After drawing down to 4,500 troops this fall, the number of U.S. forces in the country is expected to be further reduced to 2,500 in January. Some have said that cut, ordered by President Donald Trump this month, could leave a security vacuum.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul will soon resume processing thousands of stalled special visa applications for Afghans who aided U.S. forces after halting visa interviews in March because of the pandemic.

Thirty-seven years after terrorists exploded a truck bomb in a Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing 241 U.S. military personnel, Iran has started to pay.

Albania's Defense Ministry on Wednesday reported the death of a soldier in Afghanistan, the second from the tiny Western Balkan country to die during the international peacekeeping mission.

Special operations forces were the first deployed in the war in Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago and likely will be the last troops to leave the country, acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said after visiting U.S. forces and American military leadership in Afghanistan on Tuesday.

As the year ends, we pay tribute to the 10 American service members who died in Afghanistan in 2020.

U.S. Central Command is now responsible for coordinating military activities with Israel, taking over a job that for decades was the task of U.S. European Command, The Wall Street Journal reported.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted a full pardon to Aviem Sella, the handler of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, as part of the outgoing president's spree of clemency actions in his last hours in office.

An American woman who helped her husband and brother-in-law join the Islamic State in Syria by smuggling cash and gold overseas has been sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison after pleading guilty to financing terrorism.

Blackouts are not new in Iran, where an aging and subsidized electricity sector is plagued by alleged mismanagement. Only this time, government officials say that bitcoin mining at so-called cryptocurrency farms is partly to blame.

Gallery

Three decades ago, Kirby Lee Vaughn prepared to cross into Iraq as part of Operation Desert Storm. The Army sergeant had brought his Canon T-70 camera into the desert to capture the experiences of his unit.

The DOD mandate requires service members, civilian employees, contractors and family members to have proof of a negative test result for COVID-19 within 72 hours of departing for their destination.

Six Afghans who worked at Bagram Airfield were shot dead Thursday just outside the base, an Afghan official said.

Movie audiences can experience one of America’s most decorated battles of the ongoing war in Afghanistan as “The Outpost,” a veteran-directed film on the 2009 Battle of Kamdesh, hits theaters and on-demand streaming services July 3.

Leaders across the globe welcomed the arrival of U.S. President Joe Biden and the end of the often confrontational presidency of Donald Trump, noting the world's most pressing problems, including the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, require multilateral cooperation, an approach Trump ridiculed.

The Navy’s top officer visited a warship in the Persian Gulf this week after ongoing tensions with Iran led the Pentagon to extend an aircraft carrier group’s deployment to the region.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has spent much of his long career casting Israel's Arab minority as a potential fifth column led by terrorist sympathizers, is now openly courting their support as he seeks reelection in the country's fourth vote in less than two years.

Nearly every day, workers sort through shipping containers from Kandahar Airfield in hopes of finding anything that U.S. and NATO troops withdrawing from Afghanistan don’t want that Afghans can sell.

“When we started this, people asked why I was going, and my response was, ‘So my sons don’t have to fight this war,’” said Master Sgt. Trevor deBoer, who has deployed to Afghanistan three times.

Pakistan on Wednesday successfully test-fired a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of about 1,700 miles, the military said.

Sunday marks the longest span between U.S. combat deaths of the nearly 19-year war in Afghanistan, even while fighting continues between the Taliban and U.S.-allied Afghan government forces.

The Islamic State group fired several rockets at Bagram Airfield on Thursday, the latest in a string of recent attacks targeting the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan.

Piles of plush carpets line the floors of a northern Iraq shopping center hosting traders from neighboring Iran who hope the spangle of their ornate handicrafts might offer a lifeline out of poverty.

The United States has reduced troop levels in Afghanistan to 2,500, the lowest number since the war’s earliest months, despite recent passage of a federal law that sought to prevent an immediate drawdown during peace talks with the Taliban.

The pair are suspected of taking part in the killing of a captured lieutenant colonel of the Syrian government forces in July 2012.

On Nov. 17, acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller announced plans to reduce U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq by Jan. 15, five days before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office.

Hours after the late Saturday outage, Energy Minister Omar Ayub said on Twitter that power was being restored in phases, starting with Islamabad. He said later Sunday that power had been restored to much of the country.

The USS Nimitz will remain in the Middle East following Iranian threats against top U.S. officials, Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller said in a statement Monday, reversing a decision four days ago to bring the ship home.

The most deadly incident for American forces overseas last year was a helicopter crash in the Sinai Peninsula in November, in which five American troops died and one was injured.

The U.N. special envoy for Syria announced Wednesday that the next round of talks toward revising the war-battered country's constitution will start in Geneva on Jan. 25 and urged the parties to move to actual drafting.

A wave of Taliban attacks and violence has killed dozens across Afghanistan, even as talks are underway between the government and the insurgents in Qatar, officials said Tuesday.

At least two members of an Afghan militia opened fire on their fellow militiamen in the western Herat province, killing 12, in what provincial police on Saturday described as an insider attack.

Supreme Court of Afghanistan spokesman Ahmad Fahim Qawim, said the women were judges who worked for the high court but he did not identify them by name.

No U.S. troops were killed despite Iran's use of weapons that were each about 40 feet long and carrying 1,600 pounds of explosives, but 110 survivors were ultimately diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries, some requiring long hospitalizations and intensive therapies.

Israeli authorities on Sunday advanced plans to build nearly 800 homes in West Bank settlements, in a last-minute surge of approvals before the friendly Trump administration leaves office later this week.

A Massachusetts-based political scientist and author is accused of secretly working for the government of Iran while lobbying U.S. officials on issues like nuclear policy, federal authorities said Tuesday.

Footage showed two missiles smash into a target that Iranian state television described as "hypothetical hostile enemy ships" at a distance of 1,120 miles. The report did not specify the type of missiles used.

Iran urged the International Atomic Energy Agency to avoid publishing "unnecessary" details on Tehran's nuclear program, state TV reported Sunday, a day after Germany, France and Britain said Tehran has "no credible civilian use" for its development of uranium metal.

ANALYSIS

President-elect Joe Biden and his team will face allies and adversaries wondering how much attention and resolution the U.S. can bring to bear on the Iran nuclear issue or any other foreign concern, and whether any commitment by Biden will be reversed by his successor.

Proponents say the deal could allow Israel to become the first country to vaccinate most of its population, while providing valuable research that could help the rest of the world. But critics say the deal raises major ethical concerns.

Pakistani militants have in recent months stepped up attacks on troops in the former tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, citing concerns that insurgents are regrouping there.

The United States called Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates "major security partners" early Saturday, a previously unheard of designation for the two countries home to major American military operations.

Pakistan's prime minister reacted angrily Monday to media reports of a text exchange between an Indian TV anchor and a former media industry executive that suggests a 2019 Indian airstrike inside Pakistan was designed to boost Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's chances for reelection.

It's unclear how receptive Iran's leadership remains to renegotiate with world powers after President Donald Trump pulled out. But Europe sees a tight window of opportunity following the president-elect's inauguration on Wednesday.

The Saudi government's Human Rights Commission said Monday it documented 27 executions in 2020. That's compared to an all-time high of 184 executions the year before.

Israel's education minister says he is banning groups that call Israel an “apartheid state” from lecturing at schools — a move that targets one of the country's leading human rights groups after it began describing both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single apartheid system.

ANALYSIS

Growing uncertainty over peace talks with the Taliban, a drumbeat of targeted killings and the looming withdrawal of U.S. troops have raised tension here to a fever pitch, prompting calls for President Ashraf Ghani to step down and an interim government to take over.

Iran fired cruise missiles Thursday as part of a naval drill in the Gulf of Oman, state media reported, under surveillance of what appeared to be a U.S. nuclear submarine dispatched to the region amid heightened tensions between the countries.

Fritz, a 4.5-year-old military working dog who joined the kennels at Fort Carson, Colo., in September 2018, was awarded an Army Commendation Medal with “C” device for the achievement under combat conditions.

The location is on the city's Hebron Road, a central thoroughfare, and not far from the current temporary embassy. The site is near an invisible line that divides west and east Jerusalem.

Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday signed their first military cooperation agreement as the eastern Mediterranean island nation seeks to bolster relations with nearby countries in the Middle East.

Pakistan's military said Monday it has nearly completed a fence along the border with Afghanistan, which Islamabad says is necessary to prevent militant attacks from both sides.

Lebanon will file an urgent complaint with the United Nations against Israel's daily violations of its airspace amid intensifying drone reconnaissance and mock raids around the country, the president's office said Tuesday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday accused Iran of having secret ties with the al-Qaida network and imposed new sanctions on several senior Iranian officials.

The public art display started when U.S. Army civilian employee Estella Juarez had fixed up as much as possible on the inside of her small living space at Bagram Air Base, and turned her sights outside.

For American troops in Afghanistan, 2020 was marked by coronavirus-disrupted deployments, the signing of a deal with the Taliban, and the start of the U.S. withdrawal from a country where service members have fought for more than 19 years.

The 32-year-old flier is said to have killed more Taliban than any other pilot in the Afghan Air Force during thousands of flight hours, Afghan and U.S. military officers told Stars and Stripes.

Israeli military jets carried out several low-flying flights over Beirut as reconnaissance drones also buzzed overhead Sunday in what has become a daily occurrence.

An Afghan pilot was gunned down in a Kabul street this week, the second to die in an apparent targeted killing ahead of a second round of peace talks between the Taliban and government.

Yemen is mired in a disastrous humanitarian crisis, with millions of people in wide swaths of the country on the brink of famine as a result of six years of civil war.

Senior Master Sgt. Rick Johnson had deployed twice before to combat zones, but he never experienced the panic and confusion he saw in Iraq last March during a fatal rocket attack on Camp Taji.

In recent weeks, similar rocket attacks in the capital Kabul — about 30 miles south of Bagram — have been claimed by the local Islamic State affiliate.

Cpl. Eloiza Zavala, 20, a native of Sacramento, was a motor vehicle operator with Combat Logistic Battalion 13 out of Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Lebanon’s highest court said Monday the prosecutor investigating last year’s massive explosion at the Beirut port that killed dozens and injured thousands can resume his work after a three-week pause following legal challenges to his authority.

Attacks in Afghanistan left at least 23 civilians and security forces dead, officials said.

A U.S.-funded center in Cyprus will help train officials from countries in the eastern Mediterranean region and the Middle East on the latest techniques in border, customs, maritime and cyber security, the acting head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Monday.

U.S. lawmakers have moved to block the Trump administration’s rapid drawdown of American forces from Afghanistan, with a measure in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act that would require input from other government agencies before more troops can be withdrawn.

Iran maintains the tanker and its 20-member crew were stopped in the mouth of the Persian Gulf because of the vessel's "environmental pollution," a claim rejected by the vessel's owner.

The stop-and-go talks between the Taliban and the government come amid growing doubt over a U.S.-Taliban peace deal brokered by the administration of outgoing President Donald Trump.

Bashar Assad's government relies almost exclusively on crude oil from Iran, a key ally of Damascus which has also sided with Syrian troops in the war. Tightening U.S. sanctions on Iran have added to the crisis in Syria.

Palestinians suffered numerous setbacks under the outgoing administration of President Donald Trump and complained about what they say were pro-Israeli steps from Washington.

Israel on Monday advanced plans to build 800 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank, a move that could strain ties with the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden.

The actions Alaxey Germanovich were honored for came about a week into the mission, on April 8, 2017, when ambushed coalition forces fought a grueling 8-hour gun battle under machine gun and sniper fire from all sides, the award citation says.