President Barack Obama told Americans on Wednesday he had authorized U.S. air strikes for the first time in Syria and more attacks in Iraq in a broad escalation of a campaign against the Islamic State militant group.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged President Bashar al-Assad to seek a political solution to Syria's war, saying this would help international efforts against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, al-Hayat newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Iraq has refiled in U.S. court to gain control of $100 million of Kurdish crude oil on a tanker near Texas, days after the court ruled it lacked jurisdiction to seize the cargo but said it could hear arguments over who is the oil's rightful owner.
No one disputes the horrific outcome: Iraqi military recruits were led off their base unarmed and murdered in their hundreds, machine gunned in mass graves by the Islamic State, whose fighters boasted proudly of the killings on the Internet.
