Iran tested a missile-launching system and two types of missiles Sunday, the state-run Press TV said without offering details. Earlier, the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had said it would stage missile exercises beginning Sunday to promote the armed forces' defense capabilities. The tests, which are expected to go on for the next 10 to 11 days, are codenamed "Payghambar-e Azam 4" or "The Great Messenger 4," Press TV said. The station said the missiles fired Sunday were of the ...

A purported message from Osama bin Laden to Europeans urges them to distance themselves from the United States, noting that Americans are losing the war in Afghanistan. The brief message in Arabic, which appeared Friday on radical Islamic Web sites, has subtitles in English and German. Bin Laden issued his last message on September 13, two days after the eighth anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks in the United States. The authenticity of the message could not immediately be ...

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday delivered a lengthy, rambling address in his first appearance before the United Nations -- slamming both the U.N. Security Council and the United States. He broached conspiracy theories, urged probes into U.S. military activities, and took aim at the structure and the actions of the Security Council, in a one-hour and 36-minute speech at the U.N. General Assembly's annual session. Gadhafi called for world unity in confronting various world crises, such as climate change ...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that he backs a recommendation from the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan to boost American troop levels in the embattled Islamic nation. The call for more U.S. soldiers is "the right approach ... and we back it," Karzai said during an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. He also criticized military allies for failing to attack al Qaeda and other extremists in sanctuaries beyond Afghanistan's borders. Karzai emphasized the need for greater protection of Afghan ...

Iran's supreme leader on Sunday blasted U.S. plans to overhaul the setup for a missile defense shield in Europe, calling the Obama administration's intentions "anti-Iranian," state-run media reported. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also called Western concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions -- which Tehran says are only for energy purposes -- "purely a fabrication by the United States," according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. "This is something that is in the doctrine of anti-Iranianism, since the policy and the 30-year-old history ...

The Taliban fight against American and NATO troops in Afghanistan "is forging ahead like a powerful flood," according to a purported online message posted Saturday by the Taliban's elusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. "Anyone who opts to resist it will himself be washed away. Atrocity, torture, brutality, conspiracies, coalitions, the foreign forces and mercenaries could not hurl stumbling blocks in the way of this robust Jihadic movement," Omar adds in the written message. The fight against foreign forces "is approaching ...

Israeli soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit -- captured by Hamas more than a year ago -- is alive and well, the exiled leader of Hamas told CNN Friday. Somalia has seen a rise in fighting between government forces and the Islamic militant group Al-Shabab, which wants to implement a stricter form of Sharia law or Islamic religious law. The clashes have left scores dead in recent months. The country in the Horn of Africa is also going through the worst ...

The group came into being in December 1987, growing out of the Muslim Brotherhood, the religious and political organization founded in Egypt. Its goal is an Islamic fundamentalist Palestinian state. It is considered a terrorist organizations by Israel and the United States. Hamas is an acronym for "Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamia" or Islamic Resistance Movement, in English. The group was primarily a religious and charitable organization between the 1960s and 1980s. It has wings devoted to religious, military, political and ...

The Yemeni government Wednesday defended its efforts to end the practice of young girls marrying, citing last week's death during childbirth of a 12-year-old Yemeni. "Over the years, the government of Yemen has embarked on an awareness campaign to end the practice of young marriages, which has been deeply rooted in the rural cultures of Yemen," said Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman in Washington for the Embassy of the Republic of Yemen, in a written statement. The Yemeni parliament tried in ...

The father of a detainee beaten to death in an Iranian prison says he's satisfied with the way the Islamic government has handled the case -- even as it serves as proof imprisoned protesters were abused. A coroner's report showed Mohsen Rouhol-Amini, arrested for protesting the June 12 election, died of "repeated blows and severe physical injuries" at Tehran's Kahrizak prison, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Monday, citing an informed source. Officials initially had said Rouhol-Amini had died from ...