The Iraqi Prime Minister said that personnel of the country's national intelligence service, working with coalition forces commanded by the United States, had killed the head of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
President Joe Biden and other top US leaders had been warning for days that America would strike back at the militias, and they made it clear it wouldn't be just one hit but a "tiered response" over time.
At least 83 US soldiers have now died in October - the highest monthly death toll of 2006.
The incident occurred on the first anniversary of Saddam Hussein's capture.
The two men were dragged out of their cars and dismembered with shovels by an angry crowd.
In a significant development in the war against militant group Islamic State, Iraqi forces have retaken control of Ramadi from the Islamic State with the United States also hailing their victory.
At least 28 people, including five children, were killed and 30 others injured when a suicide bomber shouting 'Allahu Akbar' blew himself up inside a mosque packed with worshippers for Friday prayers in Mohmand Agency in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region.
Though an official confirmation is yet to come, a Guardian report had last week claimed that Baghdadi had received serious 'life-threatening' injuries during a US-led airstrike in March.
The Iraqi military said that the site of a meeting was struck killing several of the group's leaders.
Samawa is the capital of Muthanna and lies deep in Iraq's Shiite heartland and such attacks there are rare.
Sixteen Indians stranded in violence-affected areas of Iraq have been evacuated even as one of the 40 abducted Indians has fled from the captors in Mosul town which is under the control of the militants.
The readed groups' income plummeted from around $80 million (Rs 532 crore) each month to $56 million (Rs 372 crore).
The Islamic State terror group plans to seize Iran's nuclear secrets, unleash a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing and Nazi-style eugenics to consolidate and expand its self-declared caliphate, according to a seized policy manifesto of the dreaded outfit.
ISIS' advances in Iraq and Syria are not just tactical but strategic victories -- born of US errors and confusion
United States President Barack Obama has chosen retired Marine Corps General John Allen, who earlier served as the commander of the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan, to head the America-led global coalition against the dreaded terror group Islamic State, earlier know as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).
Driven from its self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State is down but not out. Where once they confronted armies, the extremist Islamist group's adherents have now staged hit-and-run raids and suicide attacks. In some cases, the group has claimed responsibility for atrocities, including the bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed at least 253 people. Its involvement is not always proven, but even if the link is ideological rather than operational, Islamic State still poses a security threat in many countries.
A disparate global network of violent fundamentalist Islamic groups threatens India's eastern flank as much as the north and west with a real possibility of these spilling over into our borders, says Shyam Saran.
Talmiz Ahmad is a former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE. In an interview with Aditi Phadnis, he says the disequilibrium in Iraq will continue to prevail. Ahmad also says there are indications that the US is now anxious to avoid intervening militarily in West Asia, and that this is the appropriate moment for Asia to assume responsibility for its own security. Edited excerpts:
The US and its allies must evolve a more comprehensive long-term plan to defeat the new danger that the caliphate poses to the world order. And India too must do its bit for course correction, says strategic expert Gurmeet Kanwal.
