IT HAS been a busy two months for the Islamic State (IS), the vicious Sunni Muslim extremist group that operates in Syria and Iraq. On June 29th, a fortnight after taking over Mosul, Iraq’s second city, it declared a caliphate, claiming to speak for the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. It then battled its way towards Baghdad where the Shia-dominated government sits. At the start of August, IS turned north towards Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region and towns home to minorities on the way, attacking Christians, Yazidis and fellow Sunnis, and threatening to reach Erbil, the Kurdish capital. That led Barack Obama, America’s president, to authorise airstrikes against the group which began on August 8th. Meanwhile, in neighbouring Syria, IS has also been expanding westwards.
