Three people died Saturday in a shooting at a shopping mall popular with young families in a suburb of the U.S. capital, authorities said Saturday, as they searched for a motive and possibly more victims.

Police said the suspected perpetrator was believed to be among the fatalities at the Columbia Mall, where panicked shoppers scrambled to find shelter at the sound of gunshots.

The U.S. military's partnership with France in Africa is "indispensable" in the fight against extremist groups in the Sahel region, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday.

During a visit to Washington, Le Drian said "terrorist groups are circulating across the whole Sahara-Sahel area and terrorist acts could put our own security at risk."

U.S. government officials saw as early as November hundreds of images of alleged mass torture and killings of detainees held by the Syrian regime, the State Department said Thursday.

But President Barack Obama's administration at the time decided against making public a report alleging the large-scale torture and murder of 11,000 detainees by Damascus, out of concern for the safety of the source and in order to identify the documents, deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

Jordan is ready to host a U.S. training program for Iraqi troops to help counter a resurgence of al-Qaida-linked militants in its neighbor, a minister said in remarks published Sunday.

His comments come as Iraqi forces are locked in battles with anti-government militants who have gained ground in Anbar province west of Baghdad amid a spike in violence across the country.

The U.S. embassy in Riyadh has warned its citizens against travelling to the Shiite village of Awamiya in eastern Saudi Arabia, where gunmen this week attacked the car of two German diplomats.

Berlin has said it has no reason to believe the Monday attack in Awamiya, in the Shiite-populated Eastern Province, was politically motivated.

Opium production is booming like never before in Afghanistan, threatening to turn the country into a "narco-criminal" state, a senior U.S. official warned Wednesday.

Despite more than a decade of costly U.S. and international counternarcotics programs, opium poppy harvests -- which also help finance the Taliban insurgency -- are at an all-time high, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko warned senators.

Negotiators from the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives unveiled a $1 trillion spending bill late Monday, eliminating the threat of another government shutdown, at least until October.

The high-stakes omnibus spending bill sets discretionary spending limits line by line for each federal agency until September 30, when the 2014 fiscal year ends.

The United States is watching with concern a deepening political crisis unfolding in its key ally Turkey, and has voiced its disquiet to Turkish leaders, a U.S. official said Thursday.

"In our conversations with all stakeholders in Turkey, we continue to make clear that the United States supports the desire of the Turkish people for a legal system that meets the highest standards of fairness, timeliness and transparency," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

U.S. President Barack Obama late Saturday ended his vacation in sunny Hawaii and boarded Air Force One for a flight back home to chilly Washington.

Obama arrived in his native Hawaii on December 21 along with his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha, 12, and Malia, 15.

French troops were out in force on the streets of the Central African Republic's capital Friday as they sought to clamp down after days of violence.

Heavy patrols of armored vehicles and French soldiers could be seen in Bangui, where more than 1,000 people are believed to have been killed in three weeks of unrest.