ISIS in Iraq and Syria

I assume you guys have seen the photos of the Shia Iraqi soldiers being executed? 1500 were killed with ~2500 Sunni soldiers being pardoned.
 
They are releasing tons of pics of their parades and stuff too. Most of their twitter accounts got deleted or there would be tons more.
 
The ISIS offensive has reached Tal Afar city, the first predominantly Shia city they have captured. Once again the Iraqi army fled.
 
Relevated said:
Earlier today, yesterday and the day before that they were 25km away from baghdad.
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25km seems too close. I think they're in the Samara area which is about 70 or so miles.

They also could be relatively close on the Anbar side, but its unclear whether those fighters are ISIS or AQI.
 
Suli said:
The ISIS offensive has reached Tal Afar city, the first predominantly Shia city they have captured. Once again the Iraqi army fled.
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Tal Afar is in the far north and as far from Baghdad as one could get. Oh, and its not predominantly Shi'a. Its mostly Turkomen.
 
By the way @Danny1982 , Barzani confirmed that Maliki pleaded for him to take Kirkuk and to not let their Iraqi weapons to fall to the Isis.
 
Raoul said:
Tal Afar is in the far north and as far from Baghdad as one could get. Oh, and its not predominantly Shi'a. Its mostly Turkomen.
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Yeah it's west of Mosul iirc. News channels are calling it a Turkmen or predominantly Shia population. I'm not really sure myself tbh, although Turkmen does seem to make more sense considering the location.
 
ISIS' game with the pardoning is quite clear. Let's hope it doesn't have the desired effect.
 
Can someone explain what this means? I don't quite understand.

ALARABIYA BREAKING | official Spokesman of Revolution Tribesmen announces start of rebels advancement to Baghdad (they are GCC supported)
 
Suli said:
The ISIS offensive has reached Tal Afar city, the first predominantly Shia city they have captured. Once again the Iraqi army fled.
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There is no army there. Only a small number of police and security forces. It was expected to fall considering its position. It was reported that even women were fighting today to fend off ISIS' attacks.
 
Silva said:
This does seem like a good time for the Kurds to just declare independents and feck everyone else off. No one's going to be able to realistically stop them.
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I guess because realistically even if they were to collate all of the Kurdish majority areas in both Iraq and Syria, they'd still be a landlocked nation surrounded by multiple neighbours who I would assume would all be quite antagonistic towards the declaration and the new state.
 
Suli said:
Can someone explain what this means? I don't quite understand.

ALARABIYA BREAKING | official Spokesman of Revolution Tribesmen announces start of rebels advancement to Baghdad (they are GCC supported)
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They're going to start heading towards baghdad now. Some other tweet i saw earlier said something similar.


edit: here again
BREAKING NEWS: ISIS and affiliate Sunni tribesmen confirm that military offensive on Baghdad has begun.
 
Only in America can nuts on hate talk radio and Fox News claim this is all Obama's fault and people will believe it. I'm sick of this polarizing political shit.
 
Got me. But I've heard it on the hate talk radio and seen people posting links on FB with righties/former soldiers claiming it's Obama's fault for pulling out and blah blah blah.
 
Everyone is criticizing Obama because he was playing golf :lol: He is a human too, let him live.
 
The best thing Obama or the US can do is stay out of this one. It was the Iraq war which opened up the gates for ISS and Al Qaeda, the Americans getting involved again would only strengthen their cause. Its understandable Iran want to get involved, they are in fact a neighbouring country so its in their best interest that they don't have terrorists who want 98% of their people murdered by their doorstep.

The Iraqi army is pretty much obsolete, its going to take vigilantes to oust the feckers back to Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya or wherever it is they've mobilised from. The Kurds taking back Kirkuk was a cheeky maneuver, I'm not convinced the Iraqi army had abandoned their positions there either.
 
Barzani is on his way to Iran to discuss the ISIS insurgency. Seeking support for self determination?
 
Christians in Mosul city in northern Iraq are fleeing en masse with others, as militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, who captured the city last week, are now looting and burning churches and forcing all women to wear the Islamic veil.

Assyrian International News Agency reports that the Sunni group ISIS – also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – has gone on a rampage, looting and burning government buildings, raising its black flag and burning churches throughout Mosul, the capital of the Nineveh Province.
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http://www.christianpost.com/news/t...-loot-churches-in-captured-iraqi-city-121577/
 
Yeah. Shia actually means something from a sectarian point of view. They have their own Ayatollah and everything. Sunni refers to everything left over and encompasses several different schools of jurisprudence. By the sounds of it, ISIS adhere to their own particular brand of Shariah and not to any of the classical Sunni traditions. Placing them on either side of the Sunni/Shia divide is misleading.
 
A snapshot of just how complicated things are....

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Qassim Sulaymani, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard "Quds Force" is in Baghdad to help with security.
 
I'm seeing a lot of comments about just letting these three groups figure out the borders themselves that were arbitrarily drawn by the West in the last century. Obviously sorting out means lots of killing and mayhem, but that's generally how new nations are formed. They clearly cannot peacefully coexist as one large nation so why not let the chips fall and deal with them all once it's been sorted?
 
Probably what should've happened in the beginning. The problem now is ISIS and their reach into massive swaths of land in western Iraq and eastern Syria, that can be used for any number of terrorist training within Iraq and towards the West. Because of that, this may end up in a bizarre coalition between the US and Iran. Can't see how else it could be done without boots on the ground.
 
What a screw up of epic proportions. We have allowed Syria and Iraq to crumble. Getting rid of despotic dictators is all well and good but replacing them, at the cost of billions of dollars and massive loss of life, with a solution that is a bad or worse is idiotic at best. Thanks largely to Bush and lapdog Blair. At the time I wasn't convinced about the invasion but hoped for the best. Forlorn hope.
 
ISIS aren't terrorists though and I doubt they want to attack America. They want to control their own country and cleanse it of opposing factions.

We leave them to fight it out and exhaust their weapons and manpower and then negotiate accordingly with the victors.
 
If the ISIS are allowed to control their own country it will start a fire that no one will like. They will attack America and possibly England in no time at all. I don't think it would be wise to let them fight it out.
 
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