Iran's Supreme Leader has approved co-operation with the US as part of the fight against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, sources have told BBC Persian.

Ayatollah Khamenei has authorised his top commander to co-ordinate military operations with the US, Iraqi and Kurdish forces, sources in Tehran say.

Iran has traditionally opposed US involvement in Iraq, an Iranian ally.

However, Shia Iran sees the extremist Sunni IS group, which views Shias as heretics, as a serious threat.

Last month US air strikes helped Iranian-backed Shia militia and Kurdish forces break a two-month siege by Islamic State of the Shia town of Amerli.

IS has taken over swathes of northern and western Iraq and eastern Syria in recent months.

US forces began carrying out air strikes on IS positions in August after they took over several cities in northern Iraq.
Elite unit

Ayatollah Khamenei has previously objected to outside "interference" - including by the US - in Iraq.

Now, Iran seems to have taken steps to work closer with the United States, says BBC Persian's Kasra Naji.

Sources say Ayatollah Khamenei has sanctioned Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force - an elite overseas unit of the Revolutionary Guards - to work with forces fighting IS, including the US.
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Iran's Gen Qasem Soleimani
Major-General Qasem Soleimani Iran's Gen Qasem Soleimani has been planning a strategy to curb further advances of IS fighters

    Commander of the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guard's elite overseas operations arm
    Widely credited with the strategy that helped Syria's government recapture key cities and towns from rebels
    More recently has been in Baghdad strengthening defences with the help of Iraqi Shia militias to stem the advance of IS
    Internet photos place him in northern Iraq at the time the siege of Amerli was broken

Iran's Qasem Soleimani wields power behind the scenes in Iraq
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Gen Soleimani has been active in the past few months in strengthening the defences of Baghdad with the help of Iraqi Shia militias.

His picture has appeared on the internet showing him in northern Iraq around the time of the breaking of the siege of Amerli - an indication that this co-operation may have already started.
'No boots on the ground'

Meanwhile, Nato leaders meeting at a summit in Wales say they want to form a military coalition to take on IS.
Iraqi Peshmerga fighters gesture as they take position at a post near the jihadist-held city of Zumar in Mosul province on 4 September 2014 Kurdish forces, pictured here, fighting with Iraqi soldiers have pushed IS back from parts of northern Iraq
An Iraqi Peshmerga fighter scans the area as he holds a position at a post near the jihadist-held city of Zumar in Mosul province - 4 September 2014 The US has been helping the offensive by carrying out air strikes on IS positions
A woman looks out from her tent at an internally displaced persons camp in Irbil, Iraq on Thursday 4 September 2014 Hundreds of thousands of people from communities targeted by IS have fled their homes

"We need to attack them in ways that prevent them from taking over territory, to bolster the Iraqi security forces and others in the region who are prepared to take them on, without committing troops of our own," Reuters news agency quotes US Secretary of State John Kerry as saying.

"Obviously I think that's a red line for everybody here: No boots on the ground," he said.

The brutality of IS - including mass killings and abductions of members of religious and ethnic minorities, as well as the beheadings of soldiers and journalists - has sparked outrage across the world.

Last month Iraqi and Kurdish forces pushed IS back from parts of northern Iraq, but the group still controls what it has declared as a caliphate stretching across Syria and Iraq.

Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the US and Iran have had a fraught relationship.

Washington severed ties the following year after Iranian students occupied the US embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage.
Map of IS areas of control