Iraq militants seize Mosul

[Correction]

Iraq militants seize Mosul, causing thousands to flee

Iraq's prime minister has asked parliament to declare a state of emergency after Islamist militants effectively took control of Mosul and much of its province of Nineveh.

Nouri Maliki said "vital areas" of the city had been seized; some 150,000 people are believed to have fled.

Troops fled Mosul as hundreds of jihadists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) overran it.

The US has said ISIS threatens not just Iraq, but the entire region.

State department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the situation in Mosul, Iraq's second city, was "extremely serious" and that the US supported "a strong, co-ordinated response to push back against this aggression".

Security sources also told the BBC on Tuesday that fierce fighting had erupted between Iraqi forces and ISIS fighters in a town called Rashad near Kirkuk, south-east of Mosul.

Population: ~1,800,000. It's the second most populous city in Iraq.

this is apparently video taken of people fleeing the city


As for the terrorists, their overall goal seems to be the taking of territory from both northern Iraq and Eastern Syria and forming their own theocratic fundamentalist state.

[archibaldcrane]

So fucked. My sister was stationed in Mosul for a year (jesus that was a decade ago now) and shit was pretty hairy back then.

Iraqis gon Iraq?

[Correction]

So fucked. My sister was stationed in Mosul for a year (jesus that was a decade ago now) and shit was pretty hairy back then.

Iraqis gon Iraq?

This was probably inevitable given the continuing corruption of local politicians and police and a national security force already stretched thin. The real question is if neighboring countries give enough of a shit to help stabilize Iraq. My gut instinct says no but I haven't done much research into Arab state politics in the last five years.

[Waraji]

Glass em.

[Brill Weave]

It's going to continue happening until they take the country back over. The government is ridiculously corrupt and 98% of the military/police are underpaid, uneducated idiots. Once the US leaves Iraq is going to implode even more.

[Andalusian girls]

the Iraqi military has generally held firm in the counteroffensive to retake Fallujah (though their desertion rate is at an unsustainable level and the operation has stalled) and they repulsed an ISIS attack on Samarra earlier this month, but the most worrying part of this development is how quickly they broke, there was barely a fight for Iraq's third city before the security forces tucked tail and ran. this is a low-morale military trained by America to conduct counter-insurgency efforts, not engage in a stand-up knockdown fight against another military force, which is what ISIS has become with their dramatically expanded fundraising capabilities following their capture of Syrian oil fields.

it is a deeply troubling course of events, even at its height al-Qaeda in Iraq never achieved this kind of success, neither did the al-Nusra Front in Syria or al-Shabaab in Somalia. not since the peak of the Taliban's ascendancy have we seen an Islamist group capture and administrate nation-sized swaths of territory, and at this point i'm not sure the Iraqi government is capable of holding them off indefinitely, nor is there any single source in Syria capable of countering them given the four-way civil war that continues to rage.

the question is who will stop them. Iraqi security forces can certainly rally, and if Syria is consolidated by any of the other three powers (Assad's regime, the Free Syrian Army, or al-Nusra Front + other al-Qaeda loyalists) they will likely move against ISIS. but consolidation in Syria is a far away fantasy at present, and Iraqi security forces continue to lose ground while suffering their most humiliating defeat of the war. America will not recommit forces to stabilize, many among the local Arab states are actively funding ISIS (to what extent is impossible to say, wealthy individuals, renegade princes of the House of Saud, Islamist infiltrated arms of the intelligence forces, even state policy?) as they fear the Shia governments in Iraq and Syria more than they fear Sunni Jihadists.

it is an unanswered question

[Khajit]

Al Quaeda wasn't big in Iraq in the first place. You've been listening to too many Dubya era reports or did they show up en mass after the US took over?

[Brill Weave]

Glass em.

Realistically this is the only practical solution.

[Andalusian girls]

Al Quaeda wasn't big in Iraq in the first place. You've been listening to too many Dubya era reports or did they show up en mass after the US took over?

and you've been missing too many basic reading comprehension reports if you think anything in my post said 'Al Quaeda (was) big in Iraq in the first place'

al-Qaeda in Iraq was the moniker given a loose association of Sunni Islamist groups headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant best known for being a psychopath, that pledged allegiance to Bin Laden in 2004. there was no significant Islamist presence in Iraq prior to the invasion.

[GoggleHead]

Realistically this is the only practical solution.

I get the dirtiest looks whenever I bring up this unfortunate reality.

[Blubbartron]

As opposed to glassing, can we just lock them all in their little shithole section of the planet Thunderdome-style until it settles down?

[Waraji]

Like what? Building a giant fence along the westernmost border of Middle East and Europe?

Problem is they will always manage to get onto US soil, unless we completely deny any and all Visas from foreign countries or figure out some way of creating a verification of would be terrorists.

[Blubbartron]

We're not talking about terrorism - we're talking about countries in the middle east that are imploding. Terrorism has more to do with our country meddling in their affairs than us being more prosperous anyway.

[archibaldcrane]

Blubbartron, what are you talking about? There is tons of Iraqi-sponsored anti-US terrorism occurring outside of Iraq!

[Mazmaz]

More terrifying than the news is the responses in this thread.

[Correction]

As opposed to glassing, can we just lock them all in their little shithole section of the planet Thunderdome-style until it settles down?

after a cursory examination of your post history, it might be best for everyone if you stopped having ideas and sharing them altogether.

[kuronosan]

More terrifying than the news is the responses in this thread.

THE GREATER GOOD

[Psion]

Last i checked, it only takes around 10-20 nukes on cities (due to the large amounts of black carbon released into the air) to start a snowball earth. I wouldn't exactly call that greater good, especially since glassing the middle east would likely start a chain of nukes from other countries.

[Jaybar]

Shouldn't have put our nose in there and set up arbitrary boundaries. Likewise with Africa.

[archibaldcrane]

Hey, that was Britain and France pushing the League of Nations mandate after WWI, not the US!