Peter Cook

Jets with the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) backed a Turkish army operation near al-Bab in Syria last week but did not use weapons, the Pentagon said on Jan. 3.

The U.S. military has officially ended operations in a former Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) bastion in Libya, officials announced Dec. 20.

The Pentagon had launched Operation Odyssey Lightning to help local forces push the jihadists from the coastal city of Sirte on Aug. 1.

China has returned a U.S. underwater drone taken by one of its naval vessels in the disputed South China Sea last week after what it said were friendly talks with the United States, which reiterated its criticism of the "unlawful" seizure.
 

China will return an underwater U.S. drone seized by a naval vessel this week in the South China Sea, both countries said yesterday, but Beijing complained that Washington had been "hyping up" the incident. 

A U.S. drone strike has killed a senior al-Qaeda leader in Syria who previously operated in Afghanistan, the U.S. Defense Department announced on Nov. 22.
The Nov. 18 strike near Sarmada in northwestern Syria targeted Abu Afghan al-Masri, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said.  

A U.S.-led coalition fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) plans to launch operations within weeks to isolate the Syrian city of Raqqa as an offensive in Iraq's Mosul continues, Washington said hours after Ankara said the Raqqa operation should start after the end of the Mosul and Turkey's Euphrates Shield operations in northern Syria. 

The United States has applauded Turkey and Ankara-backed Syrian rebels after they took control of Syria's symbolically important town of Dabiq from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 

The U.S. military launched cruise missile strikes on Oct. 13 to knock out three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said. 

Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, hit Cuba and Haiti with winds of well over 100 miles-per-hour on Tuesday, pummelling towns, farmland and resorts and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to take cover.

U.S.-led coalition air strikes killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Sept. 17, endangering a U.S.-Russian brokered cease-fire and prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.