Egyptian security officials say militants have beheaded four people in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula.

Unknown gunmen opened fire inside a Turkish-owned restaurant in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil on Wednesday, killing at least one Turkish diplomat stationed in Ankara's consulate and one Iraqi civilian, Turkish officials and Kurdish security forces said.

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Troops with the 82nd Airborne’s 3rd Brigade Combat team were issued Black Hornet Personal Reconnaissance System this spring and provided training on how to use the drones, which resemble miniature helicopters.

Col. Turki al-Maliki, a military spokesman, was quoted in the state-run Saudi Press Agency on Wednesday as saying the drone was launched by the Houthi rebels from Yemen's governorate of Sanaa toward the Saudi city of Jizan.

Army Gen. Mark Milley, the Army’s chief of staff, was nominated in April to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, replacing Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, who will serve through September having been the chairman since 2015.

In an open field on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, workers in black uniforms and red caps work under a scorching sun to dig up bodies from a large mass grave discovered last month.

Pakistan on Wednesday arrested a radical cleric and U.S.-wanted terror suspect implicated in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, officials said, just days ahead of Prime Minister Imran Khan's trip to Washington.

The Pentagon said it is committed to the “free flow of commerce” through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway critical to global oil shipments, where Iranian lawmakers have proposed imposing transit tolls on ships that Tehran deems unfriendly.

Retired Army Special Forces Chief Warrant Officer 4 Christian McCoy who was killed in Afghanistan in June was remembered Tuesday during a funeral service that drew family, friends and former military comrades.

U.S. servicemembers deployed to this austere base in eastern Afghanistan had something extra to celebrate this Independence Day: the official opening of a USO center.

Saudi Arabia said it will allow some businesses to stay open 24 hours a day, an announcement that triggered puzzlement over whether it was ending rules that require shops to shut for Islam's five daily prayers.

Three of the professor's suspected recruits, who were accused by authorities of organizing several deadly ISIS attacks in Kabul, were also arrested, according to the National Directorate of Security.

News of the deaths comes about two months after three Marines assigned to 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division were killed in a car bombing outside Bagram Air Field.

The United Nations' highest court ordered Pakistan on Wednesday to stay the execution of an alleged Indian spy and undertake a full review of his case, after agreeing with India's contention the man's rights had been violated in a case that has been a source of friction between the nuclear neighbors.

Saudi Arabia’s air force intercepted and destroyed three Yemeni rebel drones before they could reach targets in the southern Saudi cities of Jizan and Abha, a military spokesman said Tuesday.

Yemen’s warring sides concluded an overnight meeting on Monday that discussed the redeployment of forces from the flash point port city of Hodeida, officials said.

Even as President Donald Trump welcomed the emir of Qatar to Washington with a lavish Treasury Department dinner, his Education Department was quietly investigating four universities over their funding from Qatar, the largest foreign donor to U.S. schools.

The SANA news agency didn’t name the attackers. The area in the central Homs province is close to where remnants of Islamic State are still holed up after losing all the territory they once held in the country.

The European Union supports an Iraqi proposal to hold a regional conference amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran, the group’s foreign policy chief said Saturday.

As President Donald Trump and Iran trade threats, ships like the USS Whirlwind are at the front lines of the rising frictions, patrolling the strategic waterways of the Persian Gulf.

Iran's decision to ramp up uranium enrichment is prompting debate over whether the U.S. should – or even can – invoke a threat that negotiators built into the 2015 nuclear agreement but hoped would never be used: a "snapback" of international sanctions.

Maulana Sufi Mohammad traveled to neighboring Afghanistan to battle international forces after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Britain will facilitate the release of a seized Iranian tanker if Iran can provide guarantees the vessel would not breach European sanctions on oil shipments to Syria, Britain’s top diplomat said late Saturday.

Two months of intensive airstrikes by Syrian government forces and their Russian allies, coupled with a fierce ground assault on rebel-controlled Idlib province, have killed hundreds of people and caused massive displacement while achieving little to no gain for President Bashar Assad.

Iran on Friday demanded the British navy release an Iranian oil tanker seized last week off Gibraltar, accusing London of playing a "dangerous game" and threatening retribution, while London announced it was sending a destroyer to the Persian Gulf.

Egyptian meditators arrived in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Friday after fears of renewed tension along the enclave's border with Israel a day after the Israeli military shot and killed a Hamas militant.

The U.N.'s special envoy for Syria said "solid progress" was made following discussions with officials in the Syrian capital Wednesday, adding that talks are "very close to an agreement" on establishing a constitutional committee.

France on Tuesday sent a top diplomat to Tehran to urge Iran to scale back its recently increased uranium enrichment activities, a mission underscored by a call from Europe for the Islamic Republic to return to complying with the terms of the unraveling nuclear deal "without delay."

More than 70 years after the purged poems of Holocaust survivors, victims and Jewish Red Army soldiers were first composed and curated, a Canadian historian has brought back to life works thought to be long gone.

The U.N.'s special envoy for Syria said Tuesday he is looking forward to constructive discussions with Syrian officials on the formation of a constitutional committee as a "door opener for the broader political process."

At least 12 people were killed and scores wounded — including dozens of schoolchildren — in a truck bomb attack Sunday. The attack comes less than a week after another Taliban-claimed truck bombing in Kabul killed 10 and wounded more than 100.

The United States has asked Germany to support the fight against remnants of the Islamic State by sending ground troops to support the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in northeastern Syria.

The United Arab Emirates told the Yemeni government last month that it plans to unwind its military role in the war-ravaged country by the end of this year, a senior Yemeni official said, as the Gulf Arab state moves to avert a slide toward a broader conflict.

The United States admonished world powers seeking to preserve a deal with Iran on its atomic program on Wednesday not to give in to "nuclear extortion" from Tehran, which has breached the pact's limitations in recent days in an attempt to get them to provide economic incentives to offset American sanctions.

Iran's first government minister born after its 1979 Islamic Revolution is a carefully manicured, charming internet engineer who posts Instagram pictures of his weekends with his family and spends 30 minutes a day reading letters from his constituents. He also used to work for the Intelligence Ministry.

Iran said Wednesday that it would not reverse its decision to enrich uranium beyond levels set by its nuclear deal with world powers as the United Nations' nuclear watchdog held an emergency meeting to discuss the latest Iranian actions.

Lt. Col. Christine D. Millette of U.S. Air Force Central Command says American officials are "aware of the Qatari midair collision, but we have not been asked for support at this time."

President Donald Trump gave a warm White House welcome Tuesday to the leader of Qatar amid a bitter rift between the tiny, energy-rich nation and its fellow American allies in the Persian Gulf and rising tensions with Iran.

Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency is reporting that Kurdish militants have killed three members of the elite Revolutionary Guard in the country's northwest.

The Treasury Department on Tuesday targeted a Hezbollah security official and two members of Lebanon's parliament suspected of using their positions to further the aims of the Tehran-backed militia and "bolster Iran's malign activities."

Stability has deteriorated sharply in the key southern province of Kandahar, home to a sprawling U.S. military airfield, following the assassination last fall of a U.S.-backed police chief, local officials said.

An Israeli city has named a traffic circle after President Donald Trump, just weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government renamed a Golan Heights settlement after the president.

Tuesday's statement said that a post-war Afghanistan would have an Islamic legal system, protect women's rights "within the Islamic framework of Islamic values," and ensure equality for all ethnic groups.

The Houthi's Al-Masirah satellite television station said the Houthis sought to again target Abha regional airport, which they've hit several times in recent weeks.

A Yemeni lawyer says a rebel-controlled court has sentenced 30 people to death on charges they committed espionage for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the rebels.

The operation is the first phase of the Will of Victory Operation that aims to secure wide areas of the western province of Anbar and the central and northern regions of Salahuddin and Nineveh.

If all goes to plan, some of the fish being bred at a marine farming site in Scotland, may end up being eaten in Saudi Arabia, where the crown prince hopes to double per capita fish consumption.

The latest round of talks with the Taliban — now in their second week — has been "very productive," a member of the American negotiating team said Friday, while strenuously denying Washington sought a fixed deadline for the withdrawal of its estimated 14,000 troops from Afghanistan as part of a final peace deal.

Iran increased its uranium enrichment Sunday beyond the limit allowed by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, inching its program closer toward weapons-grade levels while calling for a diplomatic solution to a crisis heightening tensions with the U.S.

The U.N. says more than 460,000 suspected cholera cases have been recorded in war-battered Yemen so far this year — a sharp rise from the 380,000 cases for all of 2018.

Iran increased its uranium enrichment Sunday beyond the limit allowed by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, inching its program closer toward weapons-grade levels while calling for a diplomatic solution to a crisis heightening tensions with the U.S.

More than one hundred people have been detained at anti-government rallies in Kazakhstan on Saturday amid a continuing wave of public discontent over a perceived orchestrated handover of power.

A leading international human rights organization criticized the Iraqi government Thursday for holding thousands of prisoners, including children, in degrading and "inhuman" conditions.

Hospital and police officials say gunmen have killed five and wounded 10, in an attack on paramilitary fighters near Iraq's capital, Baghdad.

When a respected Iranian scientist left Tehran bound for the U.S. last fall, he had plans to complete the final stage of his research on treating stroke patients as a visiting scholar at the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

Iraq on Friday celebrated the UNESCO World Heritage Committee's decision to name the historic city of Babylon a World Heritage Site in a vote held in Azerbaijan's capital, years after Baghdad began campaigning for the site to be added to the list.

At the Group of 20 summit last week in Japan, and at a peace conference in Bahrain, White House and State Department officials pressed allied leaders to commit to participate in the convoy operation.

The two sides apparently remain divided on the withdrawal timetable for U.S. and NATO troops, with the Americans seeking more time.

Yemen's internationally recognized government accused the Houthi rebels of using U.N. facilities in Hodeida to attack its forces.

A top aide to Iran's supreme leader says the Islamic Republic is ready to enrich uranium beyond the level set by Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal, just ahead of a deadline it set Sunday for Europe to offer new terms to the accord.

Iran appears poised to raise its enrichment of uranium and break another limit from its faltering 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The plotline reads like an international high-society drama: A glamorous princess, fleeing her marriage to an aging Gulf potentate, is said to seek shelter in the poshest precincts of London. From the husband scorned comes an online outburst of floridly furious poetry.

Iran should consider seizing a British oil tanker in response to authorities detaining an Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Gibraltar, a former leader of the Islamic Republic's powerful Revolutionary Guard said Friday.

The son of one of Hamas' founders has caused an uproar in Palestinian society recently by speaking out against the militant Islamist movement he grew up in, calling it a "racist terror organization that is dangerous for the Palestinian people."

In an interview with Fox News, President Donald Trump said that the U.S. military has been quietly withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. According to a senior U.S. defense official, however, there are still close to 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan ⁠— a number that has remained fairly steady for many months.

A bomb went off in a car near Turkey's border with Syria on Friday, killing two Syrians who were inside the vehicle, Turkey's interior minister said. A third Syrian was injured.

Aficionados of Western classical music have carved out a niche for themselves in Iran, where cultural expression remains tightly controlled by strict rules imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

British soul singer Joss Stone says she was deported from Iran after arriving in the Islamic Republic as part of a worldwide concert tour, even though she didn't plan to perform there.

Ahmad Faisal, 12, was one of many Afghans coping with the aftermath of a Monday bombing, which the Taliban said targeted a nearby Afghan military logistics depot but left dozens of civilians wounded and killed at least 10 people, including an 8-year-old girl named Feroza.

At least six people were killed and scores were wounded, including dozens of schoolchildren, in a car bomb attack and an hours-long gunfight that targeted an Afghan military logistics depot in Kabul on Monday, Afghan officials said.

When in Kazakhstan, do as the Kazakhs do, the paraphrased old saying goes. And a big part of that, as soldiers taking part in the U.S.-led Steppe Eagle exercise here discovered, includes drinking horse milk.

The fighter jets were part of a previously announced deployment of new forces into the Middle East, aimed at bolstering the ability of the United States to protect its forces throughout the region, especially in Iraq and Syria.

Army Maj. Matthew Golsteyn has long admitted the killing in interviews with media and Army investigators, identifying the victim as a Taliban bombmaker responsible for the deaths of two Marines.

On a plain in rural Kazakhstan, soldiers from this former Soviet republic worked with American troops and coalition partners to practice neutralizing snipers, to help women who were victims of violence and to locate hidden weapons.

Last week, Iraqi, U.S. and Italian officials celebrated the completion of a $530-million project to shore-up Iraq's largest dam. But while the work has stabilized the dam, construction flaws that have posed a threat since its completion in 1984 have yet to be permanently fixed, a research paper says.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday began recruiting allies to help outfit tankers and other ships in the Persian Gulf region with cameras that can monitor and corroborate threats from Iran.

Analysis

The U.S. must move away from trying to splinter the Taliban if talks to end America’s longest war are to succeed, analysts said, as the two sides geared up for a seventh round of negotiations.