Al-Qaeda Takes Tikrit?

Posted on Comments

When Donald Douglas told me this news, I was stunned. Iraq is falling apart and the terrorists are taking over:

BAGHDAD (AP) — Al-Qaida-inspired militants pushed deeper into Iraq’s Sunni heartland Wednesday, swiftly conquering Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit as soldiers and security forces abandoned their posts and yielded ground once controlled by U.S. forces.
The advance into former insurgent strongholds that had largely been calm before the Americans withdrew less than three years ago is spreading fear that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, struggling to hold onto power after indecisive elections, will be unable to stop the Islamic militants as they press closer to Baghdad.
Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militant group took control Tuesday of much of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, sending an estimated half a million people fleeing from their homes.

Again — “militants,” “insurgents,” the media won’t call them terrorists:

The insurgents are from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).
ISIS, which is also known as ISIL, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda.
It controls considerable territory in eastern Syria and western and central Iraq, in a campaign to set up a Sunni militant enclave straddling the border.
There were also reports on Wednesday of fighting further south, in Samarra, 110km north of Baghdad.
Separately, at least 21 people were killed and 45 hurt by a suicide bomber at a Shia meeting in Baghdad, police said. . . .
The US has condemned the militants, but BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Adams says the West’s response is not going to be military, as there is no appetite to return to a battleground that claimed thousands of British and American lives.

The terrorists control “considerable territory in eastern Syria,” so this is just a bonus dividend of the “Arab Spring.”

Way to go, Barack Obama.

 

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 

100 comments

  3. “History repeats?”

    It always does, doesn’t it? The vehemence with which the regressives deny it as they take the very same steps taken by their ancestors into oblivion is astonishing.

  5. If there was any sanity in the nation left, there would be calls for Mr. Obama’s impeachment or resignation. His REFUSAL to let the details get hammered out on a SOFA means a government we installed will fall.

    God ha’ pity on we!

  6. None of this is a surprise. Obama made a point to make friends with all of our enemies and to punish our allies across the globe. But this was especially the case in the ME. He gave Egypt and Libya to the Islamists. Tried to do the same in Syria and ensured Iran will have a bomb if they want one.

    I am at a loss to figure out what our enemies would wish to see happen that Obama did not already do for them.

  7. where is the defence? – Al-Qaida-inspired militants pushed deeper into Iraq. Swiftly conquering Tikrit as soldiers and security forces abandoned their posts

    Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militant group

  8. Obama is literally attempting to destroy the world as we’ve known it. Such are the fruits of democracy, I suppose.

    As this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see DC get nuked sometime in the next two years.

  9. Thanks for posting that, it was horrific but necessary to watch. Look, I get it that the subject of Iraq generates a lot of mixed feelings among the readership here. Was the decision to invade in 2003 a flawed one? Perhaps so. Certainly the post invasion strategy was a profoundly flawed one. But we are where we are. We should have NEVER surrendered ground that the American soldiers died for. At least we had the good sense to maintain a military presence in Germany and South Korea back in the day. This is a mess of the highest (or is it the lowest) order.

  10. It should be clear to anyone with an objective mind that Obama hates this country, hates it’s citizens, hates democracy and is an enemy of freedom anywhere.

  11. Quite so – and I would note we are STILL in Germany, Japan, and South Korea to this day, nearly 70 years after the end of WWII and 60 after the Korean armistice. And all of them contribute to our security today, and have helped keep the peace since their establishment.

  12. If the Democratic Party gave a tinker’s damn about America, they would join in that call. As it is, they wouldn’t let their Messianic Leader be impeached if he offered California to Mexico and ate a baby live on television.

  13. Think it can’t get any worse?

    Maliki now knows he can’t depend on Obama for anything. Shall he passively submit to beheading, or will he seek help for his Shi’ite government against the Sunni extremists from the only strong Shi’ite army on Earth, which happens to live next door?

    Iraq may end up partitioned between the Sunni/Qaeda and the Iranian/Shi’ite areas, with the Kurds the odd men out as usual.

Comments are closed.