US strikes Islamic State targets near Iraqi Kurdish capital

The strikes, launched by drone aircraft and US fighter jets, were aimed at protecting Kurdish Peshmerga forces as they face off against Islamist militants near Arbil, the site of a US consulate and a US-Iraqi joint military operations centre, Central Command said in a statement.

"At approximately 2.15am EDT, US aircraft struck and destroyed an (Islamic State) armed truck that was firing on Kurdish forces located in the approaches to Arbil," Central Command said. Four other strikes on armed trucks and a mortar position followed, it said.

The Obama administration, last week, began a campaign of air strikes and humanitarian air drops in northern Iraq, where militants are threatening religious minorities and encroaching on the Kurdish capital. The strikes are the first Washington has conducted in Iraq since President Barack Obama withdrew the last US troops at the end of 2011.

The Iraqi government, on Sunday, said the militants, who have dealt harshly with civilians and members of Iraqi security forces since they swept into northern Iraq in June, had killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority, burying some alive and taking hundreds of women as slaves.

'Kurdish forces seize back two towns from insurgents'

Kurdish forces, supported by US air strikes, took back two towns in northern Iraq from Islamic State militants but it will take time to turn the tide of the conflict, a senior Kurdish official told Reuters.

Hoshiyar Zebari said the Kurds had recaptured the towns of Guwair and Makhmur. Asked how long the United States would have to continue airstrikes to help the Kurds defeat the Islamic State, Zebari said: "As President Obama said, there is no time limit."

US President Barack Obama, on Saturday, had said that it would take some time to tackle Islamic State fighters whose latest push through northern Iraq has rattled the Baghdad government and its Western allies.

Pope says the violence in Iraq offends God and humanity

Pope Francis said that violence and destruction in Iraq offends God and humanity and he held a silent prayer for victims of the conflict during his weekly address in Rome on Sunday.

"We are left incredulous and dismayed by the news coming from Iraq," the Argentine-born pontiff said, two days after the United States began air strikes to tackle an insurgency that threatens to tear the country apart.

"Thousands of people, among them many Christians, banished brutally from their houses, children dying of hunger and thirst as they flee, women kidnapped, people massacred, violence of all kinds, destruction everywhere ... All of this deeply offends God and deeply offends humanity."

A hush fell over the crowd in Saint Peter's Square after Francis, who has been tweeting calls to pray for the people of Iraq over the last two days, interrupted his prepared speech to ask for a moment of silence. Francis thanked volunteers in Iraq and said his personal envoy Cardinal Fernando Filoni would leave Rome for Iraq on Monday, "to assure those dear people that I am near them".

The pope also said a failed ceasefire in Gaza could only worsen conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and prayed for victims of the Ebola virus and those working to stop it.