DOHA, Qatar (AP) — The Taliban and Washington's peace envoy are close to reaching an agreement on U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, a spokesman for the Islamic insurgents said Tuesday amid a...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad has made an unannounced trip to Iran, where he met with the supreme leader and other top officials to discuss the planned U.S. troop withdrawal...

BAGHDAD (AP) — The top Pentagon official assured Iraqi leaders Tuesday that the U.S. will stick to its limited military role in Iraq, a message aimed at recent talk by some Iraqi politicians of forcing a U.S. troop withdrawal.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he's withdrawing most of the state's National Guard troops on the Mexico border because he won't participate in the Trump...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria called on Turkey on Saturday to withdraw its troops from Syria's northern territories and end support for armed opposition groups in order to revive a two-decade-old bilateral security agreement.

Russia has encouraged Turkey and Syria to refer to the 1998 treaty to deal with security concerns along their shared borders in the wake of a planned U.S troop withdrawal from northern Syria.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey's president warned on Friday that Ankara can go it alone in establishing a safe zone in northeastern Syria if talks with Washington on the issue fail to produce results.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would not "wait forever" to set up the so-called safe zone east of the Euphrates River in Syria. Ankara wants Syrian Kurdish militia to withdraw from there and Erdogan has been seeking logistical and financial assistance from the U.S. in this.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — The Trump administration is doubling down on commercial and diplomatic efforts in the coming weeks to "put real pressure on Iran," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the start of a Mideast tour Tuesday.

Pompeo is meeting with U.S. allies in the region, including stops in Jordan, Egypt and several Gulf nations, to coordinate an anti-Iran campaign.

BEIRUT (AP) — The planned U.S. troop withdrawal opens up a void in the north and east of Syria, and the conflicts and rivalries among all the powers in the Middle East are converging to fill it.

BAGHDAD (AP) — President Donald Trump's surprise trip to Iraq may have quieted criticism at home that he had yet to visit troops in a combat zone, but it has infuriated Iraqi politicians who on Thursday demanded the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

"Arrogant" and "a violation of national sovereignty" were but a few examples of the disapproval emanating from Baghdad following Trump's meeting Wednesday with U.S. servicemen and women at the al-Asad Airbase.

BEIRUT (AP) — Russia's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that Moscow expects the Syrian government to take over the areas where the U.S. troops are currently deployed following their withdrawal.

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's foreign minister has welcomed President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw half the U.S.'s troops from Afghanistan.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday told reporters in the central city of Multan that the decision is good for ongoing peace talks between the Afghan Taliban and the U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is pulling all 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, officials announced Wednesday as the president suddenly declared victory over the Islamic State, contradicting his own experts' assessments and sparking surprise and outrage from his party's lawmakers who called his action rash and dangerous.

MANBIJ, Syria (AP) — Even as President Donald Trump mulls a U.S. pullout from Syria, insisting that the Islamic State group is "almost completely defeated," the extremist group is showing signs of a revival.

Despite being kicked out of the main towns they once occupied near the Iraqi border, the militants have regrouped elsewhere and revised their tactics, recently mounting a brazen attack on a border city in eastern Syria and expanding their footprint inside the Syrian capital itself.

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — The African Union says it has begun its withdrawal from Somalia and will cut 1,000 troops by the end of this year as security responsibilities start to shift to the local military.

The continental body said Tuesday that the move comes at a critical time, less than a month after the country's worst attack killed more than 350 people. The Somalia-based al-Shabab extremist group has been blamed.