Eric Schmitt

• 

  Islamic State's Grip on Libyan City Gives It a Fallback Option

  The Mediterranean port city of Surt has become an actively managed colony of the Islamic State, which has come under growing military and economic pressure in Syria and Iraq.

• Family Finds 300-Year-Old Sunken Treasure Off Florida's East Coast

  A Florida family scavenging for sunken treasure on a shipwreck has found the missing piece of a 300-year-old gold filigree necklace sacred to Spanish priests, officials said on Tuesday.

• 

  Support for al-Maliki Slips Within His Own Party as Armed US Drones Start Flights

  As the first armed U.S. drones began flying over Iraq on Thursday, Shiite political leaders were locked in meetings to try to decide who should be the country's next prime minister.

• Intelligence report lists Iran and cyber-attacks as leading concerns

  Some senior Iranian leaders are now more willing to carry out attacks inside the United States in response to perceived American threats against their country, the Obama administration's top intelligence official said on Tuesday, pointing to last fall's suspected assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

• Against odds, path opens up for US-Taliban talks

  Over the last year, Marc Grossman, a veteran but low-key diplomat, led a small team of American officials who met secretly from Doha, Qatar, to Munich with a shadowy representative of Afghanistan's Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, in hopes of starting peace talks.

• Memogate's Haqqani: Diplomat in gilded cage, feeling not entirely safe

  Just a few months ago, Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, brimmed with charm and confidence as he hosted lavish dinner parties for diplomats, generals, journalists and White House aides in Washington.

• US prepares for a curtailed relationship with Pakistan

  With the United States facing the reality that its broad security partnership with Pakistan is over, American officials are seeking to salvage a more limited counter-terrorism alliance that they acknowledge will complicate their ability to launch attacks against extremists and move supplies into Afghanistan.

• NATO air strike: Report blames both US and Pak

  A United States military investigation has concluded that checks and balances devised to prevent cross-border mishaps with Pakistan failed to avert a deadly NATO airstrike last month in part because American officials did not trust Pakistan enough to give it detailed information about American troop locations in Afghanistan.

• Al Qaida trying to harness toxin for bombs, US officials fear

  American counterterrorism officials are increasingly concerned that the most dangerous regional arm of Al Qaida is trying to produce the lethal poison ricin, to be packed around small explosives for attacks against the United States.

• Pak military plotted to tilt US policy on Kashmir, says FBI

  Pakistan's military, including its powerful spy agency, has spent $4 million over two decades in a covert attempt to tilt American policy against India's control of much of Kashmir - including funnelling campaign donations to members of Congress and presidential candidates, the F.B.I. claimed in court papers unsealed on Tuesday.

• US to suspend millions in aid to the Pakistani military

  The Obama administration is suspending and, in some cases, cancelling hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Pakistani military, in a move to chasten Pakistan for expelling American military trainers and to press its army to fight militants more effectively. Coupled with a statement from the top American military officer last week linking Pa...

• US believes ISI ordered murder of reporter Saleem Shahzad

  Obama administration officials believe that Pakistan's powerful spy agency ordered the killing of a Pakistani journalist who had written scathing reports about the infiltration of militants in the country's military, according to American officials.New classified intelligence obtained before the May 29 disappearance of the journalist, Saleem Shahza...

• Seized phone offers clues to Osama bin Laden's Pakistani links

  The cellphone of Osama bin Laden's trusted courier, which was recovered in the raid that killed both men in Pakistan last month, contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan's intelligence agency, senior American officials who have been briefed on the findings say.The discovery indicates that Bin Laden used the group,...

• CIA safe house owner in bin Laden raid arrested

  Pakistan's top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.Pakistan's detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said cop...

• Pakistan arrests CIA informants in Bin Laden raid

  Pakistan's top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials. Pakistan's detention of five CIA informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copie...