US sailors conduct routine maintenance on a jet blast deflector on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Nimitz on July 9, 2025. (US Navy)
The Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak (BEST) facility, which will house a compact fusion experiment device, undergoes its first exterior lighting test on September 9, 2026, in Hefei, China. (Getty Images)
United States Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy participate in a joint press conference after talks on September 6, 2026, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Getty Images)
Engineers work outside the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, on September 25, 2009. (Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes US Special Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner before their talks in Moscow on September 5, 2026. (Getty Images)
Afghan politician Ahmad Massoud, one of the leaders of the National Resistance Front and son of the famed Mujahideen leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, in Paris, France, on March 22, 2021. (Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images)
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri photographed in 2001. (Hamid Mir via Wikimedia Commons http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/pakistan/main/2011/05/03/feature-02)
Members of Taliban led government, as well as many Afghan men, participate in celebrations marking the first anniversary of the US-led troops' withdrawal from the country in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 31, 2022. (Photo by Bilal Guler/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A man looks on at a snow-covered security checkpoint that marks the entrance to Logar province, beyond the southern gate on January 17, 2022, in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Scott Peterson/Getty Images)
Cover photo for an article published by al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) magazine Hitteen on China, Pakistan, and the Uyghurs. (Riccardo Valle and Lucas Webber)
A memorial at Camp Lejeune on August 6, 2022, for the thirteen service members killed in the 2021 Kabul airport suicide bombing. (Lance Cpl. Jessica J. Mazzamuto/USMC)
The China-donated Gwadar Technical and Vocational Institute in southwest Pakistan's Gwadar on October 1, 2021, just after the building's completion. (Photo by Str/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Civilians prepare to board a plane during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 18, 2021. (US Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla)