A truce went into effect at midnight on Thursday amid escalated fighting in northwestern Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to create a security corridor along a major highway and conduct joint patrols beginning March 15. They also plan to help more than 900,000 people displaced by the fighting to return home.

The United States carried out a defensive strike against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, less than a week after signing a peace agreement with the insurgent group. The strike answered a Taliban assault on Afghan government forces that killed at least 11 soldiers and four civilians, U.S. military spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett said.

An airstrike killed at least 33 Turkish soldiers in northwestern Syria on Thursday. The soldiers fought alongside rebels in Idlib province along the border between Turkey and Syria, where the Russian-backed Syrian army is trying to regain control. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held an urgent security meeting, and the country said it retaliated by hitting 200 government targets and “neutralizing” 309 soldiers.

Warning sirens continued to blare across southern Israel on Monday. Israeli jets launched retaliatory strikes against jihadists in the Gaza Strip and Syria after more than 20 rockets from Gaza entered its territory on Sunday. The Israeli military said it intercepted another 12 of 14 rockets fired on Monday. Palestinian Islamic Jihad confirmed two of its fighters died in Syria. The organization said it would avenge their deaths.

The trial period for a U.S.-Taliban truce is set to begin Friday night. The seven-day “reduction of violence” precedes the signing of a peace agreement, paving the way for the eventual withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan after 18 years of war.

A column of Russian trucks rolled to the border with Ukraine on Feb. 5 as U.S. senators in Washington prepared to vote on whether to remove from office President Donald Trump. The Russian convoy carried ammunition, weapons, and military equipment—all to reinforce Russian-backed rebels and Russian units that in 2014 took control of eastern Ukraine.

As the United States and Iran traded airstrikes in Iraq this month, Behnam Benoka made middle-of-the-night pastoral visits. “It’s important I am available to meet with them in their homes at this hour,” the Syriac Catholic priest said of parishioners when I reached him by phone on Jan. 7. “We wake in the night due to the situation, and people are worried.”