Iraq

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burdened: President Obama is facing calls from both sides of the aisle to up U.S. attacks in Iraq against the Islamic State after a second American journalist was beheaded on video by militants of the terrorist group. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

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FILE - This Aug. 28, 2014 file photo shows President Barack Obama speaking in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, before convening a meeting with his national security team on the militant threat in Syria and Iraq. President Barack Obama’s acknowledgement the U.S. still lacks a strategy for defeating the growing extremist threat emanating from Syria reflects a still unformed international coalition. The president will meet with his top advisers and consult members of Congress to prepare U.S. military options. At the same time, he is looking for allies around the world to help the U.S. root out the Islamic State group that has seized large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

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President Barack Obama leaves the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014, after speaking about the economy, Iraq, and Ukraine, before convening a meeting with his national security team on the militant threat in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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Ralph Weems, a 32-year-old Marine and Iraq war veteran, was in fair condition Monday, recovering in a Tupelo hospital after he was badly beaten. (Facebook/The Clarion-Ledger)

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National Edition News cover for August 27, 2014 - U.S. citizens joining Islamic State major threat to homeland: in this Monday, June 30, 2014 photo, militants from the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) celebrating the group's declaration of an Islamic state, in Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq. The militant extremist group's unilateral declaration of an Islamic state is threatening to undermine its already-tenuous alliance with other Sunnis who helped it overrun much of northern and western Iraq. (AP Photo)

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A convoy of vehicles and militant fighters move through Iraq's Anbar Province. The U.S. government is tracking and gathering intelligence on as many as 300 Americans who are fighting side-by-side with the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria and are poised to become a major threat to the homeland, according to senior U.S. officials. (Associated Press)

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Texas Gov. Rick Perry gestures as he speaks at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014, about that he would be open to sending U.S. combat forces to Iraq to fight the deadly Islamic state after its attacks on a Christian minority and the beheading of an American journalist and border security. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

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The Islamic State, which controls large portions of Iraq and Syria, "seems to be absolutely certain they will be trying to kill as many Americans as possible in the United States as well as elsewhere," said Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch. (Raqqa Media Center Via Associated Press)

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Image: YouTube, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

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Smoke rises from airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq. (Associated Press)

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New Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Ibadi, a Shiite, has gotten votes of confidence from American and Iranian leaders about building a unity government in Baghdad. (associated press)

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Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community gather at a park near the Turkey-Iraq border at the Ibrahim al-Khalil crossing, as they try to cross to Turkey, in Zakho, 300 miles (475 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Aug. 15, 2014. The European Union on Friday forged a unified response to the rapid advance of Islamic militants in Iraq and the resulting refugee crisis, allowing direct arms deliveries to Kurdish fighters battling the Sunni insurgents, while several EU nations pledged more humanitarian aid. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

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Majority Whip Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said that the U.S. cannot become more involved with the crisis in Iraq by putting troops on the ground. (AP Photo/Stacy Thacker, File)

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Demonstrators chant pro-al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as they carry al Qaeda flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, June 16, 2014. Sunni militants captured a key northern Iraqi town along the highway to Syria early on Monday, compounding the woes of Iraq's Shiite-led government a week after it lost a vast swath of territory to the insurgents in the country's north. (AP Photo)

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al Qaeda inspired militants stand with captured Iraqi Army Humvee at a checkpoint outside Beiji refinery, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, June 19, 2014. The fighting at Beiji comes as Iraq has asked the U.S. for airstrikes targeting the militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. While U.S. President Barack Obama has not fully ruled out the possibility of launching airstrikes, such action is not imminent in part because intelligence agencies have been unable to identify clear targets on the ground, officials said.(AP Photo)

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Hughes MH-6 Little Bird, nicknamed the Killer Egg, and its attack variant AH-6, are light helicopters used for special operations in the United States Army. This little helicopter has proved its worth in Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Somalia and Iraq. They fulfilled a multitude of roles from observation, transport, to attack. Two US Army (USA) AH-6J Little Bird helicopters take off for a mission at a forward deployed location in southern Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.