Consider the following pairs: Towns sometimes mentioned in news : Country 1. Aleppo : Syria 2. Kirkuk : Yemen 3. Mosul : Palestine 4. Mazar-i-sharif : Afghanistan Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

Pairs 1 and 4 are correctly matched as Aleppo is a major city in Syria central to the Syrian Civil War, and Mazar-i-Sharif is a key urban center in northern Afghanistan. Pairs 2 and 3 are incorrect because both Kirkuk and Mosul are located in Iraq, not Yemen or Palestine, and were frequently in the news due to the military operations against ISIS. The core concept tested is the geographical location of major international conflict zones and cities frequently highlighted in global current affairs.