Middle East, Wars | featured news

Germany says its leader is in Afghanistan to on a surprise visit to the nation's troops serving with NATO's force in a war against Taliban insurgents.

The United States has evidence that the chemical weapon sarin has been used in Syria on a small scale, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday. But numerous questions remain about the origins of the chemicals and what impact their apparent use could have on the ongoing Syrian civil war and international involvement in it.

Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons - probably nerve gas - in their fight against rebels waging a two-year-old uprising, the Israeli military's top intelligence analyst said on Tuesday.

The United Nations gave its starkest warning yet on Friday that it would soon run out of cash to cope with the vast influx of Syrian refugees into Jordan and other neighboring countries.

At least 53 people were killed and 90 others wounded Wednesday in an insurgent attack on an Afghanistan governor's compound where Taliban fighters were facing trial, local officials said. Nine insurgents with explosives strapped to their bodies stormed the compound in Farah province, bordering Iran, Reuters reported.

The influence of Tehran on its neighbor is growing, while the U.S., Iraqi officials and analysts say, pursues a policy of near-total disengagement... Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the geopolitical winner of the war appears to be their common enemy: Iran.

A Syrian opposition leader said Tuesday that he had asked the United States to defend rebel-held areas with Patriot missiles. NATO already has Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries in NATO-member Turkey to help defend the country from potential airstrikes by President Bashar Assad's regime.

An inquiry will begin “as soon as practically possible” over allegations that the weapons were used in Aleppo Province, said the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The specter of chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian civil war emerged Tuesday, with the government and rebels each blaming the other for using such munitions.

The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said.