Reversing policy on Afghanistan, President Barack Obama announced on October 15 he will prolong the 14-year-old US military engagement there, effectively handing off the task of pulling out troops to his successor.

US Vice President Joe Biden faced an altered political dynamic on October 14 after Hillary Clinton reasserted her command of the Democratic Party presidential race during a debate that may have left little room for him to run.

The United States is sending 300 US troops, along with surveillance drones, to Cameroon to bolster a West African effort to counter the Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram, US officials said on October 14.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on October 14 Moscow was helping the fight against Islamist insurgents in Iraq with the consent of the Baghdad government.

The Taliban said they were pulling back in the northern city of Kunduz on October 13 in order to protect civilians, but fighting continued elsewhere in the country with government troops battling to reopen the main highway south of the capital Kabul.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian-made Buk missile, the Dutch Safety Board concluded on October 13 in its final report on the crash in July 2014 that killed all 298 people on board, most of them Dutch.

A missile test announced by Iran over the weekend was an apparent violation of a UN Security Council resolution and Washington will raise the incident at the United Nations, the US State Department said October 13.

The prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan removed four ministers from his cabinet on October 12 and the speaker of parliament was barred from entering the capital in an escalating political crisis that threatens to destabilize the region.

Turkey's government said on October 12 Islamic State was the prime suspect in suicide bombings that killed at least 97 people in Ankara, but opponents vented anger at President Tayyip Erdogan at funerals, universities and courthouses.

Turkey is targeting Islamic State in investigations of a double suicide bombing in Ankara that killed up to 128 people, officials said on October 11, while opponents of President Tayyip Erdogan blamed him for the worst such attack in Turkish history.