Five years since the American military completed its withdrawal from Iraq, U.S. forces are once again playing a major role in the country as part of the war against the Islamic State jihadist group.

If the Islamic State group is to be defeated and prevented from reappearing under some new guise, the root causes behind its birth and growth must be addressed, American experts say.

The Syrian government's recapture of Aleppo after a prolonged and punishing air assault is a defining moment in the country's devastating civil war: it leaves President Bashar Assad in control of almost all major urban areas — and poised to petition for a role in the world community's broader war against Islamic State militants clinging to parts of Syria's northeast.

The prospect of such cooperation would once have been considered highly improbable. Assad became anathema in the West and much of the region after the brutal means he employed during six years of carnage that killed hundreds of thousands, displaced half his population and sent millions of refugees to neighboring countries and Europe.

The Islamic State group's surprise recapture of Syria's famed ancient city of Palmyra has given the jihadist group an important propaganda boon as it comes under attack elsewhere.

These are euphoric but anxious days for South Korea, as the heady impeachment of a deeply unpopular president leaves the country without a recognized leader at a time of military tensions with nuclear-armed North Korea.

Syria's President Bashar Assad is on the verge of recapturing all of Aleppo from rebels, but the victory won't be his alone. The battle for Syria's largest city has attracted thousands of foreign forces backing Assad — including Russian soldiers and Shiite fighters from Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The remarkable political and sectarian alignment underscores Aleppo's symbolic and strategic importance, which goes beyond the confines of Syria's civil war. Syria's former commercial center has long been regarded as a major gateway between Turkey and Syria.

"To me, she was a goddess," said party worker Shankar as he joined a sea of mourners bidding farewell to Jayalalithaa Jayaram, highlighting the messianic devotion of India's poor for often controversial champions.

As German Chancellor Angela seeks the blessing from her party to run for a fourth consecutive term in general elections next year, here are seven pivotal moments in her career. 

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has a reputation for never ducking a fight. But the tough-talking Socialist party modernizer may be about to embark on his biggest battle yet.

All along the street, houses have been reduced to rubble in the central Iraqi city of Kirkuk. The work of Kurdish security forces retaliating against Sunni Arabs after a recent Islamic State group attack, residents say.

Kurdish security forces moved in with bulldozers and excavators and demolished at least 100 homes in the Huzeiran neighborhood of Kirkuk in the week after a deadly suicide bombing in October, according to residents interviewed by The Associated Press and a report by Human Rights Watch.