Tom Bowman

Donald Trump's primary successes are bringing new attention to an area on which he has not focused during the campaign: national security.

The Pentagon hopes an ISIS chemical weapons engineer captured in Iraq last month will lead U.S. troops to possible weapons sites and help prevent chemical attacks by the Islamic State.

Defense officials hope that Sleiman Daoud al-Afari will help them find storage sites for chemical munitions including mustard agent, which ...

Perhaps the biggest question about the efforts to bring a pause in the fighting in Syria is: Have Russian air strikes emboldened the Syrian regime so much that it doesn't want to stop fighting?

American warplanes destroyed an ISIS training camp in Libya early Friday after weeks of clandestine observation of how it grew and operated. The attack highlights the expansion of the...

American defense officials said Friday that U.S. planes hit an Islamic State training camp and a senior extremist leader in Libya overnight. As many as 60 people were killed.

The great powers negotiated what they called a cessation of hostilities in Syria, but what has that actually meant for U.S. military operations and the conduct of the wider conflict? ...

The Pentagon is launching a pilot program to freeze troops' sperm or eggs as part of widespread reforms to personnel policies across the force. Defense Secretary Ash Carter says he wa...

NPR's Kelly McEvers talks with Omar al-Mosmary, a Libyan journalist based in Benghazi, about how life there is impacted by the Islamic State and other violent factions. He says half t...

Gen. John Campbell, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is set to appear before a House panel on Tuesday for what's expected to be a contentious report about the progress of the war.

The war in Afghanistan is getting a new commander even as events there are not going well. The Taliban control the most territory since the U.S. invasion, and Afghan government casual...

Some 700 American troops on a long-running deployment could be in danger of an attack by extremists affiliated with the Islamic State, the Pentagon worries, but it may not be able to get them out anytime soon.

U.S. military commanders fear the soldiers deployed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and charged ...

About 10 U.S. sailors are being detained by Iran after they allegedly strayed into Iranian waters on their way from Kuwait to Bahrain Tuesday. Iran says the troops are safe and will be returned.

The president said the U.S. combat mission is over, but a Green Beret died Tuesday during an assault on Taliban forces. "Americans are very much in the thick of these fights," says a retired general.

The Army and other military services must begin to recruit, train and place women in the infantry, special operations and other units — and that process might not be complete until next year.

Iraqi troops are making progress in their battle to retake the western city of Ramadi from the self-proclaimed Islamic State, but the fighting is expected to get tougher as they go.

President Obama used a visit to the Pentagon on Monday to signal that he is focused on the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. He met with military and other national security leade...

The Air Force's corps of drone operators is in bad shape from years of overwork, so service officials want to put it on a path to more sustainable, normal operations.

The Pentagon has declared all military jobs will be open to women — and now it must begin deciding how it will actually implement that directive. How far along are the plans to admit ...

The Pentagon will admit women to all its combat positions, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Thursday. The policy change drops the last major barrier to equal service in the military.

The Pentagon plans to create an "expeditionary targeting force" in Iraq, and says some of those troops will take part in combat raids.