regional Government and the central Iraqi government in Baghdad is threatening to distract from the battle against the Islamic State as coalition forces continue their campaign of air assaults.
The Iraqi government and the country's Kurds have reached an important agreement on oil revenues and plans to fight the Islamic State, boosting hopes that the group can eventually be defeated.
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 authorized airstrikes in Iraq in an effort to slow the rapid advances of the Islamic State throughout the country.
