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The president’s meetings with top Pentagon officials and other national security advisers follow a wave of weekend airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition in eastern Syria.

The briefing comes a little over a year after Islamic State militants burst out of Syria and captured much of northwestern Iraq, laying bare the frailty of Iraqi security forces and the vulnerability of the Baghdad government following the US military withdrawal in 2011.

President Obama (L) is flanked by military leaders as he delivers remarks after a briefing on USA efforts against the Islamic State (ISIS), at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., July 6, 2015.

An elderly man, against the backdrop of the notorious IS flag, reads a document to the assembled crowd while IS fighters stand behind the captives, kneeling with their hands tied at the back.

Six bank workers have been sacked after filming a mock Islamic State-style execution during a team-building exercise.

Play video “22 May: Town Under I.S. Control”.

Separate from the Syrian Kurds, the United States is training about 190 moderate Syrians at sites in Jordan and Turkey with the aim of sending them back into battle to defend their hometowns against the Islamic State.

John McCain, R-Ariz., said the Obama administration’s failure to contain the Islamic State not only shows fundamental flaws in the president’s foreign policy but also should force a reassessment into whether USA forces are being withdrawn from Afghanistan too quickly.

“But it’s wrong to expect that Turkey would undertake such a unilateral intervention in the immediate term if there is no such risk”, Davutoglu said.

ISIL-controlled territory contains some of the richest archaeological treasures on earth in a region where ancient Assyrian empires built their capitals, Graeco-Roman civilisation flourished, and Muslim and Christian sects co-existed for centuries.

Explaining the move, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it was created to protect the country’s border if Turkish security comes under threat.

Islamic State group militants have released a video that apparently shows a mass execution within the ruins of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra.

“The ongoing destruction of Palmyra’s cultural artifacts reflects the brutality and ignorance of extremist groups and their disregard of local communities and the Syrian people”, decaled UNESCO chief Irina Bokova, strongly condemning this new assault on Palmyra,...

Israel has strongly resisted allegations its troops violated global law, claims that could have serious implications after Palestinians joined the global Criminal Court, where they are pursuing war crimes charges against Israel.

The attack took place the day after an unprecedented violence by Islamic State linked extremists in the restive peninsula that undermined government efforts to stem an insurgency in the area a two year crack down.