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While al-Maliki may not like Syrian attacks on Iraqi territory, "if it distracts the Islamic State from its trek towards Baghdad for a while, then they will welcome it," said Robert Ford, former U.S. ambassador to Syria.
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• DENVER (AP) -- The first ruling by a federal appeals court that states cannot prevent gay couples from marrying makes it more likely the Supreme Court will ultimately have to make a decision it has so far avoided -- do states have the ability to prohibit same-sex marriage?
• The court danced around that question precisely one year ago when it issued a pair of rulings on gay marriage. At the time, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer warned about the high court trying to enforce societal changes through judicial fiat, with Ginsberg citing the lingering abortion rights battle ever since the court legalized the practice in Roe v. Wade.
• The high court's caution was evident in its rulings: It upheld a decision striking down California's gay marriage ban but relied on technicalities rather than finding a national right for same sex couples to marry. Then it struck down parts of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, finding same-sex marriages from states where the practice was legal must be recognized.
• That decision triggered an avalanche of 17 straight court decisions upholding the rights of gays to marry, including Wednesday's 2-1 ruling from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, the highest court to weigh in since the Supreme Court. Utah, whose gay marriage ban was struck down in the decision, is considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.
• "This tees it up for possible Supreme Court review," said William Eskridge, a law professor at Yale University. "When a federal appeals court strikes down a major state law, there is a lot more pressure for the justices to take that."
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• MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- After more than a decade of helping fight Islamic militants, the United States is disbanding an anti-terror contingent of hundreds of elite American troops in the southern Philippines where armed groups such as Abu Sayyaf have largely been crippled, officials said Thursday.

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