Islamic State

Some of the four Minnesota men facing trial next month for conspiring to join the Islamic State group had discussed the possibility of attacks in the United States, according to a document filed by prosecutors.

A suburban Cincinnati man, the beard and long hair he had when arrested gone, has been calling himself again by his birth name and appears competent to stand trial on charges that he plotted to attack the U.S. Capitol in support of the Islamic State group, according to testimony Monday.

The Obama administration is making the case that Iran is drawing down its elite fighting force from Syria in an effort to allay fears that Tehran is using its powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria to strengthen its influence across the Middle East. Yet the Iranian government said Monday it has dispatched commandos to the war and it is still taking high-ranking casualties.

Dozens of world leaders assembling Friday for a nuclear security summit will confront a disparate array of modern-day threats, ranging from government actors like North Korea to murkier groups like the Islamic State.

A Minnesota man accused of lying to the FBI about when he last contacted the Islamic State group was charged Tuesday in state court after allegedly threatening to "shoot up" a Walgreens.

Investigators say they are still looking for at least one suspect in the attacks seven days ago, when suicide bombers killed 32 people at Brussels' airport and in a subway station near the European Union headquarters. Three suicide bombers also blew themselves up.

The Pentagon said Friday it was moving to increase the number of American troops in Iraq amid new strikes this week that killed the Islamic State's finance minister and other senior leaders. Still, top U.S. defense officials say the deaths won't "break the back" of the extremist group, which is in a fierce fight for an ancient city in Syria and claimed responsibility for bombing a soccer stadium in Iraq.

Syrian government forces were on the verge Thursday of recapturing Palmyra, an ancient town in central Syria controlled by the Islamic State group, having pushed closer to its outer edges with the support of Russian airstrikes.

  The Iraqi military backed by U.S.-led coalition aircraft on Thursday launched a long-awaited operation to recapture the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State militants, a military spokesman said. In the push, Iraqi forces retook several villages on the outskirts of the town of Makhmour, east of Mosul, early in the morning on Thursday and hoisted the Iraqi flag there, according to the spokesm

Belgian authorities searched Wednesday for a man pictured at the Brussels airport with two apparent suicide bombers, amid growing suggestions that the bombings of the Brussels airport and subway were the work of the same Islamic State cell that attacked Paris last year.