Middle East, Military | featured news

Far more civilians have been killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas than U.S. counter-terrorism officials have acknowledged, a new study by human rights researchers at Stanford University and New York University contends.

The U.S. military said on Monday it was disciplining U.S. troops over two incidents that provoked outrage in Afghanistan early this year, one involving a video depicting Marines urinating on corpses and another over burned copies of the Koran.

At least 3 Americans are among the dead. The cause of the crash is being investigated. The NATO-led international military coalition says a helicopter crash in Afghanistan has killed 11 people including seven international service members.

Syrian army helicopters and tanks pounded rebel positions in the Mediterranean province of Latakia for a second day on Wednesday, activists said, in the heaviest clashes there since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad erupted last year.

U.N. nuclear inspectors displayed new satellite imagery on Wednesday indicating that some small buildings had been dismantled and other possible clean-up work undertaken at an Iranian military site they want to visit.

President Obama has wound down America’s war in Iraq, ordered the operation that killed Osama bin Laden and set in motion the end of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan. He also has focused particular attention on veterans and military families, increasing funds for the Department of Veterans Affairs, implementing the post-Sept. 11 G.I. Bill and launching job programs for returning troops.

An avalanche smashed into a Pakistani army base on a Himalayan glacier along the Indian border on Saturday, burying around 100 soldiers, the military said....

President Barack Obama says it is important to resolve the ongoing conflict in Syria without outside military intervention. Obama says not every situation allows for the type of military action the U.S. and allies took in Libya, which led to the removal of Moammar Gadhafi last year. The president says a negotiated solution in Syria is possible. He defended his administration's handling of the violence there, saying the U.S. has been "relentless" in demanding that President Bashar Assad leave power.

Iran warned the United States Tuesday not to return a U.S. aircraft carrier "to the Persian Gulf region." U.S. officials rejected the "warning" and another recent threat from Tehran that it could close the Strait of Hormuz. The White House and U.S. State Department called the latest threats signs that sanctions against Iran, the result of a standoff over its nuclear activities, are working.

The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq Sunday, ending their withdrawal after nearly nine years of war and military intervention that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.