Moscow responded to the military moves by the United States and NATO on Tuesday, blaming Washington for increasing tensions and announcing new military exercises in the west of the country involving short-range ballistic missile units. nyti.ms/34c0hec

The Kurdish-led militia that has been battling Islamic State fighters for control of a prison in northeastern Syria said Wednesday that it had retaken the whole complex. nyti.ms/35uPdJP

“ISIS is not over”: Attacks in Syria and Iraq make clear that the militants have lost neither their will to fight nor their ability to do so. nyti.ms/35jQyTn

Germany has hesitated to take forceful measures as the standoff with Russia over Ukraine deepens. This has fueled doubts about what price Berlin is prepared to pay to deter Russia, and even about its reliability as an ally.nyti.ms/3KO3xwQ

Forces from a Kurdish-led militia on rooftops traded fire with dozens of ISIS fighters still holed up in a prison in northeastern Syria on Thursday, despite claims a day earlier that the militia had regained full control of the entire complex. nyti.ms/3g0SL8j

A modernized Russian military has emerged as a key tool of Putin’s foreign policy: capturing Crimea, intervening in Syria, keeping the peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and propping up a Russia-friendly leader in Kazakhstan. nyti.ms/3u6p0LJ

Russia has continued to mass forces on the Ukrainian border, with troops now surrounding the country on all sides, including in Belarus and Transnistria, a Russian-backed breakaway region of Moldova. nyti.ms/3o6Qux3

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III ordered the military on Thursday to strengthen its efforts to prevent civilian deaths and to improve the way it investigates and acknowledges claims of civilian harm in U.S. combat operations. nyti.ms/3o5n0zn

Even as the Pentagon warned that Moscow continued to deploy more forces to its border with Ukraine, Russia’s foreign minister suggested that there may be room to negotiate with the United States on at least some issues. nyti.ms/3GbxJ1z

A Times investigation reveals how Israel reaped diplomatic gains around the world from NSO’s Pegasus spyware — a tool America itself purchased but is now trying to ban. nyti.ms/3IIvPar

Journalists from The New York Times spent 12 days with a small Taliban police unit tasked with guarding a Shiite shrine. The unit offers a telling snapshot of Taliban fighters and the challenges Afghanistan’s new rulers face. nyti.ms/3u8DtXF

The Islamic State may no longer be able to control territory, but it has shown in Syria and Iraq that it can still pull off opportunistic military operations. nyti.ms/3GdQNMu

With much of Ukraine’s military might concentrated in the east — where a war with Russian-backed separatists has raged for 8 years — analysts and Ukraine’s generals say it will be difficult to muster the forces necessary to defend its northern border. nyti.ms/3KXUlWP

Ukrainian officials sharply criticized the Biden administration Friday for its ominous warnings of an imminent Russian attack, saying they had needlessly spread alarm, even as a Pentagon assessment said Russia was now positioned to invade all of Ukraine. nyti.ms/3Ggqo0G

Gen. John K. Singlaub, who waged clandestine warfare for the U.S. Army and the C.I.A., then retired under pressure after repeatedly criticizing Jimmy Carter’s national security policies, died Saturday. He was 100. nyti.ms/3rhLdoq

The bodies of at least two boys were found on a street behind the Syrian prison — the first confirmed deaths among up to 700 teenagers who had been detained there because they were the children of ISIS fighters. nyti.ms/3AKs1CG

President Biden said on Thursday that U.S. Special Operations commandos killed the leader of the Islamic State in a risky pre-dawn raid in northwest Syria. Rescue workers said women and children were among at least 13 people killed during the raid. nyti.ms/3sx9O8b

The U.S. has acquired intelligence about a Russian plan to fabricate a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine using a fake video that would build on recent disinformation campaigns, according to administration officials and others briefed on the material. nyti.ms/3GjuCEQ

Little is known about the ISIS leader or other members of the group’s senior command. But his death in a raid by U.S. commandos in Syria on Thursday was a significant blow to the terror group and a victory for U.S. counterterrorism efforts. nyti.ms/3J5vfUp

A single Islamic State suicide bomber carried out the attack at Kabul airport in August that killed 13 U.S. troops and as many as 170 civilians, and was not accompanied by accomplices firing into the crowd, according to a Pentagon report released Friday. nyti.ms/3sgneFk