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.
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