Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, suspected of the armed onslaught on a newspaper office that claimed a dozen lives, are the most wanted men in France.

Since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, armed men have shown up frequently and at odd hours to search the cinder-block houses, mosque and school in this settlement of Crimean Tatars, a Muslim ethnic minority that has long suffered from discrimination in the peninsula that is its historic homeland.

Islamic State militants invaded Iraq’s west almost a year ago and overran the nation’s second-largest city in June, threatening death and torture to opponents in their way. But the world has been slow to respond, coming together Wednesday for the first high-level meeting of scores of nations now devoted to destroying the rampant insurgency.

One day in October, a dozen armed men in masks drove up to the gates of Yalta Film Studios. They weren’t actors, and this was no make-believe. It was a hostile takeover.