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The Pentagon identified the U.S. service member killed in action in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on Thursday as Spc. James A. Slape. The 23-year-old from Morehead City, N.C., died of injuries from an improvised explosive device, the Pentagon said in a statement. Slape was assigned to 60th Troop Command, North Carolina Army National Guard, Washington, N.C.

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – A Saudi-owned newspaper has claimed that Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has moved to Afghanistan via Iranian territories. Quoting Pakistani security and other extremist group sources, Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported that Baghdadi arrived in Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan after crossing Iranian territories via the eastern city of Zahedan. According to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, IS manages a location to host its fighters in Zahedan in cooperation with the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Al-Baghdadi has been reported killed or wounded on a number of occasions. Last month, Baghdadi was reported to be...

Colonel William Connor has revealed the secrets of life on the frontline with the Prince in 2007 and 2008, when the royal served in Helmand Province as a British cavalry officer during sustained fierce fighting with anti-government forces. The South Carolina National Guardsman, an Army Ranger veteran, snapped pictures with the Prince - but also ran for cover along with him when they came under missile fire at the austere operating base they called home, and shared Christmas dinner in a mess hall just a few hundred yards from enemy lines. The American officer told DailyMailTV that the Prince met...

Secret KGB documents reveal just how deeply involved the Soviet Union was in the spilling of Israeli blood. The Russian spy agency provided Palestinian terror organizations with funds, training and arms, running agents like 'Krotov' - aka Mahmoud Abbas, 'Aref' - or Yasser Arafat, and 'Nationalist,' who was behind several plane hijackings long before 9/11. The genesis of the KGB’s developing ties with Palestinian terror organizations can be traced back to the end of the 1960s. The two most important KGB recruitments from the PLO during the second half of the 1970s were of people who still play a major...

Powerful Hurricane Florence continues to move towards landfall Friday on the coast of the Carolinas with maximum sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. The storm is now centered 530 miles southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina.... Russia wants the United States and its allies to reveal their intentions in Syria. This was the message from Russian UN representative Vasily Nebenzya at the UN Security Council Tuesday.... The Russian Foreign Ministry warned against "new dangerous steps" in Syria.... And in Syria itself the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation says a fake chemical attack is being recorded on video..... Russian President...

The Soviet-Afghan War changed the world. This nine-year power struggle in a small, landlocked country ultimately led to some of the most profound moments in modern history. This one conflict sparked the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of Osama bin Laden, the age of jihadist terrorism, and the birth of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In time, the ripples of the Soviet-Afghan War brought the Twin Towers to the ground, brought American troops to the Middle East, and created a new era of wars and terrorism that plague the world today...

Two Afghan men have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a German man in a fight in the eastern town of Köthen, German police announced. The circumstances of the man’s death remain unclear. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Köthen in eastern Germany on Sunday, moving in silence towards the playground, where a 22-year-old German man died following a clash with two Afghans. READ MORE: New Rally to Be Held in Chemnitz as German Citizen Dies in Clash With Afghans Even though the mayor of the town, Bernd Hauschild urged locals to steer clear of the demonstration, police...

The Administration has determined after careful review that the office of the General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington should close. We have permitted the PLO office to conduct operations that support the objective of achieving a lasting, comprehensive peace between Israelis and the Palestinians since the expiration of a previous waiver in November 2017. However, the PLO has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel. To the contrary, PLO leadership has condemned a U.S. peace plan they have not yet seen and refused to engage with the U.S. government...

National security adviser John Bolton is expected to announced Monday that the U.S. will shutter the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) office in Washington, D.C., The Wall Street Journal reported. “The Trump administration will not keep the office open when the Palestinians refuse to start direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel,” Bolton is expected to say, according to a draft of his speech reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Bolton will reportedly threaten the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it carries out investigations into the U.S. and Israel. ADVERTISEMENT The action against the PLO, which serves as the main entity...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is closing the Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission in Washington, the latest U.S. blow against the Palestinians and an international court during the stalled Mideast peace process. Some things to know: THE GIST The administration’s move to close the PLO office in Washington is not directly connected to the Trump White House’s opposition to the International Criminal Court, although the administration is trying to link them. But the Trump administration is trotting out discussions about the two on the same day — Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year — in a move certain to inflame...

The United States threatened Monday to arrest and sanction judges and other officials of the International Criminal Court if it moves to charge any American who served in Afghanistan with war crimes. White House National Security Advisor John Bolton called the Hague-based rights body "unaccountable" and "outright dangerous" to the United States, Israel and other allies, and said any probe of US service members would be "an utterly unfounded, unjustifiable investigation." "If the court comes after us, Israel or other US allies, we will not sit quietly," Bolton said. He said the US was prepared to slap financial sanctions and...

Direct talks between America and the insurgents would be the best way to start diplomacy that might end the war in Afghanistan. U.S. officials have sought that goal in vain before, but now the time may be ripe. In July, The Times reported that the Trump administration directed the State Department to open direct talks with the Afghan Taliban, to see whether formal talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are possible. Taliban officials soon claimed to have met with American diplomats, an assertion that American officials have not publicly commented on. This week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo...

One US service member was killed and another was wounded in what the military described as "an apparent insider attack" in eastern Afghanistan on Monday. Additional details around Monday's deadly attack were not immediately released. In early July, Army Cpl. Joseph Maciel of South Gate, California, was killed in southern Afghanistan in an apparent insider attack. Two additional US service members were injured in that attack. Prior to that, the last insider attack occurred in August 2017, in which a Romanian NATO soldier was injured.

In the latest blow to already fragile ties between the United States and Pakistan, the Defense Department said on Saturday it has suspended $300 million in funding to Islamabad over what it calls the government's failure to take action against terrorists. The suspension is part of a broader pullback in military aid for Pakistan announced by the Trump administration in January. The administration says Pakistan is not taking strong enough steps to combat the Taliban and other groups. Pakistan, which serves as a key route for transporting supplies to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has repeatedly denied harboring terrorists. The aid...

"It is no secret that Russia seeks any opportunity it can find to drive a wedge between the United States and our Central Asian partners, including Afghanistan," Nicholson added. Aid to Taliban U.S. and Afghan officials have previously accused Russia of meddling in Afghanistan by providing Taliban insurgents with both weapons and training. Moscow has rejected the allegations, saying it has only political ties with the Taliban. Still, Russia has faced growing suspicion from the U.S. and its allies, who say the Kremlin has been increasingly working to expand its influence in Afghanistan and beyond.

The United States lost its bearings in Afghanistan long ago. Some of the Taliban’s most senior leaders escaped in late 2001, as did Osama bin Laden. They eventually regrouped and launched an insurgency that continues to engulf Afghanistan in violence. The Bush administration entered the war with a light footprint that was supposed to demonstrate the overwhelming technological superiority of American forces. The Taliban openly ridicules this view in its statements. The Bush administration added more soldiers to the fight over time, but the war effort was always secondary to other concerns. President Obama and his advisers made a conscious...

KABUL (Reuters) - The head of Islamic State in Afghanistan, Abu Saad Erhabi, was killed in a strike on the group’s hideouts in Nangarhar province on Saturday night, authorities said on Sunday. Ten other members of the militant group were also killed in a joint ground and air operation by Afghan and foreign forces, the National Directorate of Security in Kabul said in a statement. A large amount of heavy and light weapons and ammunition were destroyed during raids on two Islamic State hideouts. The jihadist group’s Amaq’s news agency carried no comment on the issue. Lieutenant-Colonel Martin O’Donnell, a...

President Trump posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to Air Force Sgt. John Chapman, who gave his life to save more than 20 fellow service members on a mountain in Afghanistan in 2002. Trump presented the award to Chapman’s family Wednesday. Chapman was the first airman to receive the award since the Vietnam War, officials said. The sergeant was a native of Windsor Locks, Conn., and the father of two young girls. Trump said at the ceremony that Chapman, from an early age — his life was about: “to protect those in need.” The president said it began early when...

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald...

Russia said Tuesday that the Taliban have accepted an invitation for talks next month, in what promises to be one of the insurgent group's biggest diplomatic forays since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. The announcement of the planned talks comes as the Taliban have expanded their footprint across Afghanistan and launched an unrelenting wave of attacks, including a prolonged assault on Ghazni, a strategic city near Kabul, earlier this month. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow invited the Taliban to the Sept. 4 talks and was hoping for "productive" negotiations. He rejected claims by the Afghan government that Russia is...