The Israeli military has carried out a wave of airstrikes targeting branches of a financial institution affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, saying the quasi-banking system is being used to fund the militant group’s military wing.

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper says it was time for the Biden administration “to do better than just playing defense” to Iranian threats on Trump administration officials.

Federal law enforcement officials are warning of possible copycat attacks or retaliatory violence after the attempt on Donald Trump’s life, as a visibly stronger security detail surrounds the Republican nominee and President Joe Biden.

Iran’s hard-line parliament speaker has registered for the country’s June 28 presidential election.

Iran has interred late President Ebrahim Raisi at the holiest Shiite shrine in the nation, days after a fatal helicopter crash killed him, the country’s foreign minister and six others.

Mourners have begun the days of funerals and processions for Iran’s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash.

Iran's state media has reported that Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has died in a helicopter crash that also killed the country's president.

The unprecedented attack by Iran on Israel early Sunday ratcheted up regional tensions.

Iran’s foreign minister has accused the United States of giving Israel the “green light” for a strike on its consulate building in Syria that killed seven Iranian military officials, including two generals.

Iran has vowed to respond to a deadly airstrike widely attributed to Israel that demolished Iran’s consulate building in the Syrian capital and killed 12 people, including two Iranian generals.

Iran has marked the 45th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution amid tensions gripping the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

A U.S. strike in Baghdad that killed a commander with the powerful Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary group this week highlighted the ambiguous status of the country’s Iran-allied armed factions.

President Joe Biden has made it clear the U.S. will strike back after a deadly drone attack killed three service members and wounded more than 40 at a small base in Jordan over the weekend.

Iran says it fired missiles at what it claimed were Israeli “spy headquarters” near the U.S. Consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, and at targets linked to the extremist group Islamic State in northern Syria.

Iranian officials say the death toll from an Islamic State group-claimed suicide bombing has risen to at least 91.

The drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan and was apparently launched by Iran-backed militants was the latest in a flurry of attacks and reprisals across the Middle East.

Iranian officials have tried to link Israel and the U.S. to an Islamic State group-claimed suicide bombing while speaking to a mass funeral for some of the 89 people killed in the attack.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings targeting a commemoration for an Iranian general slain in a 2020 U.S. drone strike.

The Biden administration has once again renewed taxpayer-funded protection for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and one of his top aides, who have been the target of persistent threats from Iran.

Iran says twin bomb blasts killed at least 84 people at an event honoring a prominent Iranian general slain in a U.S. airstrike in 2020.

Iran has held a funeral for a high-ranking general of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who was killed by an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria.

Iranian state media say that an Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighborhood has killed a high-ranking Iranian general.

The sister of a Russian-Israeli academic at Princeton University who went missing in Iraq nearly six months ago says the United States should use its influence to help win her freedom.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official and others it says took part in wide-ranging plots to kill former national security adviser John Bolton and others around the world, including at least one additional U.S. government official.

The Justice Department says an Iranian operative has been charged in a plot to murder former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton.

Police say a woman stabbed her date whom she had met online in retaliation for the 2020 death of an Iranian military leader killed in an American drone strike.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized a ship in the Red Sea, armed drones targeted Baghdad’s international airport, and hackers hit a major Israeli newspaper.

As more Lebanese fall into poverty in the country's economic crisis, increasing numbers are turning to the financial arm of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group for help. He could still pull out the dollars in his account at the al-Qard al-Hasan Association, the financial arm of the militant Hezbollah group. Stepping in where the state and financial institutions have failed, Hezbollah is providing a vital lifeline for some Lebanese. Over the past year, the al-Qard al-Hasan association has seen a significant increase in clients, despite it being under U.S. Treasury sanctions since 2007. That has proven a boon for the al-Qard al-Hasan association, as some turned to it as an alternative to store their cash.

Thousands of Iraqis converged on a landmark central square in Baghdad on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of the killing of Soleimanil and al-Muhandis in a U.S. drone strike. Sunday's rally was being held amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. in the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration. Their killing dramatically ratcheted up tensions in the region and brought the U.S. and Iran to the brink of war. In Yemen, Iran’s embassy in the rebel-controlled capital, Sanaa, held a ceremony commemorating the killing of Soleimani and al-Muhandis. “This ceremony today shows the deep ties between the two governments and people of Yemen and Iran,” he said.

BAGHDAD – Iraq's military on Saturday said explosives experts with its naval forces successfully dismantled a mine that was discovered stuck to an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf two days earlier. The announcement came a day after Iraq confirmed reports by private security firms that a mine had been discovered attached to the side of a tanker rented from Iraq's Oil Marketing Company, known as SOMO, as it was refueling another vessel. Iraq has not provided further details, but the two private security firms said the discovery was likely a limpet mine on the MT Pola, a Liberian-flagged tanker. Soleimani headed Iran's Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, responsible for the Islamic Republic’s foreign operations and frequently shuttling between Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. His assassination dramatically ratcheted up tensions in the region and brought the U.S. and Iran to the brink of war.

TEHRAN – In the face of mounting evidence, Iran on Saturday acknowledged that it shot down the Ukrainian jetliner by accident, killing all 176 people aboard. Iran had promised harsh revenge after Soleimani's death, but instead of killing American soldiers, its forces downed a civilian plane in which most passengers were Iranian. On Saturday night, hundreds gathered at universities in Tehran to protest the government's late acknowledgement of the plane being shot down. Zelenskiy said the crash investigation should continue and the “perpetrators” should be brought to justice. Iran has invited Ukraine, Canada, the United States and France to take part in the investigation of the crash, in keeping with international norms.

CHICAGO, IL – An Instagram account masquerading as a U.S. government news agency was used to promote misinformation about potential fallout from America's targeted killing last week of Iran’s top general. The VOA Persian's official Instagram account uses the handle VOAFarsi and is verified, with a blue check mark in its profile. The caption of that Instagram post, written in Farsi, claimed that Zeinab Soleimani said she was a U.S. citizen. The fake Instagram account had 181 posts before it was removed, Facebook said. The fake Instagram account also listed a YouTube account in its profile.