A summit of international foreign ministers has pledged to help Iraq fight Islamic State (IS) militants "by all means necessary", reports BBC News.
A joint statement by the 30 countries taking part in the Paris talks said support would include "appropriate military assistance".
The talks had been called to agree a strategy to combat the group.
The conference followed a whirlwind tour of the Middle East by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Mr Kerry, who attended the summit, has been drumming up support for a plan of action unveiled by President Barack Obama last week.
The murder of British aid worker David Haines by IS militants, shown in a video released by the group on Saturday, has added momentum to the plans, says the BBC's Lucy Williamson in Paris.
Opening the summit, French President François Hollande said the threat posed by IS militants needed a global response.
"The terrorist threat is global and the response must be global," he said. "There is no time to lose.''
Islamic State controls large parts of Iraq and Syria. The CIA estimates that the group could have as many as 30,000 fighters in the region.
'Bigger threat'
Iraqi President Fuad Masum, who co-hosted the conference with Mr Hollande, said the international community must pursue the jihadists "quickly".
"If this intervention and support to Iraq is late, that means that Islamic State could occupy more territory and the threat it poses will be even bigger," he said.
The summit closed a few hours later with a joint statement saying the participants were "committed to supporting the new Iraqi government in its fight... by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance".
Earlier, France said it had begun surveillance flights over Iraq. Britain revealed in August that its aircraft had been gathering intelligence over Iraq.
Several Arab countries have offered to take part in air strikes on IS fighters in Iraq, US officials say.
Turkey, however, will only allow humanitarian and logistical operations from the Nato air base on its soil.
Mr Kerry said he was "extremely encouraged" by promises of military assistance to tackle the militant group.
The US strategy to weaken the group centres on military support for Iraq but also includes plans to stop foreign fighters from joining the group, cutting its funding streams and trying to counter its ideology.
The Paris conference was aimed at defining the role each member state will play.
Read more of this report from BBC News.
See also: The 'unprecedented' danger of the IS, and why the key to its defeat may lie in Syria