RUKMINI CALLIMACHI

Islamic State has been obsessed with striking Europe for at least two years. In that time, the group dispatched a string of operatives trained in Syria, aiming to carry out small attacks meant to test and stretch Europe’s security apparatus even as the most deadly assaults were in the works.

It is a modern solution to a medieval injunction: According to an obscure ruling in Islamic law cited by the Islamic State, a man must ensure that the woman he enslaves is free of child before having intercourse with her.

As the debate on how best to contain the Islamic State continues to rage in Western capitals, the militants themselves have made one point patently clear: They want the United States and its allies to be dragged into a ground war.

Kurdish and Yazidi fighters retook Sinjar on Friday, on the second day of a major offensive to retake this city in northern Iraq, which has been under the brutal domination of the Islamic State for more than 15 months.

Gunmen attacked a university campus in eastern Kenya early Thursday, clashing with guards, forcing their way into dormitories, taking hostages and singling out non-Muslims, the authorities said.

The Islamic State posted a video on Tuesday that it said showed the beheading of James Foley, an American journalist who was kidnapped in Syria nearly two years ago, according to a transcript released by the SITE Intelligence Group.