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In a joint news conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, President Obama says Afghanistan "remains a very dangerous place," and the size of the U.S. troop presence in 2016 is yet to be decided.

The order comes in reaction to the U.S. closure of China's consulate in Houston earlier this week. China's state broadcaster says the U.S. Consulate was given 72 hours to close.

Russian International Affairs Council director Andrey Kortunov discusses the consequences of Vladimir Putin expelling U.S. diplomats. The move was in response to new U.S. sanctions approved by Congress.

Arab League foreign ministers gathered in Cairo indicate that Iraq is likely to accept the terms of the U.N. resolution calling for disarmament. NPR's Kate Seelye reports.

In a Shiite sector of Baghdad, mourners at a funeral procession for two Iraqis killed in a clash with American troops chant "No to America." The outburst raises concerns that Shiites might turn against the U.S. occupying force. Tensions are heightened by a rising postwar death toll that is far higher for Iraqis than for the U.S. military. NPR's Deborah Amos reports.

As the United States reports the death of another soldier in Iraq, the head of a visiting U.N. delegation says security must improve if the country is to hold general elections by January. The U.S. military has accepted responsibility for the shooting deaths early this month of two Arabic television reporters, but insists the incident was an accident. Hear NPR's Ivan Watson.

Nearly two months of running battles between U.S. troops and radical Shiite militiamen in the southern Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kufa may be over. The U.S.-appointed provincial governor says both sides will withdraw from the cities, home to some of the most sacred shrines in Shiite Islam. Hear NPR's Robert Siegel and NPR's Deborah Amos.

Fighting intensifies in Najaf, as U.S. and Iraqi forces begin a major offensive to crush a weeklong insurgency by militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. U.S. forces began the pre-dawn assault by cordoning off Najaf's cemetery and shrine of Imam Ali. Hear NPR's Steve Inskeep and NPR's Ivan Watson.

About 1,000 U.S. soldiers parachute onto an airfield in an area controlled by Iraqi Kurds in an effort to threaten the Iraqi regime from the north. It's the largest and most public deployment yet of U.S. ground forces in the Kurdish enclave -- and a sign that the United States may be opening a second military front against Baghdad. NPR's Ivan Watson reports.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says Iraqi elections should not be held before June 30, the deadline the United States has set for transferring power to an Iraqi government. Leaders of the Shiite majority are calling for elections to be held earlier. Annan's statement follows the return of a U.N. team that assessed the political situation in Iraq. NPR's Vicky O'Hara reports.