Hi, thanks for downloading the inquiry from the BBC World Service.

We're a weekly program. Our job is to add in-depth analysis to one question from the

news. We hope you like it.

BBC World Service, this is Helena Merriman with the inquiry.

This week, can Islamic State be defeated.

On the 13th of November,

gunman on the streets of Paris killed 129 people.

The day before, 43 people were killed by suicide bombers in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

Two weeks before that...

It reached about 30,000 feet, when it suddenly started to drop very fast.

A bomb was smuggled onto a Russian passenger jet.

It exploded over Egypt, killing all 224 people on board.

The group calling itself Islamic State claimed responsibility for each one of these attacks.

If true, in just two weeks, they've murdered almost 400 civilians

in places far beyond the areas they control.

Of course, by the time you hear... far beyond the areas they control.

Of course, by the time you hear this,

there may be new attacks to add to that list.

All this while being bombed by the world's most powerful countries and fighting an

assortment of militias on the ground. A year ago in our very first inquiry we asked whether Islamic State could be stopped.

Now we've gone back to the expert witnesses we spoke to then.

We want to know whether their views have changed. Can Islamic

...