While most of the media's attention has been focused on northern Iraq and IS(ISIS) advances there against Iraqi Peshmerga forces, the Iraqi military has been attacking IS positions in central Iraq.
This has partly been to keep IS forces in central Iraq occupied so that they couldn't be transferred to northern Iraq.
Today there are reports that Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar Governorate ~100 km west of Baghdad, has been retaken by the Iraqi military.
There are also reports that the Iraqi military is making progress in other areas of the Anbar Governorate and in Tikrit.
The Iraqi Air Force is also bombing locations near Mosul and Jalawla in support of Peshmerga forces.
I have also been hearing interesting news from Syria.
Reportedly IS is once again pushing towards Azaz, the town north of Aleppo where Sen. McCain met with 'rebels', and may be less than 10 km from the town.
Their aim is to retake control of the border crossing just north of Azaz, this would reduce the number of 'rebel' controlled border crossings on the Turkish-Syrian border to one.
I have also been hearing that IS has been suffering setbacks in the parts of Syria east of the Euphrates under their control as Syrian Kurdish forces have been able to defeat IS attacks on them and some Arab tribes have begun to rebel against IS in these areas.