"ISIS units traveling in a convoy of more than 60 vehicles advanced into Bayji last night, and torched several government buildings, court houses, and police headquarters, according to ITAR-TASS and Reuters. ISIS fighters are said to have surrounded the refinery and sent a delegation to security forces who are holding out in the complex.
According to Reuters, the 250 security personnel agreed to withdraw from the refinery complex, the largest in Iraq.
After seizing Bayji, ISIS fighters moved to take control of Tikrit, the provincial capital and home town of former dictator Saddam Hussein.
Tikrit is now said to be effectively under ISIS control. According to Samarra Al-Gharbiyah News, the provincial government center in Tikrit was overrun by ISIS fighters and Governor Ahmad Abdallah is reported to have been captured.
"All of Tikrit is in the hands of the militants," a police colonel told AFP.
ISIS also freed hundreds of prisoners being held in the city. More than 2,500 prisoners, many thought to be hardened jihadists, were also reportedly freed yesterday when ISIS took control of Mosul.
In addition to taking control of Ninewa province yesterday, the ISIS captured several areas outside of Kirkuk and in Salahaddin province."
The Shiites who control Iraq's government are now appealing to the Kurdish region to help them fight the Sunnis, who are allying here with ISIS, and I expect that the Kurds will extract even more independence and even territory from the central government before they do that.It's instructive to see how the leaders of ISIS call up the local sheiks on their cell phones and negotiate a deal, after which the local defense simply melts away. All politics is tribal in the Middle East, and the overlay of nation states imposed by the Europeans is perhaps about to be eliminated.
I recall the discussion that occurred after the fighting in Iraq was over about whether to partition the country into three parts, or maintain it as it was. It looks like the locals are going to partition the country now no matter what we want.
If the Shiite central government cannot do any better defending their control of the Sunni parts of Iraq, then de facto partition is imminent. I'm sure the Kurds realize that everything is now up for grabs, and they might even be negotiating their own deal with ISIS and the Sunnis.
This also foreshadows exactly what will happen in Afghanistan once our military leaves.
Yes, it always defaults to tribal (and religious) boundaries that are more or less traditional and ancient. The Russians solved the problems in the Caucasus by simply removing all inhabitants in areas and by replacing them with Great Russians. No more Muslims, no more problems.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see them solving their own problems without massive bloodshed that was predicted. I don't really see a downside to all of the Islamic states degenerating back into tribal states in fierce competition with each other.
ReplyDeleteThe Turks might just enter the fray and put some hurt on ISIS, now that the idiots have taken hostage some of their people in Mosul.
DeleteI agree that it's their problem now, but it very well might become our problem if the ISIS folk decide to sponsor terrorism in the non Muslim world, as they say they want to. If that occurs, once again, it becomes our problem.