Israel's defense minister appears to have confirmed that his country's intelligence was leaked by President Donald Trump during a meeting with Russian officials this month.

Clashes broke out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces on Wednesday as Israeli demonstrators marched through the Old City of Jerusalem to mark the 50th anniversary of Israel's capture of the city's eastern half.

Hamas has announced it will execute three men on Thursday who were found guilty this week of assassinating a senior member of the militant Islamic group in March.

An investigation by The Associated Press this month found that Sallyport Global fired two of its investigators after they uncovered evidence of the trafficking as well as alcohol smuggling and major security violations at Balad Air Base.

U.S. helicopters airlifted soldiers to a central Yemeni province where they targeted an al-Qaida compound, clashing with suspected militants and killing at least seven of them early on Tuesday, according to the American military, Yemeni security officials and tribal leaders.

U.S. Naval Forces Central Command has completed the 2017 International Maritime Exercise, which included simulations of threat scenarios that have occurred in the 5th Fleet area of operations, NAVCENT said Monday.

The new U.N. disarmament chief says a team from the international chemical weapons watchdog found exposure "to sarin or a sarin-like substance" in samples from an attack on April 4 in northern Syria that killed over 90 people and now wants to visit the town of Khan Sheikhoun.

Q & A

President Donald Trump showered his Middle Eastern hosts with praise and declared a breakthrough regional peace within reach. No one contradicted him, but behind the pageantry and politesse a wall of skepticism remains solidly intact.

Afghan officials say Taliban attacks in the southern province of Kandahar and the western province of Badghis have killed at least eight soldiers and a policeman.

An explosion claimed by the Islamic State group in the central Syrian city of Homs on Tuesday killed at least four people and wounded more than two dozen, Syria's state media and the militant group reported.

President Donald Trump condemned the "evil losers" responsible for the deadly attack on concert-goers in England on Tuesday and called on leaders in the Middle East in particular to help root out violence.

The last handful of neighborhoods held by the Islamic State in Mosul will likely be the most difficult to retake despite nearly eight months of street-by-street fighting, the U.S. officer in charge of advising Iraqi forces in the area predicted.

Iran's newly re-elected President Hassan Rouhani on Monday called relations with the United States "a curvy road," saying he hoped the Trump administration will "settle down" enough for his nation to better understand it.

Nadia Murad managed to escape the Islamic State militants who enslaved her and other Yazidi women in Iraq. A comment betrays how deeply the scars from the ordeal run more than two years after she broke free.

ANALYSIS

President Donald Trump on Tuesday pushed for elusive peace between Israel and the Palestinians, calling on both sides to put aside the "pain and disagreements of the past."

Jan Kubis told the Security Council that despite progress, fighting remains "a tremendous challenge" because IS fighters are increasingly using civilians as human shields in "a last-gasp effort that reveals little more than the inherent inhuman barbarity of the terrorists."

President Donald Trump's U.N. ambassador called Monday for the U.N. and aid agencies to shift focus in how they support Syrians in need by boosting support for roads, schools and hospitals in neighboring countries that have been overwhelmed by millions of refugees.

Most of the so-called experts on the long search for peace between Israel and the Palestinians say there is little chance that President Donald Trump will break new ground in the bitter conflict when he arrives in Jerusalem on Monday.

ANALYSIS

As President Donald Trump opened his keynote address in Saudi Arabia, he lavished praise on the "magnificent" kingdom and "the grandeur of this remarkable place."

Ignoring President Donald Trump's past admonition, U.S. first lady Melania Trump did not cover her head Saturday when they arrived in Saudi Arabia on the opening leg of his first international tour since taking office.

Her name was Fatima Fakri Fathallah. How her case came before hard-core Sunni Islamist judges is not clear. Nor is it evident how she became to be accused of adultery. But there is no mystery about the verdict: guilty as charged. The penalty: death by stoning.

President Donald Trump on Sunday implored Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries to extinguish "Islamic extremism" emanating from the region, describing a "battle between good and evil" rather than a clash between the West and Islam.

ANALYSIS

As he hopscotches through the Middle East, President Donald Trump is urging Israel and its Arab neighbors to unite around a "common cause": their deep distrust of Iran.

The commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command toured the American Mission Hospital in Bahrain on Sunday, a visit that coincided with President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia.

Also on Sunday, authorities said a German woman and an Afghan security guard were killed and a Finnish woman kidnapped from a Kabul guesthouse overnight.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is witnessing first-hand the strains placed on countries absorbing the more than 5 million Syrians who have fled the Islamic State, President Bashar Assad's government, or both.

ANALYSIS

When fugitive warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar returned home to a lavish official welcome last month, abandoning his 16-year insurgency and forgiven for a history of wartime abuses, he was expected to quickly take up the cause of peace and set a conciliatory example for Taliban insurgents.

Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least five Ahrar al-Sham members were killed in the village of Tal Touqan and expected the death toll to rise.

Syria's government announced Sunday the country's third largest city Homs— once named the capital of the revolt against President Bashar Assad— had been cleared of armed opposition for the first time in more than five years. The announcement follows the completion of the evacuation of the last rebel-held neighborhood.

Taliban militants launched surprise attacks against multiple police checkpoints in southern Afghanistan and killed at least 25 officers, officials said Sunday.

Sheikh Isa Qassim had faced money laundering charges and allegations he fueled extremism amid a major crackdown on dissent in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

An unidentified German woman and an Afghan guard were killed at a guest house in the Afghan capital when insurgents stormed the premises late Saturday night, police said. An unidentified Finnish woman was also reported missing and possibly kidnapped after the attack.

The mysterious killing of Mazen Faqha in March dealt a blow to Hamas, which has prided itself on setting up a security system immune to Israeli intelligence.

Ankara's governor told the Anadolu news agency Sunday the suspects may have been planning an attack on Turkey's capital.

Video

The visit to the kingdom's capital kicked off Trump's first foreign trip as president, an ambitious, five-stop swing that will take him through the Middle East and into Europe. He is the only American president to make Saudi Arabia — or any Muslim-majority nation — his first overseas trip.

After Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's electoral victory Saturday, what's next for the Islamic Republic?

The Pentagon said Friday that a rare U.S. airstrike against pro-government forces in Syria targeted a convoy of Iran-backed troops, appearing to mark an important shift in the country's war.

Germany's defense minister said she has inspected a Jordanian air base as a possible alternative for German troops stationed in Turkey.

Iraq's special forces declared their aspect of the mission to reclaim Mosul completed on Saturday. However heavy fighting still looms between other Iraqi forces and the Islamic State group as IS clings to a dwindling portion of Iraq's second largest city.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani won re-election by a wide margin Saturday, giving the moderate cleric a second four-year term to see out his agenda pushing for greater freedoms and outreach to the wider world.

A spokesman for Libya's army says the death toll from a militia attack on an air base in the country's south has increased to 141, including two civilians.

Two car bombs in southwestern Baghdad killed 11 people, including four police officers, and wounded at least 20 late on Friday night, according to Iraqi police and hospital officials.

Afghan officials say at least two civilians have been killed after gunmen stormed into a New Kabul Bank branch in eastern Paktia province.

The final batch of opposition fighters and their families began leaving a besieged neighborhood in the central city of Homs Saturday, a move that will bring the country's third largest city under full government control for the first time in years.

The Saudi-led coalition battling Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen says it has intercepted a Saudi-bound rocket fired by rebels from a military base south of the Houthi-held capital.

Lebanon's state-run news agency is reporting that security forces have detained an Iraqi citizen who was allegedly spying for Israel.

Lockheed Martin Corp. has reached a $6 billion deal to sell Saudi Arabia four of its Littoral Combat Ships as U.S. President Donald Trump travels to the kingdom, people familiar with the transaction said.

The United States plans to announce $110 billion in advanced military equipment sales and training to Saudi Arabia this weekend as President Donald Trump visits the country, officials said Friday.

The United States has proposed to Russia a plan for managing an increasingly complex battlefield in Syria's main oil-producing region, where U.S.-backed forces fighting Islamic extremists are in conflict with Russian-backed Syrian forces.

ANALYSIS

In January 2015, President Barack Obama visited Saudi Arabia. Much of the immediate attention, however, was on then-first lady Michelle Obama who appeared without a headscarf during a number of public events. Donald Trump noted in a tweet that "many people are saying it was wonderful that Mrs. Obama refused to wear a scarf in Saudi Arabia, but they were insulted... We have enuf enemies."

A Syrian military official said Friday that an aerial "aggression" by the U.S.-led coalition on a government military position near the border with Jordan the day before killed several soldiers and caused material damage.

President Donald Trump will use his first visit to the Middle East to call for unity in the fight against radicalism in the Muslim world, casting the challenge as a "battle between good and evil" and urging Arab leaders to "drive out the terrorists from your places of worship," according to a draft of the speech obtained by The Associated Press.

From childhood through adulthood into old age, every Saudi woman passes from the control of one legal guardian to another, a male relative whose decisions or whims can determine the course of her life.

Hundreds of Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli forces in several rallies Friday in support of hunger-striking prisoners with at least 25 demonstrators injured, officials said.

Iranians voted Friday in the country's first presidential election since its nuclear deal with world powers, as incumbent Hassan Rouhani faced a staunch challenge from a hard-line opponent over his outreach to the West.

A roadside bombing killed 11 people in eastern Afghanistan on Friday as they were traveling to a wedding in the country's east, a local official said.

ANALYSIS

If President Donald Trump was hoping to head out on his first big foreign trip with turmoil calmed at home, he's going to have a disappointing Air Force One departure on Friday.

The airstrikes hit a tank and possibly other targets in southern Syria in what the defense official described as an advance by a likely Shia militant group that the coalition deemed a threat to its allies on the ground.

The Trump administration faced growing calls Thursday for a forceful response to violence by Turkish presidential guards on American soil, who were briefly detained this week but then set free.

The U.S. and Israel are publicly brushing aside President Donald Trump's reported sharing of a highly classified tip from Israel with Russia, but spy professionals on both sides are frustrated and fearful about the repercussions to a critical intelligence partnership.

Military operations are accelerating in Mosul as part of a drive to retake the handful of districts still under ISIS control before the holy month of Ramadan begins at the end of May. Advances on the ground continue to be backed by heavy airstrikes and artillery.

Iraq's Sunni minority is pushing for a greater say in power once the Islamic State group is defeated, reflecting growing sentiment that the country's government must be more inclusive to prevent extremism from gaining ground once again.

Analysis

Iran chooses a new leader Friday and the result could have far-reaching diplomatic implications, especially since President Donald Trump has threatened to dismantle the nuclear accord he called "the worst deal in history."

The Islamic State group attacked several government-held villages in central Syria on Thursday, capturing at least one of them in violence that left 52 people dead including more than two dozen women and children, some of whom were beheaded, as well as Syrian troops, state media, medical officials and an opposition monitoring group said.

An Afghan official says eight police have been killed in attacks on three checkpoints in southern Kandahar province.

A multi-nation military exercise in Jordan that appears to have rattled neighboring Syria is wrapping up with a 36-hour non-stop practice bombing flight meant to show the United States can reach faraway targets.

Saudi Arabia is making every effort to dazzle and impress President Donald Trump on his first overseas trip, seizing on the visit to cement itself as a major player on the world stage and shove aside rival Iran.

Pakistan says Afghanistan has freed two Pakistani diplomats detained in Kabul.

Though cleanup efforts have been underway for months, Umayyad mosque's walls remain riddled with bullet holes and pocked with shrapnel. Sandbags and 55-gallon drums filled with dirt mark where opposition fighters dug in against relentless government bombardment.

At least 11 people, including four attackers, died and 24 were injured Wednesday when insurgents stormed the state broadcaster’s offices in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, officials said.

When Donald Trump was elected president, Israeli nationalists rejoiced that a reputed strong ally would be moving into the White House. But as Trump prepares to visit the region this weekend, apprehension reigns instead.

The Trump administration is extending sanctions relief for Iran that was granted under the Obama-era nuclear agreement, while imposing new economic penalties over Iranian ballistic missile activity.

The Syrian opposition will seek an extension of the current round of U.N.-hosted peace talks underway in Geneva, saying Wednesday it needed more negotiating time.

A Marine Corps task force newly deployed to Afghanistan's most violent province could need additional troops or other resources, depending on what policy decisions that Washington and Kabul make for Afghanistan, said the top officer in the task force.

Syria on Tuesday rejected U.S. accusations it carried out mass killings at a prison near Damascus and then burned the victims' bodies in a crematorium, describing the allegations as "lies" and "fabrications."

The presidents of the United States and Turkey vowed Tuesday to repair a relationship battered by years of disputes over Syria's civil war and its various fighting groups, even as they broached a new disagreement over U.S. plans to arm Kurdish fighters.

Taliban attacks killed at least four people in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said.

A Baghdad military spokesman says Iraqi forces have surrounded Islamic State militants in Mosul's Old City, leaving the extremists in control of only about 10.5 percent of the territory in the western half of the city.

Saudi Arabia says a militant attack on a security patrol killed an officer and wounded five others in a city that has been a flashpoint of anti-government unrest among minority Shiites.

President Donald Trump's national security adviser on Tuesday sidestepped questions about whether Jerusalem's Western Wall is part of Israel ahead of Trump's planned visit to the Old City.

A gunman who killed a senior Hamas commander in a March ambush was a former member of the group who joined a radical al-Qaida-inspired rival and was secretly recruited by Israel, Hamas officials said Tuesday.

Pilots and airmen from the 555th Fighter Squadron briefed the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan about air operations and the ordnance used against militants fighting government forces during his visit to this base on Saturday.

They've built a machine in the desert in the heart of the Middle East. Israelis will use it — and so will Iranians, Jordanians, Turks, Pakistanis and many others. Scientists from countries recently at war or without diplomatic relations will work side by side — Muslims, Jews, Christians and atheists sharing the pursuit of knowledge.

Turkey has blocked a request for German lawmakers to visit their country's soldiers at the Incirlik air base, the German government said Monday, increasing the possibility that it might relocate planes supporting the campaign against the Islamic State.

VIDEO

The Syrian government has constructed and is using a crematorium inside its notorious Sednaya military prison outside Damascus to clandestinely dispose of thousands of prisoners it continues to execute inside the facility, according to the State Department.

ANALYSIS

The United States is on a collision course with its NATO ally Turkey, pushing ahead with arming Syrian Kurds after deciding the immediate objective of defeating Islamic State militants outweighs the potential damage to a partnership vital to U.S. interests in the volatile Middle East.

During a visit south of Mosul on Monday, a senior U.S. official praised territorial gains against the Islamic State group in Iraq, but local officials cautioned more aid is needed to rebuild on the heels of victories against the extremists.

Pakistani police killed four Islamic militants in a shootout in a central district on Monday, according to an official with the country's counterterrorism department.

ir raids on an Islamic State-held village and town in Syria have killed at least 32 civilians over the past two days, activists said Monday, underscoring the risk for hundreds of thousands of residents trapped in areas under the militant group's control ahead of the looming battle for Raqqa.

Decision is being closely watched as the president prepares to depart Friday on his first foreign trip. After stopping in Saudi Arabia, Trump will visit both Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Hundreds of Pakistanis rallied Sunday against an Islamic State suicide attack that targeted a politician seen as close to the Afghan Taliban.

An Afghan official says a mortar attack has killed five children in eastern Afghanistan.

In recent weeks, U.S.-backed Iraqi troops have slowly closed in on a small cluster of neighborhoods in the city's west.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 20 buses left Qaboun and others are expected to follow.

A Marine unit was dispatched to Helmand last month for the first time since 2014. The returning unit has nine months to make a mark. Stars and Stripes spoke with some of the Marines. Here are a few we met.

Just three days after the Army announced that soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team would be deploying to Afghanistan, a unit from the brigade unfurled its colors in Kabul.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi reiterated a call on the international community to lift an arms embargo on Libya on Saturday, which would allow weapons to be delivered legally to a powerful general he backs in the fractured country's east.

Syrian Kurdish-led forces were closing in Saturday on the de-facto capital of the Islamic State in Syria, seizing a cotton mill only a couple of miles north of the city and clashing with the militant group on a number of fronts, activists and Kurdish media reported.

An Afghan official said at least three civilians have been killed in the capital Kabul after their vehicle was attacked with a sticky bomb.

Iraq's joint operations command says an Iraqi air force helicopter has been downed west of Mosul after coming under fire from Islamic State militants.