Kunduz

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter arrived in Madrid on Oct.4, beginning a European tour amid alarm over Russian bombardments in Syria and the refugee crisis sparked by the conflict.

President Barack Obama has pledged a full investigation into an apparent US air strike on an Afghan hospital that killed 19 people, in a bombing the UN said could amount to a war crime.
 

Afghan forces retook control of the strategic northern city of Kunduz on Oct.1 after a three-day Taliban occupation that dealt a stinging blow to the country's NATO-trained military.

The Taliban Sept. 28 seized half of an Afghan provincial capital, sending panicked residents fleeing as the hardline Islamists for the first time breached a major city since being ousted from power in 2001.