BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Friday forged a unified response to the rapid advance of Islamic militants in Iraq and the resulting refugee crisis, allowing direct arms deliveries to Kurdish fighters battling the Sunni insurgents. Several EU nations pledged more humanitarian aid.

The emergency meeting of the bloc's 28 foreign ministers in Brussels marked a shift toward greater involvement in Iraq, following weeks during which the Europeans mainly considered the situation an American problem because of the 2003 U.S.-led Iraq invasion.

EU ministers pledged to step up efforts to help those fleeing advancing Islamic State militants, with several nations announcing they will fly dozens of tons of aid to northern Iraq over the coming days.

"First of all, we need to make sure that we alleviate humanitarian suffering," Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans told reporters. "Secondly, I believe we need to make sure that (Islamic State) is not in a position to overrun the Kurds or to take a stronger hold on Iraq."

France has pledged to ship weapons to the Kurds and Britain is delivering ammunition and military supplies obtained from eastern European nations and is considering sending more weaponry. Germany, the Netherlands and others said they would also consider requests to arm the Kurds.

Europe's initiative came as Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed to step down after weeks of insisting on a third four-year term. His departure could pave the way for a more inclusive Iraqi government and strengthen Baghdad's position in battling the Sunni insurgency.

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An airmen directs the loading of cargo into a Transall transport aircraft of German Bundeswehr at th …

A veteran Shiite lawmaker, Haider al-Abadi, now faces the challenge of forming a stable government in Iraq and engaging Sunni politicians, who say their disenfranchisement under al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government fueled support for the insurgency among the Sunni minority.

The EU foreign ministers called on al-Abadi to urgently form a government that will be "inclusive and able to address the needs and legitimate aspirations of all the Iraqi citizens."

U.S. and EU officials have said they can beef up their support for Iraq once a stable government is in place.

"It is not simply Iraq or Syria that find themselves threatened, it is the world," French President Francois Hollande said in a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Provence. "France decided to come to their aid, both humanitarian and military. And today another initiative emerged — Europe decided at last to do the same, because it is our duty. ... It is there that the future of our continent is being decided."

The IS militants' advances have brought danger closer to European shores: Officials say about 1,700 radical Muslims from France, Britain and Germany alone are believed to have joined the fighting. And there are fears those militants could bring their radicalism home: A radical French Islamist who had fought in Syria is suspected of killing four people at Brussels' Jewish Museum in May.

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Graphic highlights countries with level 3 emergencies declared by the U.N including, Iraq, Syria, Ce …

The decision to send arms to the Kurds is an attempt to deal with an immediate crisis "in a defensible way, which is relying overwhelmingly on sympathetic local forces," said Jeffrey Anderson, a Georgetown University analyst. But he added the long-term consequences could be far-reaching.

"You're strengthening the centrifugal forces within the country. You're making it more likely that what you're emerging with is not a unified Iraq," he said. "That's the price you have to pay for solving this crisis."

The IS group swiftly advanced across northern and western Iraq in June, routing the Iraqi military and taking the country's second-largest city, Mosul. Thousands of people have been killed and more than 1.5 million have been displaced.

The plight this month of thousands of Yazidis, a religious minority who fled from advancing IS militants and were trapped on a forbidding mountain range, was key to pushing Europe toward taking action.

In New York, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said close to 80,000 people are now estimated to have reached Kurdistan arriving from the Sinjar mountains.

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German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen stands in front of a Transall transport aircraft of Ger …

France, Britain, Italy and Germany have stepped up humanitarian aid and are delivering dozens of tons of aid to the refugees in Iraq, including food, drinking water and medical supplies.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was flying to Iraq over the weekend to meet with Kurdish leaders and the government in Baghdad to discuss what support is most needed.

Kurdistan, which took in tens of thousands of refugees over the past weeks, will not only need short-term humanitarian aid but also long-term support to accommodate the displaced, Steinmeier said.

"This will very quickly challenge and probably overwhelm the infrastructure in Irbil and the region," he added.

In a joint statement, the EU foreign ministers also endorsed the decision by some member nations "to respond positively to the call by the Kurdish regional authorities to provide urgently needed military material" as long as it is done in concert with Iraq's central government.

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French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, left, speaks with Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard d …

Some had cautioned before the meeting that arming the Kurds could eventually strengthen their bid for independence from Iraq — and those European-provided weapons eventually could be used against Baghdad's own soldiers.

Steinmeier said it was still unclear what arms the Kurds would request or get, but acknowledged there was "no decision without risk in that regard."

The Islamic State is acting "with a military force and brutality that has surprised almost everybody worldwide," Steinmeier said.

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Hinnant reported from Paris. Danica Kirka in London, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Geir Moulson in Berlin also contributed.

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BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union offered Friday to take charge of Gaza's border crossings and work to prevent illegal arms flows, insisting on a durable truce and saying a return to the status quo before the latest war "is not an option."

As EU foreign ministers held an urgent meeting in Brussels about global conflicts, Hamas negotiators met with the Islamic militant group's leadership in Qatar to discuss a proposal for a long-term truce with Israel. An official said the group was inclined to accept the Egyptian-mediated offer.

The Gaza blockade remains the main stumbling block. It has greatly limited the movement of Palestinians in and out of the territory of 1.8 million people, restricted the flow of goods into Gaza and blocked virtually all exports.

The EU is prepared "to play a strong role" in managing the crossings while assuring that Israel's security is guaranteed, said the 28-nation bloc's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.

The EU offered to reactivate and extend its monitoring of the Rafah crossing with Egypt and other border posts, provided there will be a U.N. Security Council mandate for the mission and a sustainable cease-fire in place. In addition, the EU says Israel must lift its blockade to allow "a fundamental improvement in the living conditions for the Palestinian people in Gaza."

The EU foreign ministers said the bloc is also prepared to prevent arms smuggling and launch a training program for Palestinian Authority police and customs officers to be deployed in Gaza.

Renewed Gaza truce holds after rocky startPlay Video

"The situation in the Gaza Strip has been unsustainable for many years and a return to the status quo prior to the latest conflict is not an option," they said.

Israel and Hamas are observing a five-day temporary cease-fire in an attempt to allow indirect talks in Cairo to continue. The negotiations are meant to secure a substantive end to the monthlong Gaza war and draw up a roadmap for the coastal territory, which has been hard-hit in the fighting.

Hamas is demanding the lifting of the blockade Israel and Egypt imposed after the militant group seized power in Gaza in 2007.

The proposal is believed to include the lifting of some restrictions, with Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' forces assuming responsibility for border crossings under new arrangements with Egypt.

Israeli officials have said little about the negotiations, saying only that the country's security needs must be met.

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Representatives of Palestinian factions in Cairo said progress was being made. A Hamas official said his group had all but accepted the offer and was currently finalizing the wording.

"The proposed agreement states in many places that lifting the blockade will come through measures and mechanisms agreed upon between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and this means Israel will always have the upper hand," he said.

That has raised concerns that Israel could re-impose the closures, returning the situation to what it was before the war, he said.

But he also said the emerging deal would end hostilities and answer some immediate Hamas needs, including providing materials for reconstruction. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were still ongoing.

Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent arms smuggling, and officials are reluctant to make any concessions that would allow Hamas to declare victory.

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Hamas supporters shout slogans to support people in Gaza and Palestinian negotiators in Cairo, Egypt …

Israel, meanwhile, has demanded that Hamas be disarmed — a non-starter for the militant group — or at the very least be prevented from re-arming.

Hamas has recovered from previous rounds of violence with Israel, including a major three-week air and ground operation in January 2009 and another weeklong air offensive in 2012. It still has an arsenal of several thousand rockets, some of which can reach major Israeli cities.

The current cease-fire is the longest to be declared since the war broke out last month. The fighting has so far killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, according to Palestinian and U.N. officials. Israel has lost 67 people, all but three of them soldiers.

In Europe, leaders insisted Israel and the Palestinians must yield ground to eventually achieve a sustainable two-state solution.

"In Gaza, it is not enough for the weapons to lay quiet," French President Francois Hollande said at an event marking the 70th anniversary of the Allied invasion of southern France's Provence region. "We need for all peoples to live in security and dignity in a state of their own."

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European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton, right, speaks with Italian Foreign Minister Fed …

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Daraghmeh reported from Cairo. Angela Charlton in Paris contributed reporting.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Missouri police department at the center of an uproar over the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager acquired two armored Humvees and other military gear for free through a Pentagon program that critics blame for "militarizing America's Main Streets" and aggravating clashes between police and protesters.

The Ferguson Police Department received the two Humvees as well as a generator and a flatbed trailer under the surplus equipment program run by the Defense Logistics Agency, which is in charge of getting supplies of all types for the military.

News footage and photos of police outfitted in paramilitary gear clashing with protesters in Ferguson — a largely black suburb of St. Louis with a mostly white police force — have provided new impetus to efforts to rein in the Pentagon program. It provides assault weapons and other surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies across the country.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his committee will review the program to determine if the Defense Department surplus is being used as intended.

The program began in 1990 as a way to help states and local agencies fight drug-related crime. It was expanded in the mid-1990s.

"Congress established this program out of real concern that local law enforcement agencies were literally outgunned by drug criminals," Levin said in a statement Friday. "We intended this equipment to keep police officers and their communities safe from heavily armed drug gangs and terrorist incidents."

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Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., plans to introduce legislation when Congress returns in September to curb what he describes as an increasing militarization of police across the country. Police responding to protesters angry about the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown wore riot gear and deployed tear gas, dogs and armored vehicles, sometimes pointing assault rifles at protesters.

"Our Main Streets should be a place for business, families and relaxation, not tanks and M16s," Johnson said in a statement. "Militarizing America's Main Streets won't make us any safer, just more fearful and more reticent."

A spokeswoman for the logistics agency said its Law Enforcement Support Office distributed nearly $450 million worth of equipment last year ranging from blankets and computers to armored vehicles, boats and assault weapons. About 8,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide participate in the program, known as 1033 for its section in the National Defense Authorization Act, said spokeswoman Michelle McCaskill.

Weapons account for just 5 percent of the equipment distributed, McCaskill said.

St. Louis County, which includes Ferguson, has received a dozen 5.56mm rifles, half a dozen .45-caliber pistols, night-vision goggles and a bomb-disposing robot in recent years, the defense agency said.

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An armored personnel carrier speeds down the street Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo. Prote …

The 1033 program is just one of several federal programs that provide military-style equipment to local police. The Homeland Security Department offers grants for armored vehicles and other equipment, while the Justice Department provides grants for rubber bullets, tear gas and other equipment used to control crowds.

Homeland Security grant money paid for the $360,000 Bearcat armored truck on patrol in Ferguson, said Nick Gragnani, executive director of St. Louis Area Regional Response System, which administers such grants for the St. Louis area.

Since 2003, the group has spent $9.4 million on equipment for police in St. Louis County. Most of the body armor worn by officers responding to the Ferguson protests was paid for with federal money, Gragnani said.

"We are given 15 different scenarios we are supposed to be prepared for, and one of those is terrorist attacks or civil unrest," Gragnani said Friday. "Those are the response capabilities we are building up for in the St. Louis area."

Kara Dansky, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the police response in Ferguson is just the latest example of what she called the excessive militarization of policing. Heavily armed Special Weapons and Tactics groups, or SWAT teams, are forcing their way into people's homes across the country, often with little justification, she said.

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Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson releases the name of the the officer accused of fatally shootin …

"Neighborhoods are not war zones, and our police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies," said Dansky, the lead author of a June report on the issue.

Militarization encourages officers to adopt a "warrior" mentality and think of the people they are supposed to serve as enemies, Dansky said. The ACLU report outlined a number of examples of equipment transfers that it said were cause for concern. For example, police in North Little Rock, Arkansas, obtained at least 34 automatic and semi-automatic rifles, two robots capable of being armed and a tactical vehicle. Many of those weapons could not be accounted for later.

Attorney General Eric Holder said he was concerned that use of military equipment by police in Ferguson was sending a "conflicting message."

The response by law enforcement to protests "must seek to reduce tensions, not heighten them," Holder said. The Justice Department and FBI are investigating Brown's death.

Johnson said his bill would limit the kinds of military equipment that can be transferred to local police and require states to certify that they can account for all equipment received.

He said he is disturbed by reports that some weapons and other equipment distributed to police have gone missing. He also expressed concern that the militarization trend has moved beyond local police departments and sheriff's offices, saying Ohio State University recently acquired a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle, or MRAP.

"Apparently, college kids are getting too rowdy," Johnson said.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a possible GOP presidential contender in 2016, blamed the trend on the federal government.

"Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies — where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement," Paul wrote in an opinion column in Time magazine.

"There should be a difference between a police response and a military response" Paul said.

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Baghdad (AFP) - Jihadists carried out a "massacre" in the northern Iraqi village of Kocho, killing dozens of people, most of them members of the Yazidi religious minority, officials said on Saturday.

Jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group are carrying out attacks against minorities in Iraq's Nineveh province, prompting tens of thousands of people to flee.

"We have information from multiple sources, in the region and through intelligence, that (on Friday) afternoon, a convoy of (IS) armed men entered this village," senior Iraqi official Hoshyar Zebari told AFP.

"They took their revenge on its inhabitants, who happened to be mostly Yazidis who did not flee their homes," Zebari said, referring to a religious community regarded as heretics by jihadists.

"They committed a massacre against the people," he said. "Around 80 of them have been killed."

Harim Kamal Agha, a senior official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party in Dohuk province, which borders Nineveh, put the death toll at 81 and said the militants had taken women to prisons they control.

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An image made available on the jihadist website Welayat Salahuddin on June 11, 2014 shows militants …

And Mohsen Tawwal, a Yazidi fighter, told AFP by telephone that he saw a large number of bodies in the village.

"We made it into a part of Kocho village, where residents were under siege, but we were too late," he said.

"There were corpses everywhere. We only managed to get two people out alive. The rest had all been killed."

Jihadist-led insurgents launched a major offensive in June that began in Nineveh and swept security forces aside, overrunning large areas of five provinces.

In one of the most dramatic chapters of the conflict, the militants stormed the Sinjar area of northwestern Iraq earlier this month prompting tens of thousands of people, many of them Yazidis, to take refugee in the mountains.

Kurdish fighters on the ground and US air strikes eventually helped most of those trapped to escape after more than 10 days under siege, but some remain in the mountains.

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Anger spurred by the death of a black teenager at the hands of white police officer boiled over again when protesters stormed into a Missouri convenience store — the same store that Michael Brown was accused of robbing.

Police and about 200 protesters clashed in Ferguson, Missouri late Friday after another tense day in the St. Louis suburb, a day that included authorities identifying the officer who fatally shot Brown on Aug. 9. At the same news conference in which officer Darren Wilson was named, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson released documents alleging that Brown stole a $48.99 box of cigars from the convenience store, then strong-armed a man on his way out.

Just before midnight, some in what had been a large and rowdy but mostly well-behaved crowd broke into that same small store and began looting it, said Missouri State Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson.

Some in the crowd began throwing rocks and other objects at police, Johnson said. One officer was hurt but details on the injury were not immediately available.

Johnson said police backed off to try and ease the tension. He believes looting may have spread to a couple of nearby stores. No arrests were made.

"We had to evaluate the security of the officers there and also the rioters," Johnson said. "We just felt it was better to move back."

Brown Family: Video Is 'Character Assassinatio …Play Video

Meanwhile, peaceful protesters yelled at the aggressors to stop what they were doing. About a dozen people eventually blocked off the front of the convenience store to help protect it.

Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday appointed Johnson to take over security after concerns were raised about how local police had used tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters earlier in the week. Johnson said one tear gas canister was deployed Friday night after the group of rioters became unruly.

Jackson's decision to spell out the allegations that Brown committed the robbery, and his releasing of surveillance video, angered attorneys for Brown's family and others, including U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay. Earlier Friday night, the Democratic congressman took a bullhorn and told protesters, "They have attempted to taint the investigation. They are trying to influence a jury pool by the stunt they pulled today."

Family attorney Daryl Parks acknowledged that the man shown in the surveillance footage "appears to be" Brown. But he and others said Brown's family was blindsided by the allegations and release of the footage. They said that even if it was Brown, the crime didn't justify the shooting of a teen after he put up his hands in surrender to the officer, as witnesses allege.

Another family attorney, Benjamin Crump, said police "are choosing to disseminate information that is very strategic to try to help them justify the execution-style" killing, said Crump, who also represented the family of Trayvon Martin, the teenager fatally shot by a Florida neighborhood watch organizer who was later acquitted of murder.

Police: Michael Brown Shot After Store RobberyPlay Video

The surveillance video appears to show a man wearing a ball cap, shorts and white T-shirt grabbing a much shorter man by his shirt near the store's door. A police report alleges that Brown grabbed the man who had come from behind the store counter and "forcefully pushed him back" into a display rack.

Police said they found evidence of the stolen merchandise on Brown's body.

Brown's family and supporters have been pushing for release of the officer's name. Wilson is a six-year police veteran — two in neighboring Jennings and four in Ferguson — and had no previous complaints filed against him, Jackson said.

The police chief described Wilson as "a gentle, quiet man" who had been "an excellent officer." Wilson has been on paid administrative leave since the shooting. St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch said it could be weeks before the investigation of the shooting wraps up.

St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley on Friday asked Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster to take over the case, saying he did not believe McCulloch could be objective. Koster said Missouri law does not allow it unless McCulloch opts out. McCulloch spokesman Ed Magee said McCulloch has no plans to surrender the case.

Also Friday, the Justice Department confirmed in a statement that FBI agents had conducted several interviews with witnesses as part of a civil-rights investigation into Brown's death. In the days ahead, the agents planned to canvass the neighborhood where the shooting happened, seeking more information, the statement said.

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AP reporters David Lieb and Alan Scher Zagier in Ferguson, and Jim Suhr in St. Louis, contributed to this report.

Police, protesters clash again in Ferguson

Protests were peaceful until a crowd broke into the store Michael Brown allegedly robbed the day he was killed.
Police use teargas