As the West weighs ups its next move in tackling Islamic State, on the frontline Kurdish forces are battling to oust the Sunni jihadists from two towns in northern Iraq.<br /><br />Along with government forces, the Peshmerga are trying to recapture Jalawla and Saadiya, both near the Iranian border.<br /><br />It follows their success in retaking the strategically crucial Mosul dam, with American air support and with Western weapons now being sent in to help.<br /><br />The US is pursuing its air strikes despite Islamic State’s threat to murder a second American hostage, a warning made in its video of the beheading of journalist James Foley.<br /><br />With sectarian tensions raging, reports say at least 70 people have been killed in a suicide bombing and shooting at a Sunni mosque near Baquba.<br /><br />That is set to complicate Baghdad’s bid to build a cross-community government to fight the Islamic State insurgency.<br /><br />In the Kurdish capital Irbil, weapons are selling well with locals fearing the arrival of an extremist movement branded by the US as ‘beyond just a terrorist group’.
