The White House will ask Congress by Wednesday for new authority to use force against Islamic State fighters, congressional aides said on Monday, paving the way for lawmakers' first vote on the scope of a campaign that is already six months old.
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.
