Syria

The United States and Russia have persuaded Syria's government and moderate rebels to extend the country's fragile truce to the northern city of Aleppo, although sporadic clashes continue, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Secretary of State John Kerry warned Syria's government and its backers in Moscow and Tehran on Tuesday that they face an August deadline for starting a political transition to move President Bashar Assad out, or they risk the consequences of a new U.S. approach toward ending the 5-year-old civil war.

President Barack Obama will send an additional 250 military personnel to Syria to help local forces fighting the Islamic State group, increasing to 300 the number of U.S. forces battling extremists in the war-torn country, administration officials confirmed Sunday...

Refugees will keep settling in New Jersey, but the federal government will directly work with nonprofits to oversee the program as the state is dropping out.

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.

Through the coils of razor wire and a fence that stretches across green fields, the gathered people can see what has become a forbidden land -- Macedonia and its still-snow-capped mountains, the route they had hoped to take on their journey northward through the Balkans to the more prosperous heartland of Europe.

Thursday's delivery of three Huey II helicopters raises to 10 the number of such U.S.-made aircraft in Lebanon's fleet.

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.

In Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Syria and Ukraine, Kerry said the Brussels attacks should put nations on notice that the terror threat emanating from the Middle East must be stopped.

Russia on Monday warned the United States that it will start responding to cease-fire violations in Syria unilaterally starting Tuesday if the U.S. refuses to coordinate rules of engagement against the violators. A U.S. official contended the issues were being discussed "in a constructive manner."