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All key facilities are now controlled by the insurgents, including the airport and the prisons, said Nujaifi, who is from Mosul.

The capture of the airport, which had served as a major hub for the U.S. military, could not be independently confirmed, but Nujaifi said it had been seized and that all of the aircraft there also were captured.

Maliki is urging the United States to deliver more advanced weaponry, but ISIS fighters have already been seen riding round in U.S.-supplied Humvees in other areas they control, and much of the weaponry captured in this latest battle is likely to be American, Lister said.

The speed with which one of Iraq’s biggest cities has fallen under militant control is striking and suggests the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces are even more vulnerable than had previously been thought.

wasn't this inevitable.. from the day that obama decided to withdraw troops? i'm not saying this is on obama though, but this is just the consequence of a very hard decision he had to make.

wasn't this inevitable.. from the day that obama decided to withdraw troops? i'm not saying this is on obama though, but this is just the consequence of a very hard decision he had to make.

It was not obama, it was the Iraqis that failed to sign a security agreement same shit that is going on in afgan today. They do not sign security extensions we do not stay. Then everything reverts back to the way it was before we got their if not worse.

It was not obama, it was the Iraqis that failed to sign a security agreement same shit that is going on in afgan today. They do not sign security extensions we do not stay.

All thanks to bush & blair and their cronies in the oil industry. These parasites should be locked up for war crimes.

Not surprised by this, after all the entire country is comprised of cowards.  

They Won't fight, they drop their weapons and shed their uniforms when confronted but yet they are brave enough to stone women to death.

Cowards.

uh, good job generalizing a nation of people. america can do no wrong and iraqis are a bunch of freeloaders, right?

What a nonsense... "Bush the Great, came to us and take our natural resources, please. We need a democracy!". Occupation isn't an act of philanthropy. You speak as if somebody in Iraq asked Bush to organize the occupation and install a puppet government.

Iraq is a deeply polarized society, with Sunnis, Shias, Kurds and other minorities deeply distrustful of each other. Despite this, Saddam Hussain was able to unite them, although by applying force. He suppressed the radical Islamists as well, making the lives of minorities (Christians, Yazidis, Mandeans.etc) easier. Once the Americans overthrew him, the Islamist radicals immediately rose to power and caused problem for the minorities. 80% of the minority population has vanished from Iraq during the last decade.

Here you go again lol, He did not unite them, he suppressed them. Pretty sure the North of Iraq was not even under his control at the time of occupation.

Really, I mean really? Are you going to say that he just suppressed the islamist? How about it was  do what I say or I kill you regardless of race, color, creed, or religion?
I mean it is easy to suppress uprising and violence when you just suppress everyone......

Yes, you're absolutely right. Saddam oppressed the people of Iraq, he didn't unite them. This is just the latest in the ramifications of the Blair-Bush war of aggression that they got away with.

Iraq is a deeply polarized society, with Sunnis, Shias, Kurds and other minorities deeply distrustful of each other. Despite this, Saddam Hussain was able to unite them, although by applying force. He suppressed the radical Islamists as well, making the lives of minorities (Christians, Yazidis, Mandeans.etc) easier. Once the Americans overthrew him, the Islamist radicals immediately rose to power and caused problem for the minorities. 80% of the minority population has vanished from Iraq during the last decade.

No one can unite the people of Iraq. They are divided along the sectarian lines.

Not surprised by this, after all the entire country is comprised of cowards. 

They Won't fight, they drop their weapons and shed their uniforms when confronted but yet they are brave enough to stone women to death.

Cowards.

I bet if we dropped you off in the middle of Iraq we could find you again by following the trails of piss and shit you leave behind you...

Iraq needed a federal republic after the occupation. Each region with real representation in the legislature would go a long way toward their various groups feeling enfranchised. Of course not breaking it in the first place would have been good as well.

Well, at least initially that was the plan. But there is a very serious problem. Most of the oil wells are located in the Sunni and Kurd areas, and not in the Shiite inhabited regions. Shiites constitutes somewhere around 60% of the Iraqi population, and they want the oil wealth to go to the central government. And obviously the Sunnis and Kurds are opposed to this.

The US has been encouraging Islamic extremism in the Middle East for years. Every time the US decides to smash secular nationalism, you can guarantee that something more sinister will take its place. It's like a 5 year old is in charge of US foreign policy.

For the first time, I'll agree with you.

Iraq: Pan-Arabic nationalist Ba'ath party (under Saddam Hussain) replaced by the Islamic Da'awa Party. Power shifted from Sunni Arab to Shiite Arab.
Syria: Pan-Arabic nationalist Ba'ath party (under Bashar al Assad) is about to be replaced by the FSA, which includes Islamist factions such as the ISIL/ISIS.
Egypt: Secular ruler Hosni Mubarak replaced with Mohammed Morsi of the Islamic Brotherhood.
Tunisia: Secular government by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali replaced by Hamadi Jebali of the Islamic Brotherhood.

The only exception has been Libya.

The Ennahda movement is probably the best thing that could happen to tunisia.
Also Hamadi is not in power anymore and he was not part of the islamic brotherhood , he was a moderate islamic.

Ennahda is the Tunisian version of Islamic Brotherhood, which is funded by Saudi Arabia. They call themselves moderate Islamists, but in truth they are even more hard-line than the Egyptian Islamic Brotherhood.

Not surprised by this, after all the entire country is comprised of cowards. 

They Won't fight, they drop their weapons and shed their uniforms when confronted but yet they are brave enough to stone women to death.

Cowards.

^^^ I know exactly what is going on there. Tunisia has been historically a very tolerant nation, unlike Egypt and Libya. There are only a few thousand Christians there and there have been no attacks against them. So I am not surprised at Theodoros II thanking the Tunisian president for protection. But what this has to do with the current government?

1 trillion bucks, one dead dictator, 1mn dead Iraqis later, we are back to square one
Well done, Uncle Sam!

1 trillion was the old figure. According to the latest reports, NATO has spent a total of $4 trillion in Iraq so far (most of it by the United States). And the civilian deaths are approaching 2 million.

TIKRIT Iraq (Reuters) - Sunni insurgents from an al Qaeda splinter group extended their control from the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday to an area further south that includes Iraq's biggest oil refinery in a devastating show of strength against the Shi'ite-led government.

Security sources said militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - Sunni militants waging sectarian war on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier - drove into the town of Baiji late on Tuesday in armed vehicles, torching the court house and police station after freeing prisoners.

The Baiji refinery can process 300,000 barrels per day and supplies oil products to most of Iraq's provinces and is a major provider of power to Baghdad. A worker there said the morning shift had not been allowed to take over and the night shift was still on duty.

The push into Baiji began hours after ISIL overran Mosul, one of the great Sunni historic cities, advancing their aim of creating a Sunni Caliphate straddling the border between Iraq and Syria.

The United States, which pulled its troops out from Iraq to and half years ago, pledged to help Iraqi leaders "push back against this aggression" as the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked parliament to declare a state of emergency.

It said Washington would support "a strong, coordinated response", adding that "ISIL is not only a threat to the stability of Iraq, but a threat to the entire region".

This is a problem for Saudi Arabia and Iran to sort out. Both hate each other, but neither like al-Qaeda. It's about time we let the Sunni and Shiite sort out their own problems directly - by fighting if necessary.

Iraq is a deeply polarized society, with Sunnis, Shias, Kurds and other minorities deeply distrustful of each other. Despite this, Saddam Hussain was able to unite them, although by applying force. 

Chemical attacks on Kurdish cities were surely a great way of uniting Iraq.

Saddam Hussain was a pan-Arab nationalist. He wanted to forcibly assimilate the minority ethnic groups, which the Kurds despised. Feels bad for them. Their language is banned almost everywhere.... Turkey, Syria, Iran.etc.

Iraqi government forces, backed by Shia Muslim and Kurdish militias, are reportedly holding back an advance by Sunni militants north of Baghdad.

A number of towns have been retaken from the rebels, but they still control the key cities of Tikrit and Mosul.

Trust me, it's not only the language that is banned in those countries, dare to say you're a Kurd and you will see what will happen to you. Arabs look down on us but they sure as hell do enjoy going to Kurdistan for their holidays :).

Feels sad. I have heard that in Turkey, they are not even allowed to use the term Kurds. They are referred as Mountain Turks. How is the situation in Iran? Do the Persian Kurds face any type of discrimination?

Trust me, it's not only the language that is banned in those countries, dare to say you're a Kurd and you will see what will happen to you. Arabs look down on us but they sure as hell do enjoy going to Kurdistan for their holidays :).

I didn't even know there would be any Kurds hanging about on this forum of all places! I watched a pretty lengthy independent documentary about you guys and how you even had a women sniper team in your armed forces, is it true you guys don't discriminate as much against people of different faiths? It's hard to get accurate information over here in the west about Iraq and the documentary was mainly just the journalist talking to the Kurds themselves but these were mostly military people.

Baghdad will never fall , we have 17 000 us troops and mercenaries there , remember? ;)

The US embassy is heavily fortified and there are thousands of US troops and private security contractors guarding that facility. But if the ISIS launches a surprise attack with all their might, the Americans will not even get time to evacuate their personnel.

If the ISIS will ever try to launch an all attack on that embassy it will be their doom.
They will die there without setting foot inside.

The moment they gather in large groups for such an attacks they are targets for the planes and drones.

My guess is that they will wait until the Americans will evacuate and just then storm Baghdad.
That is they will even reach the city.

My guess is that they will wait until the Americans will evacuate and just then storm Baghdad.
That is they will even reach the city.

From what I can tell this is all by design to create something bigger and build on what Bush sr and jr set up. The neocons like McCain were doing backflips hoping to arm these Syrian rebels and now they are in possession of top notch weaponry and doing untold damage. THIS kind of thing is why us liberty minded personnel need to be the drivers of the GOP from here on out and let the neocons go back to their Troskyite ways in the democratic party from whence they came. They sure as hell aren't fiscally conservative in the least.

McCain wanted to ship weapons and other equipment to moderate fractions fighting against Assad, not to ISIL. And Hillary Clinton had a similar opinion.
But Obummer said no, just like he said no to recent requests of help from the Iraqi government. The ISIL has some US built weapons, but shipped
from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. If the Iraqi army collapses, the fight will be carried on by Shia militias and Iranian volunteers, resulting
in a civil (sectarian) war that could last years and could do massive damage in destroyed property and loss of life.

Maybe now only al-Qaeda are still alive, fighting against Assad, because the moderate ones had no chance (thanks Obummer).
I don't want more involvement, but what Obummer does is similar to what happened in Vietnam. The US army eventually won
the attrition war (the vietcong was depleted), then left and the NVA conquered the South. If you think US occupation of Iraq
was bad (and I don't say it was good, they made many mistakes, especially under Rumsfeld), the civil war is going to be worse.

Islam the religion of peace!


Its obvious this was going to happen, anyone who has been around Iraqi or even Afghan soldiers, or has personally known soldiers that were over there has allready heard about thier complete incompetence. I recommend everyone watches this Vice Video on the next army to have to defend itself the Afghan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5Q75hf6QI).

I jsut saw the other day the ISIS robbed all the banks in Mosul and made an absurd ammount of money, guess they are richer than Al Qaeda now.

Due to the soldiers abandoning thier posts and gear the ISIS  also now have up armored humvess, massive ammounts of ammunitions and arms, Sapi plates and body armor and who knows the may have some abrahms and a fucking mrap for all we know.

4 trillion and large ammount of us soldiers, such a god damn joke.

i guess it'll be interesting to see how much isis can inspire people to join them.. he sure looks like a darkhorse.

Read this. You'll know how they are getting support:

http://rt.com/news/166920-isis-iraq-offensive-report

But seriously, ISIS does have a lot of support among the Sunni Arabs, who feel discrimination at the hands of the pro-US Shiite regime.

ISIS would do well if they knew how to appeal to people by giving them a goal or reason to fight.

As the Islamic warriors of ISIS rolled down the road from Mosul... “We are now facing an existential threat to the security of the United States of America,” said McCain. But nothing that happens in Mesopotamia is going to threaten the existence of the United States. As for the terrorist threat from ISIS, for us it is neither greater nor less than it was a week ago.

The existential threat here is to Iraq. Its survival as one nation is now in question, with the possibility it could be torn apart in a civil and sectarian war. But this is preeminently Iraq’s problem, not ours. And if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his 900,000-man army, and Shia militia cannot defend Baghdad from a few thousand Islamist warriors, America is under no obligation to do it for them. Maliki told us to go home three years ago. We did. And before we plunge back into that misbegotten war, let us consider what the real threats are—to America.
...
...ISIS has as allies in the north and west of Iraq Sunnis who detest Maliki and wish to be rid of him. But these Sunni are not demanding a Taliban regime to abolish smoking and drinking. Nor are they fighting to cut off the heads of their Shia countrymen. If ISIS goes beyond the liberation of the Sunni triangle to trying to take over all of Iraq, they will lose many Sunni allies and find themselves facing Iraq’s Shia majority, backed up by Iranian forces, virtually alone.

But while the Iraqi army and Shia militia may well hold Baghdad, it is hard to see how Maliki can soon reconquer the Sunni provinces. For the Sunnis want no part of him or his regime. Nor does Maliki seem capable of taking back Kirkuk, which the Kurds seized in the chaos as a step toward independence. What should America do? Take a hard look at our entire Middle East policy.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says 150 Australians have been or are currently overseas fighting with extremists in Iraq and Syria.