The U.S. and Iraq held an initial round of formal talks about ending the U.S.-led military mission in the country to fight against the Islamic State. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced Sunday that he had sponsored "the commencement of the first round of bilateral dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America to end the mission of the Coalition in Iraq," according to a report from The Associated Press. That statement was followed by one from the coalition, which said military officials will assess "the threat of Daesh (IS), operational and environmental requirements and Iraqi Security Force capabilities" and a higher military commission will "work to set the conditions to transition the mission in Iraq," according to the report. U.S. soldiers train at al-Asad air base in western Iraq. While the initial talks come as U.S. forces have been under increased attacks in the region, including a drone attack in Jordan Sunday that killed three U.S. service members and injured 25 more, U.S. officials say that plans to end the mission in Iraq were first discussed last year and that the timing of the talks with Iraq were not related to the increased attacks.

The United States military said a helicopter accident in northeast Syria has left 22 US service members injured, though no enemy fire was reported at the time of the "mishap". "The service members are receiving treatment for their injuries and 10 have been evacuated to higher care facilities outside of the CENTCOM AOR [US Central Command Area of Responsibility]", the US military said in a statement on Monday. An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the accident on Sunday in northeast Syria, US Central Command said in a statement. The statement added that "no enemy fire was reported" at the time of the accident. US forces operating in Syria since 2015 have come under sporadic attacks from ISIL (ISIS) fighters and Iranian-backed groups operating in the country.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Three one-way drones, sometimes called "kamikaze" drones, targeted a U.S. garrison at an outpost in Syria's Al-Tanf region U.S. Central Command said Friday, noting that no Americans were injured in the attack. Two members of the Syrian Free Army received medical attention after they were injured in the strike when one of the drones hit the compound. The other two drones were shot down by Coalition Forces, the U.S. military confirmed.

BAGHDAD – Iraq's Parliament called for the expulsion of U.S. forces from the country in reaction to the American drone attack that killed a top Iranian general, raising the prospect of a troop withdrawal that could cripple the battle against the Islamic State group and allow a resurgence of the extremists. Lawmakers approved a resolution asking the Iraqi government to end the agreement under which Washington sent troops more than four years ago to help fight ISIS. The bill is nonbinding and subject to approval by the Iraqi government but has the backing of the outgoing prime minister. But the vote was another sign of the blowback from the U.S. airstrike Friday that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and a number of top Iraqi officials at the Baghdad airport. Soleimani was the architect of Iran's proxy wars across the Mideast and was blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in roadside bombings and other attacks.

Iranian soldiers carry part of a target drone used in air-defense exercises. Iran is also turning some target drones into low-tech weapons for its proxies. Iranian soldiers carry part of a target drone used in air-defense exercises. Iran is also turning some target drones into low-tech weapons for its proxies. In January, a group of high-level military commanders gathered at an air base in Yemen.

When P.W. Singer set out to write a book about military use of social media in 2013, he couldn't have known exactly what kind of rabbit hole he was entering. The half-decade that followed would see social media power the rise of the Islamic State, elevate white nationalist movements and serve as a tool for a foreign actor seeking to undermine an American presidential election. In LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, Singer and co-author Emerson Brooking fit phenomena like these into a broader narrative about the fast-evolving nexus of propaganda, digital marketing and psychological warfare. In their conception of weaponized social media, everyone from brand marketers and reality stars to terrorist recruiters and military personnel are now competing with one another in a viral attention battleground where troll armies, misinformation and bot networks are weapons of choice. Singer spoke with Adweek about how this social media atmosphere evolved, why brands need to pay attention to Russian bots and how artificial intelligence personas could be the future of online propaganda.

A terror network established in south Wales is now suspected to have been a much more elaborate and sophisticated operation. BBC Wales Investigates reveals the complex web which began with the arrival in Pontypridd of a "vulnerable looking" computer engineering student. In late December 2015 a uniformed Pentagon spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, made a video announcement about "Operation Inherent Resolve", the US military's campaign against so-called the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. The spokesman gave details about 10 senior IS figures who had been targeted and killed, many in drone strikes, over the course of the month. "We are striking at the head of this snake by hunting down and killing ISIS leaders," declared the US army spokesman. Among those killed was Siful Sujan, a Bangladeshi national who was targeted near Raqqa in Syria on 10 December.

There is a general tendency among counterterrorism analysts to understate rather than hyperbolize terrorists' technological adaptations. In 2011 and 2012, most believed that the "Arab Spring" revolutions would marginalize jihadist movements. But within four years, jihadists had attracted a record number of foreign fighters to the Syrian battlefield, in part by using the same social media mobilization techniques that protesters had employed to challenge dictators like Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak, and Muammar Qaddafi. Militant groups later combined easy accessibility to operatives via social media with new advances in encryption to create the "virtual planner" model of terrorism. This model allows online operatives to provide the same offerings that were once the domain of physical networks, including recruitment, coordinating the target and timing of attacks, and even providing technical assistance on topics like bomb-making.

The head of the U.S. military's Special Operations Command said Wednesday that Air Force gunships, needed to provide close air support for American commandos and U.S.-backed rebel fighters in Syria, were being "jammed" by "adversaries." Calling the electronic warfare environment in Syria "the most aggressive" on earth, Air Force Gen. Tony Thomas told an intelligence conference in Tampa that adversaries "are testing us every day, knocking our communications down, disabling our AC-130s, etc." Thomas' remarks, which were first reported by the website The Drive, come on the heels of reports that Russian forces are jamming U.S. surveillance drones flying over the war-torn nation. An Air Force AC-130 gunship was among the U.S. military aircraft used to kill dozens of Russian mercenaries in Syria in early February. The Pentagon said the mercenaries attacked an outpost manned by American commandos and U.S.-backed fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), comprising Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters. Wednesday was not the first time General Thomas has been so forthcoming about Syria in a public setting.

In 2016, a Mercedes-Benz executive was quoted as saying that the company's self-driving autos would put the safety of its own occupants first. This comment brought harsh reactions about luxury cars mowing down innocent bystanders until the company walked back the original statement. Yet protecting the driver at any cost is what drivers want: A recently published study in Science (available to read on arXiv) shows that, though in principle people want intelligent cars to save as many lives as possible (like avoiding hitting a crowd of children, for example), they also want a car that will protect its occupants first. It would be hard to trust this algorithm because we--the humans nominally in charge of the A.I.--don't ourselves have the "right" ethical answer to this dilemma. Besides, and potentially worse, the algorithm itself might change.