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.

In Miami, Julio Gonzalez Rebull ruminates over the failed attempt to invade Cuba in 1961. In Havana, Alberto Casanova boasts of the victory won by the Revolution. One wanted to kill Fidel Castro, the other wanted to protect him.

The invasion of Playa Giron, in the Bay of Pigs, sank one man into the gloom of exile; to the other, it symbolized the triumph of the Cuban revolution.

Following are key dates in the battle for Syria's second city Aleppo, where the army has gained significant ground in its offensive to recapture the entire city.

President Bashar al-Assad is determined to retake Syria's second city Aleppo to deal a decisive blow to the rebels ahead of a possible change in US foreign policy, analysts say. 

Assad's regime has in recent months been pressing a series of offensives to seize control of the devastated city's east, which has been in rebel hands since 2012.

From Dwight Eisenhower, who broke U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba, to Barack Obama, who decided to normalize them, 11 U.S. presidents faced off with Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who died late Friday.

-- Dwight Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-1961): Provided arms to dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was battling Castro's rebels. Prepared the invasion of the Bay of Pigs and broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba in January 1961.

After surviving more than 600 assassination attempts, defying 11 U.S. presidents and shaping half a century of history, Fidel Castro has died at age 90.

Here are six snapshots of this magnetic, polarizing giant of the 20th century, who beat the odds to hang on well into the 21st.