The Taliban claimed Friday to have shot down a U.S. military transport plane in eastern Afghanistan in a crash that killed 11 people, as the battle for Kunduz raged after the emboldened militants briefly seized the city. The Taliban's stunning success in Kunduz, their biggest tactical...

Kurdish forces said they drove Islamic State militants out of villages near the oil city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Wednesday, in an offensive backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition. The assault consolidated their control over Kirkuk and brought the peshmerga, the...

Iran demanded an apology from Saudi Arabia on Sunday over the deaths of 769 people at the haj pilgrimage and accused it of trying to evade blame, while Riyadh in turn accused Tehran of playing politics with the disaster. At least 155 Iranian pilgrims died in the crush of pilgrims...

 The death toll in a crush outside the holy city of Mecca on Thursday has risen to 769, Saudi Health Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Saturday. "The latest statistics up to this hour reveal 769 dead. That is an increase of 52 on the previous figures," Falih told a news conference. "Those...