An American soldier was killed by a rocket strike near Basra today, in the first US fatality since the last combat troops left Iraq. | Trucks rumbled into Iran's first reactor Saturday to begin loading tons of uranium fuel in a long-delayed startup touted by officials as both a symbol of the country's peaceful intentions to produce nuclear energy as well as a triumph over Western pressure ... | Al-Qaida is ready to exploit a war "by the Jews against Iran," the Sunni group's second-in-command in Yemen, Saeed al-Shehri, said in an audio message this month, according to the Daily Beast. | US troops will still be in combat and taking on Islamist militants in Iraq even as the American military moves to an "advise and assist" role with a smaller force, officials said Thursday. | The Obama administration, citing evidence of continued troubles inside Iran’s nuclear program, has persuaded Israel that it would take roughly a year — and perhaps longer — for Iran to complete what one senior official called a “dash” for a nuclear weapon, ... | A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man's spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him, the brother of the victim said Thursday. | The last American combat troops left Iraq on Wednesday, battling no more than civilian traffic on potentially hostile desert roads en route to safe haven in Kuwait. | Iran unveiled a prototype long-range unmanned bomber on Sunday, the latest in a stream of announcements of new Iranian-made military hardware as tension mounts over its nuclear program. |