The fall of Afghanistan's northern city of Kunduz to the Taliban is but their most dramatic advance in recent weeks, with Taliban and ISIS forces rapidly seizing territory.
The White House announced plans to release Guantánamo Bay inmate Shaker Aamer to the United Kingdom, following extensive lobbying by British politicians.
The long-simmering conflict in the Russian Federation's Chechen Republic appears to be playing itself out in Ukraine. As Vladimir Putin launched his invasion, the "official" (Moscow-installed) Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov boasted that elements of the Russian National Guard from Chechnya are taking part in the "military operation." The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria rebel government-in-exile meanwhile announced that volunteers from across the Chechen diaspora are preparing to fight for Ukraine. Two Chechen volunteer battalions have fought against Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine's Donbas region since 2014. Most of their fighters fled Russia after the fall of the de facto independent government that controlled Chechnya between 1996 and 2000. (Photo of the the Sheikh Mansur Battalion: OC Media)
Crimean Tartars, blockading the Ukrainian border in protest of Russia's annexation of their homeland, are said to be collaborating with Ukraine's neo-fascist Right Sector.
An Aleppo-based seed research center, forced by the war to flee to Beirut, has made an emergency request for seed stock from a "doomsday" vault on a remote Arctic island.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is now the first Western leader to take Vladimir Putin's bait in agreeing that Bashar Assad can be part of a Syrian "transition government."
