A U.S. drone strike on Tuesday killed at least three militants in a restive Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials said.

Two U.S. drones fired four missiles on a vehicle in Shnakhura village, 10 kilometers from Miranshah, the main town in Pakistan's North Waziristan region, considered a bastion of Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants.

Top U.S. military officer General Martin Dempsey landed in Baghdad on Tuesday, insisting that Washington still had an important role to play in Iraq eight months after American troops departed.

Dempsey, who is due to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Iraqi army chief of staff Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, is the highest-ranking American to visit Iraq since the December 2011 pullout.

A rocket fired on a U.S. airbase in Afghanistan early Tuesday damaged the aircraft of America's top military officer and wounded two maintenance crew, officers said.

Two insurgent rockets struck the vast Bagram air field overnight, with one causing damage to the C-17 used by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, who left the base using another plane, his spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said.

Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu has sent an aide to meet Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of ultra-orthodox party Shas, to win his backing for an attack on Iran, Israeli media said on Tuesday.

Yaakov Amidror, head of the National Security Council, visited Yosef, whose party is a member of Netanyahu's ruling coalition, at his home in Jerusalem on Friday to discuss the issue, Israeli media reports said.

U.S. authorities on Monday announced the seizure of $150 million allegedly linked to a scheme by Hizbullah to launder proceeds from drug trafficking and other crimes.

The money came from an American bank account used by the Beirut-based Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) to conduct U.S. currency transactions, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart said.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Monday was to meet King Abdullah II of Jordan, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East that has seen an influx of refugees from the conflict in neighboring Syria.

The two were scheduled to meet at 4:15 pm (2015 GMT) at the vice president's residence in the U.S. capital, the White House said, without providing further details.

The FBI has investigated an incident that saw at least one Republican congressman swim naked at a drinking party in Israel last year attended by top leadership staff, Politico reported Sunday.

The news website said Representative Kevin Yoder of Kansas stripped and jumped into the Sea of Galilee during the privately-funded trip, joining colleagues and their family members who were partially or fully clothed.

The South Korean and U.S. military Monday began an annual joint exercise to test defenses against North Korea, a drill denounced by Pyongyang as a rehearsal for war.

More than 30,000 U.S. troops, both those based in the South and some 3,000 from overseas, are taking part in the drill known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian, which ends on August 31, the U.S. forces said in a statement.

The conflict in Syria is a struggle between the United States and Iran whose outcome will decide whether the Middle East follows the path of an Iran-inspired Islamic movement or U.S. influence, a top Iranian official said on Saturday.

"Today, we are in the final with the United States in Syria," Mohsen Rezaie, secretary of the Expediency Council that advises supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

Australia confirmed Saturday that its diplomatic post in Washington had been preparing for Julian Assange's possible extradition to the U.S. but played it down as "contingency planning".

Trade Minister Craig Emerson said the Australian embassy in Washington had been "getting prepared for the possibility of an extradition" but stressed that there was nothing unusual in diplomats bracing for all eventualities.