The recent attack on the Bardo museum and killing of foreign tourists has demonstrated that the challenge from the hardline Islamists remains.

US authorities seem to be unusually reluctant to use air power to help the Iraqi authorities and their Iranian allies in the conduct of the Tikrit offensive. Why?

There is a great traction amongst western countries on building up a coalition to tackle ISIS, but the big question is which countries in West Asia would be able to synchronise western goals with theirs? While the US and its NATO allies, along with France and Australia have been assisting the Kurdish peshmerga, the list of Arab countries willing to work with the West-led coalition is unclear.

In the West, there is growing realisation that only boots on the ground can defeat or substantially destroy the Daesh. Unless a ground force capable of taking back the territories seized by the Daesh arrives on the scene, the advantage will lie with the jihadis.

With the US determined not to commit troops, the military defeat of ISIS, at present, is therefore neither feasible nor imminent. Neither the so-called retrained Iraqi Army, nor US air power against this powerful and motivated force will be sufficient.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death will be a serious setback to Daesh as it is different from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups that did not proclaim a ‘caliphate’. As the history of Islam shows, the proclamation of a new ‘caliph’ can be problematic.

The IS frequently releases graphic videos of, for instance, beheadings, on social media. Once these videos surface, an ethical debate arises about the sharing of violent imagery and how these social platforms should deal with the situation.

China, like Russia, suffers from domestic terrorism (the Uyghur East Turkestan Islamic Movement). Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has put China on a list of countries accused of persecuting Muslims, thus making it a target for jihad.

The Peshawar school massacre does not appear to be a simple tit-for-tat game; it has an intricate link to the Afghan endgame in which Pakistan wants to be the victor.