Western and Arab states carrying out air strikes on Islamic State fighters backed on Tuesday Iraq's plan to retake territory from the jihadist movement after being accused by the Iraqi premier of not doing enough to help Baghdad push back the insurgents.
The United States said on Friday that China had placed mobile artillery weapons systems on a reclaimed island in the disputed South China Sea, a development that Republican Sen. John McCain called "disturbing and escalatory."
The U.S. military said on Friday it discovered even more suspected shipments of live anthrax than previously thought, both in the United States and abroad, and ordered a sweeping review of practices meant to inactivate the bacteria.
When the U.S. navy sent a littoral combat ship on its first patrol of the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea during the past week, it was watching the skies as well.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter and the nation's spy chief this week urged a key Senate committee to amend federal law to allow a joint venture of the two largest U.S. arms makers to use more Russian RD-180 rocket engines.
The United States has begun a long-awaited program to train Syrian fighters to go into combat against Islamic State, the Pentagon said on Thursday, deepening America's role in Syria's civil war after eight months of airstrikes against the Sunni militants.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that U.S. troops were training Ukrainian forces in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, but the Pentagon flatly denied it, accusing Moscow of a "ridiculous attempt" to obscure its own activity in the region.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter will travel to Japan and South Korea next week on his first trip to the Asia-Pacific region since becoming Pentagon chief, working to boost the U.S. strategic rebalance to the region, the department said on Friday.
Some 10,000 U.S. M-16 rifles and other military supplies worth about $17.9 million arrived in Iraq this week as U.S. troops pushed ahead with training and supplying Iraqi security forces battling Islamic State fighters, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
New U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is gathering top U.S. military commanders and diplomats for talks in Kuwait on Monday about the battle against Islamic State, as America's military effort approaches major hurdles in both Iraq and Syria.
Newsweek magazine's Twitter account was the victim of hackers on Tuesday who posted a threat to U.S. President Barack Obama and his family and the words "CyberCaliphate" and "Je suis IS," a reference to Islamic State and the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
The United States is closing its embassy in Yemen, the Arabian peninsula state that is a front line in Washington's war against al Qaeda, embassy employees and U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
The United States would welcome a move by Japan to extend air patrols into the South China Sea as a counterweight to a growing fleet of Chinese vessels pushing Beijing's territorial claims in the region, a senior U.S. Navy officer told Reuters.
The United States has halted some counter-terrorism operations against al Qaeda militants in Yemen following a takeover of the country by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, U.S. officials said on Friday.
The United States has agreed that Australian David Hicks, jailed on terrorism charges for five years at Guantanamo, is innocent, his lawyer said on Friday.
The Pentagon transferred five Yemenis held at Guantanamo prison to foreign custody on Wednesday in the first handover of detainees in 2015, sending four to Oman and one to Estonia despite Republican calls for a moratorium on the resettlements.
The Twitter and YouTube accounts for the U.S. military command that oversees operations in the Middle East were hacked on Monday by people claiming to be sympathetic toward the Islamic State militant group being targeted in American bombing raids.
U.S. efforts against Islamic State militants in Iraq are "a drumbeat, a steady building pressure" on several fronts that will ultimately enable Iraqi forces to launch a counteroffensive at a time of their choosing, the top U.S. military officer said on Thursday.
Three Yemenis and two Tunisians held for more than a decade at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo have been flown to Kazakhstan for resettlement, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, the latest in a series of prisoner transfers aimed at closing the facility.
The State Department envoy responsible for negotiating prisoner transfers from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is resigning, officials said on Monday, even as President Barack Obama is promising a stepped-up push to close the facility.
U.S. president Barack Obama said in a TV interview set for broadcast on Sunday that he will do "everything I can" to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after four Afghan detainees held there were sent home.
