United Nations war crimes investigators said Wednesday they have evidence showing the Syrian regime carried out an April sarin gas attack in Idlib province that killed dozens of people.

North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japanese territory on Tuesday, in a surprise move that ramped up international alarm over its weapons program.  

Seizing the city of Tal Afar district by district, Iraqi fighters would take down the Islamic State group's black flags and hang them upside-down as they took "victory selfies."

Below are developments in the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, as President Donald Trump unveiled Monday his new strategy for the country and cleared the way to send thousands more U.S. troops there.

Currently 8,400 American soldiers are taking part in NATO's operation in Afghanistan, which comprises a total of 13,000 troops in all. Most of them are charged with overseeing and training Afghan forces.

After North Korea and the United States traded bellicose threats of nuclear conflagration, all eyes will be on an annual war game in the South next week that could send tensions spiraling back upwards, analysts say.

Below are developments in the diplomatic crisis pitting Qatar against Saudi Arabia and its allies, who cut ties with Doha more than two months ago, accusing it of backing extremists.

From barbed grins in a carefully synchronised daily flag ceremony to murderous exchanges across barbed wire in Kashmir, the India-Pakistan border is a 70-year-old scar that will not heal.

Tensions between the United States and North Korea tend to flare suddenly and fade almost as quickly — but the latest escalation won't likely go away quite so easily.

Events closer to home, including deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Virginia, could demand more of President Donald Trump's attention in the days ahead and cut into the volume and frequency of his fiery North Korea rhetoric.

The crisis over North Korea's nuclear program deepened Thursday when US President Donald Trump underscored his threat to rain "fire and fury" on Kim Jong-Un's regime by saying his apocalyptic warning perhaps "wasn't tough enough."

The latest escalation in the stand-off has set the world on edge, with stock markets down and jittery observers now openly pondering whether the risk of nuclear conflict is real.

The Taliban -- which banned poppy cultivation when it ruled Afghanistan -- now appears to wield significant control over the war-torn country's heroin production line, providing insurgents with billions of dollars, officials have told AFP.

In 2016 Afghanistan, which produces 80 percent of the world's opium, made around 4,800 tonnes of the drug bringing in revenues of three billion dollars, according to the United Nations.