Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima underscored the importance of the Iran nuclear deal and disarmament in general, as Japan marked the attack's 70th anniversary.

"Needless to say, it's a very, very powerful reminder of not just the impact of war in a lasting way on people, on countries, but it also underscores the importance of the agreement we reached with Iran to reduce the possibility of more nuclear weapons," Kerry said on the sidelines of a regional diplomatic gathering in Kuala Lumpur. 

The United States has delivered more weapons to the Lebanese army as part of the program aimed at assisting the military to confront terrorist organizations, a high-ranking military official said.

The official, who was not identified, said that the delivery of the new batch of heavy weapons is a sign that “Washington has confidence in the capabilities of the military institution and its performance after its success in the battles and the operations it carried out lately.”

Crews battling 22 tenacious wildfires in drought-stricken California rushed in reinforcements Tuesday and girded for weather that could ignite more fast-spreading blazes.

More than 10,000 firefighters are now tackling blazes that have forced thousands to flee their homes and burned large swaths of land in the most populous U.S. state. 

The United States has advised Lebanese officials to preserve Lebanon's stability by avoiding a vacuum in security institutions and the premiership as a result of their sharp differences, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday.

Washington has stressed there were three led lines that the officials should not cross, the newspaper said.

Pentagon chief Ashton Carter flew to Baghdad Thursday for talks on Iraq's war against the Islamic State group, whose "caliphate" is shrinking but is ramping up deadly car bombings.

Carter was to meet Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Sunni Arab tribal leaders from Anbar, the province where much of the fighting has taken place in recent weeks.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar Wednesday hailed as "legitimate" peace talks aimed at ending Afghanistan's 13-year war, in his first comments on the nascent dialogue, easing concerns that it lacked the leadership's backing.

Afghan officials sat down with Taliban cadres last week in Murree, a tourist town in the hills north of Islamabad, Pakistan, for their first face-to-face talks aimed at ending the bloody insurgency.

Talks last week between Afghan and Taliban negotiators were hailed by officials as a major breakthrough, but insurgent commanders on the ground have responded far more skeptically, highlighting the huge challenges facing the embryonic peace process.

Members of the Afghan High Peace Council sat down with Taliban cadres last week in Murree, a tourist town in the hills north of Islamabad, for their first official talks to try to end the militants' bloody fight, now in its 14th year.

The United States disrupted an undisclosed number of plots to kill Americans on or around the Independence Day holiday, and arrested suspects with alleged links to the Islamic State group, the FBI said Thursday.

A spokesman, citing FBI director James Comey, said that there had been "more than 10 arrests in the past four to six weeks" of people believed to have ties to the extremist group.

Authorities gave the all-clear at a U.S. military hospital complex outside Washington on Monday after reports of a gunshot prompted a lockdown -- the second such false alarm in a week in the capital area.

Staff at the sprawling Walter Reed National Medical Center were ordered to shelter in place as police with sniffer dogs combed its 20-story main building, but investigators found no sign of any shots fired.

A senior Islamic State leader who coordinated suicide bombings and recruited funds and fighters for the jihadists has been killed in a coalition air strike in Syria, the Pentagon said Thursday.  

Tariq bin Tahar al-Awni al-Harzi was killed in the northern city of Shaddadi on June 16, Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said in a statement.