The Near and Distant Challenge

"When Nemmouche was not singing, he was torturing. He was part of a small group of Frenchmen whose visits would terrify the 50-odd Syrian prisoners held in the cells nearby."
Nicolas Henin, French journalist

"I just want the American people to understand the nature of the threat and how we're going to deal with it and to have confidence that we'll be able to deal with it."
"What I want people to understand ... is that over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL, we are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control. And ultimately we're going to defeat them."
U.S. President Barack Obama

"[What is needed from Arab countries is a] clear and firm decision for a comprehensive confrontation to the] cancerous and terrorist [groups]. What is happening in Iraq, and the presence of an armed terrorist group that not only challenges the state authority but its very existence and that of other countries ... is one of the examples of the challenges that are violently shaking the Arab world, and one the Arab League, regrettably has not been able to confront."
"[Joint action] to help any Arab country to face the challenges to its security, safety and territorial integrity [must come forward, including military intervention if needed]."
Nabil Elaraby, head, Arab League

Militants: The Islamic State has already taken over swathes of Syria and Iraq. Above, militants march in Syria

Decisively determined promises. And a likely necessary intervention given the raw brutality unleashed on a part of the Middle East, encompassing Syria and Iraq already pushed to the limits of human depravity in tribal and sectarian civil wars with so many different 'sides' to the conflict it's hard to keep count. Unquestionably now, the combined ingathering of Islamist jihadis that have decided to cast their lot in with the hugely popular Islamic State, has the initiative in their drive to conquer the territories.

Freed French journalist Nicolas Henin has completed the last piece  of the puzzle, identifying French-Muslim Mehdi Nemmouche, the jihadist who mounted a terrorist attack in Belgium on a Jewish museum as the guard who held him prisoner along with three other French hostages, and James Foley, Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines. American journalists Foley and Sotloff were beheaded in revenge for U.S drone attacks against IS, and David Haines' life is now threatened.

Where Syria's President Bashar al-Assad's regime not so long ago, aided by Iran's Republican Guard and its proxy terrorist militia Hezbollah looked to have the upper hand against the disorganized Syrian Free Army and its Islamist foreign fighters, the coalescing of the Islamist jihadis, rejected by al-Qaeda, but inspired by the promise of no-holds-barred on the atrocities front, has gained traction. It conscienceless drive to commit carnage and mass slaughter even outpaces the Syrian regime's atrocities.

Frustration expressed by the Arab League's head, Mr. Elaraby, at the lack of cohesion and wish to intervene by the Arab League speaks volumes. Its 22 members have simply failed in their duty to aid each other in the face of local armed groups, unwilling to meddle in the affairs of other countries, while Mr. Elaraby calls for combined determination and action against the threat of ISIS to meet Washington's call to arms for the defeat of the Islamist terrorists threatening the entire region.

The combination of home-grown extremists for whom no atrocity is too far a road they feel fit to travel, and the presence of foreign jihadis eager to join the adventure of unfettered carnage for the sheer joy of attributing permission from Islam to embark on an exciting venture where nothing is sacred but the obligation to jihad has drawn in the countries of North America and Europe. It is yet another "coalition of the willing" that President Obama speaks of, with the failure of the last one resonating in the embers that gave birth to the Islamic State.

Opposed to sending American ground troops to direct combat, Mr. Obama seems to feel that American air power will save the day, with the Arab League supplying the ground troops so that there can be no complaints of Western interference in the affairs of Muslim countries. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates present as allies, along with the EU and NATO countries, yet it is the wealthy oil sheikdoms that have armed and incited and funded the Sunni Islamists.

Leaving the prospect of another proxy war where the majority Middle East Sunnis grapple with the need to settle scores with the Shiites loyal to Iran in their endless sectarian conflicts, deadly in their outcome, unreasonable to Western sensibilities of a faith seeking shelter from outside influences under the broad canopy of Islam. Even Muslim women sourced from Britain who have rejected all the security and freedom available to them in a liberal democratic country have surfaced to service the Islamic State.

Led by the 20-year-old Aqsa Mahmood from Glasgow, a brigade for women only named the Al-Khanssaa police force is comprised of single women (Mahmood claims she has married an IS 'fighter') wearing face veils and black robs, identified by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London. Describing the brigade as one established by ISIS commanders who have delegated to the women the strict enforcement of sharia law dress code

The women patrol the streets of ISIS-controlled Raqqa on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham in Syria to punish women for un-Islamic behaviour and seeking out those who attempt to engage in vestiges of Western culture by the inappropriate intermingling of the genders. Secondarily, to search burka-clad women ensuring they are not in reality disguised enemy fighters.

And so, the coalition of the willing awaits Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey committing to taking part in a conflict whose success will most directly affect their own security and populations. Saudi Arabia, whose own version of Islam is a tightly-scripted Salafist type Wahhabism, and Turkey's new Islamism with the overthrow of 80 years of Ataturkian secular governance. As opposed to Jordan's Arab-style secular democracy.

As disparate as they are, as medieval is the Middle East, with Qatar and Turkey, both Sunni majorities supporting Shiite Iran and its nuclear program, along with the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, not too different but in degrees of commission from the Islamic State, the Arab League is enjoined to police and govern itself to bring to its corner of the world some semblance of responsible regional government; an urgent appeal meant to benefit themselves, so far spurned.