The 50-year-old psychiatrist is a well-known anti-Islam activist who seems to have felt increasingly persecuted by Germany.

Senior U.S. diplomats visit Damascus, as Washington and Brussels weigh lifting sanctions against the country’s transitional government.

Moscow has stepped up efforts to refurbish old equipment, including Soviet-era tanks used as props in films, after losing an estimated 11,000 armored combat vehicles in the Ukraine war.

A quiet suburban mom, a hard-drinking war correspondent and an Arctic researcher were hiding in plain sight, championed by the Kremlin’s No. 1 fan of spy fiction.