A year ago today, the Iraqi city of Mosul fell to Islamic State militants, an event that should have shattered any lingering illusions that Islamic State was the “JV” of radical Islamic terrorist groups. For the past 12 months we have seen its vicious campaign to establish a new Caliphate carved out of Syria and Iraq play out on computer and television screens across the globe. We have seen American, Israeli, British and Japanese captives beheaded. We have seen a brave Jordanian pilot burned alive. We have seen mass executions of Egyptian Christians. We have seen the civilian populations of Syria and Iraq brutalized, with woman and children crucified, raped, tortured and forced to accept the Sharia law imposed by the Islamic State.

While these atrocities have grabbed the headlines, Islamic State has also been engaged in a steady campaign of territorial expansion, both in the region and beyond. Other major Iraqi cities, including Fallujah and Ramadi, have fallen to the Islamic State. It has extended its operations to Libya and allied with Boko Haram in Nigeria. So-called “lone wolf” plots to attack us here at home have cropped up from Texas to Massachusetts.