After Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane over Syria, Vladimir Putin openly accused Ankara of backing ISIS—echoing a charge Kurdish forces have been making for months.
Russia and France say they will cooperate against ISIS in Syria, but Turkey is undermining unity between Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish forces.
The Pentagon announces the sale of 900 "smart bombs" to Turkey just as Ankara is preparing to move against US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria.
Amid US brinkmanship in the South China Sea, a UN arbitration court agreed to hear the Philippines' challenge of Beijing's territorial claims.
Iran is invited to the US-backed Vienna "peace" talks on the Syria war—seeming to confirm suspicions that cooperation against ISIS was the real motive behind the nuclear deal.
Revelation of Washington's plan to station missile-capable nuclear warheads in Germany was met with a Russian threat to deploy ballistic missiles in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.
The Iranian military presence in Syria has rapidly escalated in recent days, with hundreds of fresh troops reported to be arriving at an airport in strategic Latakia governorate.
The US and Russia each groom their own rival proxy forces to fight ISIS and the Nusra Front—which in turn pledge to turn Syria into "another Afghanistan."
Amnesty International accuses Syrian Kurdish forces of ethnic cleansing against Arabs and Turks in areas liberated from ISIS, raising pressure on Kurdish authorities for an accounting.
In a claim convenient to Russian war propaganda, a group of Tatars calling themselves the Crimean Jamaat reportedly pledged loyalty to Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's Syrian franchise.
With tensions high between Turkey and Russia, Moscow's intervention risks drawing the Kurds into the geopolitical game and escalating divisions within the Syrian resistance.
The Syrian regime says Russian air-strikes hit "ISIS dens"—but a look at the map indicates the strikes were nowhere near ISIS territory, and targetted rebel forces hostile to ISIS.
