Erbil, northern Iraq: The Arab League has endorsed international action against the radical Islamic State and vowed to take all necessary measures to confront the "corrupt, immoral" militants who now control large parts of northern Iraq and Syria.
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The secretary-general of the League, Nabil al-Araby, warned the rise of Islamic State threatened the "very existence" of other states, and criticised members for not challenging the insurgent group sooner.
A UN Security Council resolution passed last month calling on member states to "act to suppress the flow of foreign fighters, financing and other support to Islamist extremist groups in Iraq and Syria" was also endorsed at the meeting on Sunday.
It came as US President Barack Obama flagged that the US was planning to go on the offensive to stop the advance of the Sunni insurgents.
In an interview on NBC on Sunday, he said: "There's going to be a military element to it … over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL.
"We are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control. And ultimately we're going to defeat them."
President Obama is expected to outline the US strategy in detail in a speech on Wednesday, but told NBC it was "not going to be an announcement about US ground troops".
NATO allies also agreed to join international efforts to fight the Islamic State at the summit in Wales which wrapped up over the weekend.
Meanwhile the US expanded its air strikes to hit insurgent positions near the strategic Haditha Dam in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province in the west of Iraq.
Until now US military activity had focused on northern Iraq and it was understood that any airstrikes on Sunni-dominated areas would be delayed until a new Iraqi government is sworn in, to avoid the perception that the US was doing the bidding of a Shiite-dominated government.
The Iraqi parliament is due to convene today to vote on Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi's proposed cabinet, Agence France-Presse reports. There is some speculation that outgoing prime minister Nouri al-Maliki may not secure a cabinet post.
The four air strikes, conducted "at the request of the government of Iraq" around the dam, destroyed several IS Humvees, an armed vehicle, a checkpoint and a bunker, a statement from US Central Command said.
"We conducted these strikes to prevent terrorists from further threatening the security of the dam, which remains under control of Iraqi Security Forces, with support from Sunni tribes," Pentagon Press Secretary Rear-Admiral John Kirby said on Sunday.
The hydroelectric dam provides water and electricity to millions of Iraqis and there have long been fears that Islamist militants would use it to flood nearby villages, potentially crippling the entire province.
There was also another US air strike near Mosul Dam, bringing the total number of airstrikes to 138, Admiral Kirby said.
Kurdish forces backed by US air strikes have also retaken the important Zartak Mountain, which lies between Mosul, Iraq's second city that was the first to fall to Islamic State insurgents on June 10, and Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
At least 25 IS militants died in the battle, including Iraqi and foreign fighters, a Kurdish Peshmerga involved in the battle said, in what many hope is the prelude to a battle to regain Mosul.
Along with controlling the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, Islamic State militants have waged a campaign of terror against Iraq's religious and ethnic minorities, killing thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, human rights groups say.
Up to 1.8 million Iraqis have been displaced by the violence, the United Nations says, while others remain trapped in villages and towns with dwindling supplies of food and water.
