George T. Wittman’s latest blog post
In the past couple years, there hasn’t been that much news about the situation in Iraq; indeed, it seemed like everything had stabilized. However, in the past couple weeks, the region has once again turned into a battleground, as a militant Sunni group operating out of Syria, known as ISIL, has seized a large chunk of western Iraq in a lightning sweep south toward the capital of Baghdad. Their ultimate goal is to recreate a medieval caliphate carved out of fragmenting Syria and Iraq. In response, Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has urged his followers to take up arms and defend themselves against the advance of Sunni militants. People who are capable of carrying arms, said al-Sistani, should volunteer, to join security forces and repel the terrorists from Iraqi soil. Those killed while fighting ISIL militants would be hailed as martyrs.
ISIL miltants marching.
Yesterday Obama threatened military strikes against ISIL, highlighting the danger that this group, who have threatened to redraw borders in an oil-rich region, pose. In the chaos, Kurdish forces have taken control of Kirkuk, an oil hub just outside of their enclave that they have long viewed as their traditional capital. Just yesterday, after seizing Mosul and Tikrit, ISIL entered two towns in the province bordering Iran. The two towns, Saadiyah and Jalawla, had fallen to the Sunni insurgents after government troops fled their positions. In response, the Iraqi army fired artillery shells at Saadiyah and Jalawla from the nearby town of Muqdadiya, sending dozens of families fleeing towards Khaniqin, near the Iranian border.
Yesterday, Obama said that he was considering “all options” to support Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated central government that took full control after the end of US occupation back in 2011, a full eight years after the Americans entered the region. In response to a question about air strikes, Obama said he isn’t ruling out anything, due to the need to make sure that these jihadists don’t gain a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria. Nonetheless, US officials said that US ground forces would not be returning to Iraq. This incident marks a rapid escalation in a conflict that is threatening civil war and the potential break-up of Iraq.
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