The delivery of French Mistral-class warships to Russia would be "completely inappropriate" given the West's misgivings about Moscow's role in Ukraine, the United States said Tuesday.

"We don't think anyone should be providing arms to Russia," deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters, adding U.S. officials had voiced their concern over the deal in recent days to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

A U.S. federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that $1.75 billion for terrorism-related judgments against Iran can be distributed to victims of attacks, including a 1983 bombing that killed 241 Marines in Lebanon.

Washington lawyer Thomas Fortune Fay said the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruling affects 1,300 individual cases that were combined in New York.

Tehran could cast aside bitter differences with Washington to "cooperate" on Iraq as the crisis-hit country battles a fierce militant offensive, former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani said in an interview published Wednesday.

The comments to Japanese daily The Asahi came as Iran sends members of its Revolutionary Guard to Iraq, with the security situation deteriorating as the Shiite-led Iraqi authorities battle Sunni militants.

Afghanistan's capricious politics and fresh claims of poll fraud Tuesday clouded President Barack Obama's search for a "responsible" exit from Afghanistan by year's end.

The United States, which pointedly stayed mute during two rounds of voting for Afghanistan's next president, swung into action as claims of mass electoral irregularities threatened the country's first democratic transfer of power -- in which Washington has a huge stake.

Top U.S. officials Wednesday upped pressure on key Iraqi leaders as political chaos in Baghdad clouded American hopes for a unity government to tackle the country's sectarian breakdown.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile widened the U.S. effort to convince key regional powers to prevail on Iraqi factions for a political settlement, calling Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.

U.S. authorities plan to bolster security at some airports in Europe and the Middle East with direct flights to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

Amid concern that terror groups are developing new explosives to circumvent airport security, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced unspecified steps that would be carried out in "coming days," without saying which airports would be affected.

President Barack Obama has deployed 200 more troops to Baghdad to protect the U.S. embassy as Iraq's parliament was set to convene Tuesday to seek a solution to the country's sectarian crisis.

"In light of the security situation in Baghdad, I have ordered up to approximately 200 additional U.S. Armed Forces personnel to Iraq to reinforce security at the U.S. Embassy, its support facilities, and the Baghdad International Airport," Obama said in a letter to Congress released Monday.

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel on Tuesday nominated an army officer who commanded troops in volatile eastern Afghanistan to take over command of the U.S.-led force in the country.

General John Campbell was named to succeed General Joe Dunford as head of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is now in the midst of a major withdrawal, the Pentagon said in a statement.

NATO foreign ministers convene Tuesday to discuss the Iraq crisis after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pledged "intense" support to Baghdad in the fight against militants pushing towards the capital.

Kerry made a surprise visit to Iraq on Monday as Sunni insurgents led by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, seized a strategic town in the northern part of the country, while security forces retook a border crossing with Syria.

The suspected ringleader of the deadly 2012 assault on an American compound in Benghazi was planning new attacks on Americans, the United States says, defending the raid that captured the Libyan militant.

U.S. commandos seized Ahmed Abu Khatallah near the Libyan city of Benghazi on Sunday, drawing condemnation from Tripoli, which considers the stealth raid an infringement of its sovereignty.