The Washington Post

The biggest military exercise in eastern Europe since the Cold War kicked off in earnest Tuesday as roughly 2,000 NATO paratroopers were set to fill the skies over Poland. The operation, called Anakonda 2016, is billed as a Polish-led training exercise and will span roughly 10 days. More than 30,000 troops from 24 different countries, including non-NATO states such as Finland and Kosovo, are set to participate in a series of events spread across Poland. The exercise is designed to emulate a “joint defensive operation on a large scale,” according to a release by the U.S. Army.

When the government of Kazakhstan announced land reforms in April, the public protests were the largest the Central Asian republic had seen in three decades. Police arrested hundreds of people, including bystanders and journalists. But Kazakh authorities did not use violence to suppress the demonstrations.

Five years after most senior al-Qaeda leaders are thought to have fled this port city, officials in Karachi worry that the organization is regrouping and finding new support here and in neighboring Afghanistan. They are especially concerned about the recruitment of potential foot soldiers for the next major terrorist attack.

A U.S.-backed force of Kurds and Arabs advanced toward an important Islamic State transit town in Syria on Wednesday, brushing aside Turkish opposition to the involvement of Kurds in operations to recapture the strategically vital area.