Counterterrorism

A former French intelligence officer who defected to al Qaida was among the targets of the first wave of U.S. air strikes in Syria last month, according to people familiar with the defector’s movements and identity.

The U.S. continued its air campaign against the Islamic State with some estimates of the cost so far at $1 billion. The U.K., Canada, Australia, Denmark and Turkey all committed to join the campaign in Iraq. The U.N. and U.S. are expanding their mission to combat the spread of Ebola in West Africa. Amnesty International released a new report on widespread use of torture by police in Mexico. And the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea met to announce their agreement to prevent outside military presence in the sea.

The rapid advances of an Islamist army under the banner of ISIL (subsequently renamed ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, the mass ethnic and religious slaughter that is taking place there, the blood-soaked videos featuring the executions of Americans and Europeans, and ISIS’ threats against the United States, Europe and the Russian leadership now top the list of the developments making a powerful impact on the global agenda, which was previously entirely dominated by the events in and around Ukraine.

There’s a peculiar belief currently coursing intellectual circles in Moscow. Combining the bubbling traits of nativism and Islamophobia, and playing squarely into the hands of those seeking to amp the region’s security structures, certain circles have begun pumping up the terror and tenor of the threat posed by the Islamic State.