In addition to an aggressive goatee, Gulmurod Khalimov has a certain set of skills. He commands Tajikistan’s special forces, trained and funded by American military whizzes. Or he did, before recently turning up in a YouTube video saying he’s gone to Syria to fight with the Islamic State.

As nuclear negotiations between Iran and U.S. allies go down to the wire, the Islamic Republic has accused America of killing two of its advisers in the ground war in Iraq with an unmanned aerial vehicle—though U.S. officials say the allegation has no merit.

Federal authorities late yesterday arrested Spc. Hasan Edmonds, 22, a Illinois Army National Guard soldier, and his cousin Jonas, 29, for attempting to join the Islamic State's anti-Western jihad, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

One of the original tires on the axis of evil is apparently being swapped out for a more aggressive tread: Iran, that longtime Islamic bogeyman used in bedtime stories to scare Republican children straight, is now bombing the far-more-terrifying Islamic State in an apparent convergence of interests with the U.S.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, devoted Islamic State imam, has reportedly survived a U.S.-led attack and proven that the line between blood-lusting despot and sexually repressed punchline is, as ever, a fine one with a new audio sermon exhorting his scruffy man-warriors to "explode the volcanoes of jihad everywhere."

A U.S. airstrike over the weekend may have targeted and hit Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the fancy watch-wearing head of ISIS's wannabe worldwide caliphate. He may be dead, according to some people. Top people.

The Free Syrian Army, a moderate militia being trained and equipped by the Obama administration in hopes that it could defeat both ISIS and Syria's secular dictator, was routed by Al Qaeda allies over the weekend, with many of its men and weapons being taken over for the jihadi cause.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows more Americans than ever want a ground war to fight ISIS. More Caucasian, Republican, male, senior Americans than ever!

To defeat the Islamists of ISIS, everyone says, you need boots on the ground. How about motorcycle boots? Kurt Sutter from Sons of Anarchy has to be pissed he didn't think up this story line first.

The Guardian has a must-read long essay by Jonathan Powell, one of the negotiators of the 1997 Northern Ireland peace deal, on "how to talk to terrorists." It will make you reconsider everything you know about "us" and "them." And it likely foretells how the latest us-them conflict will turn out.

It's no Desert Storm. It's not even Desert Fox. It wishes it was Desert Crossing. It can't be Operation Iraqi Freedom, since we've used that, although it could be Operation Freedom Is Messy. The point is: U.S. war planners now say they need a name for this thing that's totally not a war, but a "targeted operation."

In his introduction to the international scene Thursday, Iraq's new prime minister told a gaggle of journalists at the U.N. that his country had discovered an "imminent" attack plot by Islamic State fighters against "subway systems in United States and Paris."

Bill O'Reilly has the spittle of a young soldier and the wattle of an elder statesman, but does he have the intellectual or moral mettle of a war strategist? No. No, he does not.

Seems a fair estimation by "Fox Nation." Not that you could expect much else out of weak latte-saluting eurosocialist Obummer. When will America get the entirely reactionary War with Islam it deserves?

As U.S. bombs fell in Syria for the first time last night, the "official spokesman of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham" reportedly released a far-ranging 11-page message to its fighters, American opponents, and Muslims worldwide. It makes a tough read, unless you've got a glossary handy.

The Daily Mail just mistook a charity worker for the notorious religious head of a jihad-happy Middle East terrorist network. It was a simple mistake anyone could have made, except that nobody else did.

Did you hear Barack Obama say last week that the U.S. would "not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq"? You may think that precludes U.S. foot troops from potentially leading Kurds and Iraqis in direct combat with Islamic State fighters. Don't think that.

Life ain't easy for a young woman named Isis. Which is why she's launched a campaign to get people to stop calling the Iraq/Syria terror group "ISIS." She could use her given name, Teresa, but "People don't know me as Teresa, they know me as Isis," she said. "If I do that, then the terrorists win."

Operation OK Let's Go Back There And Maybe Clean Up Some Spots We Missed, But You Know We're Just Gonna End Up Making A Mess Again is a go. Too bad; we could probably have used that name next week, when the Libyan Republic of Jihad makes ISIS look like JROTC.

President Obama will address the nation in prime time Wednesday evening to lay out his strategy to fight the Islamic State. Combating the group has become a high priority since its brutal staged executions of two Americans. Coincidentally, Missouri and Texas have prisoner executions scheduled for Wednesday night.