With US President Barack Obama’s announcement of limited air strikes against the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS – also ISIL, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), it appears inevitable that the harsh realities and brutal atrocities that are being committed in Iraq by the Islamic State will have to answer to some kind of international response. How effective that response will be remains to be seen but what is known is that the forces of the Islamic State are dead serious in their proclamation of a new Islamic Caliphate and that they will use whatever means at their disposal to achieve this terrifying goal.