Barack Obama, U.s. Troops | featured news

The US has deployed 100 troops to Niger to assist French forces in neighbouring Mali, President Barack Obama says.

President Barack Obama will announce in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that 34,000 troops will return from Afghanistan by early 2014, a source familiar with the speech told Reuters.

Nearly two years after President Barack Obama ordered 33,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to tamp down the escalating Taliban violence, the last of those surge troops have left the country, U.S. officials said Thursday.

More than half of Americans support President Barack Obama's apology for U.S. troops burning copies of the Koran, an incident that triggered a spate of bloody protests and attacks on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama welcomed home some of the last U.S. troops from Iraq on Wednesday, marking a symbolic end to the nearly nine-year war that strained America's armed forces and inflicted lasting damage to its standing worldwide.

Senate Democrats proposed Friday tax incentives for businesses hiring veterans as well as job training for all service members leaving the military. The measure was unveiled as the next piece in President Obama's jobs bill and as a remedy to unemployment among veterans.

All US troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year, President Barack Obama has announced. He ordered a complete withdrawal from the country, nearly nine years after the invasion under President George W Bush. About 39,000 US troops remain in Iraq, down from a peak of 165,000 in 2008. The US and Iraq were in "full agreement" on how to move forward, Mr Obama said, adding: "The US leaves Iraq with our heads held high."

The first U.S. troops have left Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama's planned drawdown of about a third of the 100,000 U.S. forces there during the next year.

Clearly frustrated with Obama, Republican leaders are propelling the House toward crucial votes on the U.S. military role in Libya.

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he will withdraw 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by year's end and a total of 33,000 by the summer of 2012.