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"The Pentagon is working with its Defense Intelligence Agency to declassify and release images -- including two traditional sailing vessels carrying land-attack missiles -- to back up the Trump administration’s claims of a growing threat from Iran, according to four defense officials."

"When things go wrong, those in power often promise to make it right. But do they? This is the first in a series in which The Times is going back to the scene of major news events to see if those promises were kept."

"The March 1 assault by Taliban fighters against the generally perceived secured major military base in Helmand, Afghanistan, will result in some of the first combat action ribbons for a small group of Marines, whose primary task is advising Afghan forces."

"President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict."

"Fake news articles and tweets sought to cast Saudi Arabia and other rivals of Tehran in a bad light."

"The attack on Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, on March 1, was not one of the country’s deadliest, but it may well have been its most embarrassing. It was the third time the Taliban had infiltrated that base, the headquarters for the Afghan Army’s 215th Corps."

"The Pentagon paid contractor TransDigm $1,443 for a for a three-inch ring called a 'non-vehicular clutch disk' which is used in the C-135 transport aircraft, though it cost the company just $32 to produce, giving it 4,436 percent in excess profit, according to a House Oversight and Government Reform memo released Wednesday."

"The Trump administration has been on high alert in response to what military and intelligence officials have deemed specific and credible threats from Iran against U.S. personnel in the Middle East."

"Iraqi officials, wary of another war on their land, say they have warned armed groups tied to Iran to refrain from taking any action that could provoke American retaliation."

"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s surprise visit to Baghdad this month came after U.S. intelligence showed Iran-backed Shi’ite militias positioning rockets near bases housing U.S. forces, according to two Iraqi security sources."

"U.S. allies involved in operations in the Middle East appear uninterested in the increasingly bellicose rhetoric from the White House and Pentagon regarding Iran."

"The White House will not sign an international call to combat online extremism brokered between French and New Zealand officials and top social media companies, amid U.S. concerns that it clashes with constitutional protections for free speech."

The State Department ordered a partial evacuation of the United States Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday, responding to what the Trump administration said was a threat linked to Iran, one that has led to an accelerated movement of American ships and bombers into the Persian Gulf.

"The Nigerian case highlights the challenges of local-level stabilization efforts while working with a host government that lacks political commitment, capacity, and coordination."

"Collateral damage of indirect fire missions conducted against enemy targets in heavily populated urban centers has long been a criticism levied against U.S. forces."

"Experts interviewed by Military Times said that in a long, drawn-out conflict the United States and NATO allies would likely win over Russia if there was a major land grab on the eastern European border. But the fear is that Russian forces could move quickly and grab pieces of territory, similar to what happened in Crimea and now in Ukraine."

"ISIS has a unique and dangerous opportunity to exploit conditions in detention facilities and internally displaced persons’ camps across Northern Syria."

"US investigators believe Iran or groups it supports used explosives to damage four ships off the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, media reports say."

"The Pentagon recently presented a military plan to the president’s top national security aides that calls for up to 120,000 troops deploying to the Middle East and a potential crippling cyber-attack on Iran’s infrastructure should Iran speed up its nuclear program or attack U.S. forces."

"A year and a half after the Islamic State group was declared defeated in Iraq, the militants still evoke fear in the lands of their former so-called caliphate across northern Iraq. The fighters, hiding in caves and mountains, emerge at night to carry out kidnappings, killings and roadside ambushes, aimed at intimidating locals, silencing informants and restoring the extortion rackets that financed ISIS’s rise to power six years ago."

"At a meeting of President Trump’s top national security aides last Thursday, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said."

"The U.N. warned Monday that Cameroon has become one of the fastest-growing displacement crises in Africa, and that the security and humanitarian situations are deteriorating and risk spiraling out of control."

"Dressed in camouflage and sipping tea, the Syrian commander who emerged as America’s closest ally in the battle that defeated Islamic State looked to an unsettling future."

"Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan visited a border city in Texas on Saturday and said he intends to accelerate planning to secure the border and bolster the administration’s ability to accomplish that without the Pentagon’s continuous help."

"Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesman and editor-in-chief of the insurgent group’s daily news bulletin, starts every day by collecting reports of overnight fighting with U.S. and Afghan forces."