The taking of the Mosul Dam on the Tigris River from ISIS by Peshmerga forces backed by US air power highlights the strategic nature of water in the multi-sided Iraq conflict.
ISIS fighters are accused of executing some 700 tribesmen who rose against them in eastern Syria, as Bashar Assad said he is ready to back Kurdish forces against the jihadis.
A Yazidi militia group has entered the fight against ISIS, clashing with militants near Sinjar—while Baghdad's army command objected to foreign military aid to Kurdish forces.
ISIS fighters carried out a massacre of Yazidis at an occupied village, while Hezbollah militiamen are accused in a massacre of Sunni Arab residents in central Iraq.
The US dropped plans for a rescue mission for besieged Yazidis—over the protests of Yazidi leaders—as the "terrorist" PKK joined US-backed Peshmerga in the fight against ISIS.
Obama dispatched 130 new military advisors to Iraqi Kurdistan, but is resisting the Kurdistan government's appeal for more arms to fight ISIS. France has pledged new arms shipments.
Some 150,000 Shabaks and 250,000 Turkmen as well as 200,000 Yazidis and 100,000 Christians have been displaced by the ISIS onslaught in northern Iraq.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces with US air cover started to drive back ISIS from Erbil—but Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's refusal to step down is driving Sunnis into the arms of the jihadists.
Egypt called for an "Arab Alliance" to halt an ISIS advance on the Gulf States, as US air-strikes hit ISIS positions near Sinjar. Obama said there is no "timetable" for the strikes to end.
US jets and drones carried out air-strikes outside Erbil in an effort to drive back the ISIS advance on the Kurdish regional capital, while Iraqi warplanes struck near Mosul.
In authorizing US air-strikes in northern Iraq, President Obama invoked the responsibility to protect the Yazidis from ISIS and avert a potential "genocide."
The capture of an ISIS commander by the Lebanese army prompted Syrian jihadist forces to seize a village in the Bekaa Valley, sparking gun battles that have left some 20 dead.
