Tom Bowman

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

An American airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan last month was "a tragic mistake," the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday. He cited a long lis...

The airstrike killed at least 31 people in a hospital in the Afghan town. Gen. John Campbell briefed reporters Wednesday on the Oct. 3 bombing.

Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio and others are supporting the idea of a no-fly zone over Syria to try to help civilians there. But skeptics say it no longer has any relevance to today's Syrian crisis.

With four major terrorist events in the past month, the Obama administration is under increasing pressure to bring more U.S. military might into the fight against ISIS and other terror organizations.

American troops have been supporting French and Malian military operations against Islamic extremists for years, and a few U.S. personnel were on hand at a terror attack Friday in the capital, Bamako.

Russian, French and U.S. warplanes continue to attack ISIS targets inside Syria. But despite an increase in resolve since Friday's attacks in Paris and vows by President Obama to "int...

President Barack Obama could be close to nominating the first-ever woman to become the head of a military combatant command, Pentagon sources tell NPR.

The U.S. military divides the world into areas of responsibility run by four-star generals and admirals, but none has ever been female. Obama wants to change ...

President Obama vowed to "intensify" U.S. action against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but he brushed aside calls to send in U.S. ground troops.

France has struck back at ISIS. French warplanes hit the capital of the region controlled by the Islamic State, the Syrian city of Raqqa.

Iraqi Kurdish fighters, with support from US troops and warplanes, have begun an offensive in northern Iraq aimed at recapturing a key area west of the city of Mosul, severing the lin...

President Obama awards the Medal of Honor to former Army Capt. Florent Groberg on Thursday. In Afghanistan, he tackled a suicide bomber and saved the lives of many men with his patrol.

When African-American players on the University of Missouri's football team called for a boycott of games, it was the latest moment in a long history of players taking a stand for civil rights.

In September, the U.S. Marine Corps released a four-page summary of a yearlong study that found that all-male units were faster, more lethal and able to evacuate casualties in less time than mixed-gender units. The study, which can be viewed in full below, was bashed by critics for being ...

The White House announced Friday it will send a small number of special forces soldiers to help fight ISIS in Syria.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter will decide in the coming weeks whether female Marines should be barred from ground combat jobs. That recommendation was made by Gen. Joseph Dunford, whose report hasn't been released.

American and Kurdish forces raided an Islamic State prison in northern Iraq on Thursday. About 70 captives were freed, and one U.S. service member died in the effort.

Administration officials say the U.S. will keep 9,800 troops in 2016 for its missions of counter-terrorism and training Afghan forces. The president had planned on a smaller presence.

Russia is bombing western Syria and the U.S. is airdropping ammunition to Arab fighters in the east. After the fight is over, Syria may be left as a country pretty much split in two.

The Obama administration is shifting its policy on arming and training rebels to fight the Islamic State in the Syrian conflict. NPR takes a look at the new policy and what it changes...