Two French girls, ages 15 and 17, were caught by authorities after allegedly planning to fly to Syria and become jihadis. Not much information has been released about the teens or their motives, but at face value, the case isn't unusual—French authorities say they've caught 900 citizens participating in jihad or attempting to participate in jihad.

Perhaps ISIS should open a new training camp to instruct its murderous recruits on how to tweet without revealing the precise location of its training camps to citizen investigative journalists.

James Foley was courageous, and his murder by an apparently English-accented zealot of the Syria-based Islamic State was so horrific that no simple narrative can do it justice. Unless, that is, you're a conservative political opportunist of a special sort, eager to pin the crime on liberal policies.

John and Diane Foley, the parents of American photojournalist James Foley—who was executed by ISIS in a horrifying video released Tuesday—have released an email they received from the militants just a week before their son was killed.

After ISIS militants and supporters disseminated video and images of James Foley's brutal beheading on Tuesday, Twitter finally cracked down, suspending the accounts of multiple ISIS accounts. Now ISIS has moved to Diaspora, a network that's having a much harder time controlling the flow of extremist propaganda.

The New York Times reports that the Islamic militant group ISIS originally demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom before ultimately beheading American journalist James Foley.

After calling photojournalist James Foley's parents this morning, President Obama made a short statement about Foley's death at the hands of ISIS. "We will continue to confront this hateful terrorism and replace it with a sense of hope and civility," he said from Martha's Vineyard, where he's vacationing. "That's what Jim Foley stood for."

The mother of American photojournalist James Foley—reportedly the subject of a brutal beheading video released today by the militant group ISIS—spoke out Tuesday night to praise her son and request mercy for the remaining hostages.

ISIS militants released gruesome video footage this afternoon of the beheading of American photojournalist James Wright Foley as a message to the U.S. to stop intervening in Iraq. Foley, a freelancer who contributed to the Global Post, was first captured in Libya in 2012, released, and then kidnapped again around Thanksgiving 2012 by unidentified gunmen in Syria. He was 40 years old.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced today that the Pentagon has sent 130 additional advisers to northern Iraq to assess evacuation options for the thousands of Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar without food, water, and shelter.

Vice News reporter Medyan Dairieh's unprecedented video series on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria continues with its third installment today, in which Dairieh shadows the religious police through their Syrian capital, Raqqa, and visits prisoners whose "crimes" involved not being sufficiently Muslim.

VICE News has dropped part two of its mesmerizing five-part behind-the-scenes look at the "Islamic State," and it is a maddening inside look at how the militant movement sweeping Iraq and Syria recruits young boys, uses UN humanitarian aid, and hides away women.

State Department officials have confirmed to the New York Times and the Associated Press that the U.S. has begun selling weapons to Kurdish forces in Iraq following airstrikes on ISIS strongholds. “They are being armed from various sources,” one senior State Department official told the Times.

Since President Obama's Thursday night announcement regarding humanitarian aid drops and his authorization of "targeted airstrikes" on Iraq, CNN reports U.S. fighter jets and drones "have repeatedly bombed" ISIS artillery units and convoy as they approach the Kurdish capital of Erbil.

The unfolding disaster in Iraq is a difficult problem to solve, as we have pointed out. But it's one that many everyday Americans feel a real stake in. Nowhere is this more evident than in Cher's tweets from this afternoon.

The United States has initiated airstrikes on Islamic militants in Iraq who threaten fleeing civilians. But what precisely are we attacking? Likely a lot of stuff we built, sold and shipped over there during our long war to keep Iraqis safe, at least one expert says.

President Obama announced tonight that he has authorized "targeted" airstrikes and humanitarian drops on Iraq. The airstrikes, Obama says, will be ordered if ISIS launches an attack on Erbil, where U.S. personnel are currently stationed. "When we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I think the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye," he said.

In case you haven't heard, shit's getting worse in Iraq again. Islamic militants have expanded their control over territory, secured a dam that provides water and power to much of the country's north, and now threaten a religious minority with extinction. What the hell happened to the military forces America sent over in June?

According to a report from The New York Times, ISIS—the Sunni militant group gaining control of Iraq and Syria—has "appeared to capture" Iraq's biggest dam. If the report is true, the consequences could be disastrous:

Yesterday, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Iraq warned reporters that ISIS — the Sunni militant group taking over Iraq and Syria — had ordered 4 million women and girls in Mosul to undergo genital mutilation. Today, analysts say the written fatwa Jacqueline Badcock based her warning on is fake.