Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, captured by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

[UWDude]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...674_story.html

Insurgents seize Iraqi city of Mosul as troops flee

All key facilities are now controlled by the insurgents, including the airport and the prisons, said Nujaifi, who is from Mosul.

The capture of the airport, which had served as a major hub for the U.S. military, could not be independently confirmed, but Nujaifi said it had been seized and that all of the aircraft there also were captured.

Maliki is urging the United States to deliver more advanced weaponry, but ISIS fighters have already been seen riding round in U.S.-supplied Humvees in other areas they control, and much of the weaponry captured in this latest battle is likely to be American, Lister said.

The speed with which one of Iraq’s biggest cities has fallen under militant control is striking and suggests the U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces are even more vulnerable than had previously been thought.

What can I say. Saddam Crushed fools like this. Saddam was called a murderous heartless thug for it.

Now what, America? Now what?
How's all that "light force occupation" strategy working for ya? How's that "stand up so they can stand down" platitude gonna save Iraq now? Hey, did that war create more or less terrorists? Now there are massive ARMIES of terrorists in the middle east!


The Iraq war was stupid on every front, from concept to strategy to tactics.

Setting up a false state based and thinking an army would fight and die for some kind of warped democracy?

IDIOTS IN D.C. AND THE PENTAGON!! TOTAL $#@!ING BUFFOONS!! COMPLETELY OUT OF TOUCH WITH CONCEPTS OF MODERN AND ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE STILL.

[Zippyjuan]

Let's invade and take the base back!

[UWDude]

Let's invade and take the base back!

Just to be clear, it's not just a base.

The whole city has been captured... ...and OVERNIGHT!

Looks like more bombing of the people of Iraq will be needed to be in order to save them.

[Zippyjuan]

Are you saying we should ramp up forces there again? Sent in more troops?

[kcchiefs6465]

Are you saying we should ramp up forces there again? Sent in more troops?

I think he was saying that we shouldn't have gone there in the first place.

[jkob]

they're advancing on other areas as well, into Kirkuk

[Pericles]

What can I say. Saddam Crushed fools like this. Saddam was called a murderous heartless thug for it.

He cared about who ran Iraq. Most of the world doesn't, so those that do call the tune.

[JK/SEA]

and this is my problem?.......how?

[vita3]

Blow 'em up.

[presence]

Khaibar: The Afghan Spring Offensive - Hardened Targets



^^^ Belongs here

[juleswin]

More fall out from out glorious support of the Arab spring. Libya fell and weapons moved south to central and western Africa and also to Syria and Iraq. This is all on Obombo and Bush's head. Those fools should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity and after the trial, we lock em up and throw away the keys. Come to think about it, I wouldn't mind exchanging those 2 fools for captured US soldiers.

[UWDude]

Khaibar: The Afghan Spring Offensive - Hardened Targets



^^^ Belongs here

except mosul is in iraq

[UWDude]

There are reports Tikrit is surrounded now.

[Occam's Banana]

Maliki is urging the United States to deliver more advanced weaponry, but ISIS fighters have already been seen riding round in U.S.-supplied Humvees in other areas they control, and much of the weaponry captured in this latest battle is likely to be American, Lister said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRcle-JgnFA

[alucard13mm]

So will those captured vehicles and weapons be used in Syria?

[idiom]

So will those captured vehicles and weapons be used in Syria?

Nah it goes the other way.

AMERICA IS SUPPLYING ISIS IN SYRIA AND FIGHTING THEM IN IRAQ.

Its like Obama thinks Syria and Iraq are on different planets.

[Cap]

Let's see, the US supplies F-16s to Iraq, To the northwest Syrian rebels are made up of Al-CIA-duh participants... Al-CIA-duh meanwhile is on the march in Iraq...I guess this would be a roundabout way for arming the Syrian Al-CIA-duh rebels with F-16s...In US news, Lyndsey Lohann has had sex with James Franco, Boobus want to hear more...Mission accomplished.

[TN_VOL]

Wait so the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner was wrong

[enhanced_deficit]

Let's invade and take the base back!

Why not just remotely keep funding and arming the Al Qaeda linked militants directly in Syria and indirectly Iraq as SWC droneking has been doing?





Related

Poll: Will Neocons-Al Qaeda alliance end well?

[Lucille]

The neo-Trots have been exposed as utter failures, but they will still be featured prominently in the media.

http://www.voxday.blogspot.com/2014/...c-failure.html

Back in 2004, I pointed out that there was no possibility of long-term success for the neocons in Iraq. Now, with the fall of Iraq's second largest city, it is only a matter of time before Baghdad is taken and the utter failure of the entire neocon grand strategy is apparent to everyone.
[...]
As the Romans knew, if you're not going to colonize a conquered territory, the correct strategy is to go in hard, break things and kill people, then immediately leave. Repeat as needed.

Ten years ago, I was correct about this. Ten years from now, it will be seen that those who demanded Reconquista 2.0 in the West were correct too. Unlike the tango, wars and invasions only require the participation of a single party.

The fall of Mosul also shows the Potemkin nature of the government authorities. As soon as a few committed militants with guns appear on the scene, the facade of omnipotent government power promptly collapses.

[Lucille]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/...eat-successes/

As the fruits of the US interventionists continue to rot everywhere they are planted, I am afraid my critique was rather more pointed than my academic colleagues. But I did like the title given an article about the conference by one news organization present: “ANALYSIS: US Misinterprets Foreign Policy Failures As Great Success.”

I enjoyed this part:

“The US, it pains me to say, is like a drunk on a ten year bender with alcohol. Everything it has touched so far has been a disaster,” McAdams told RIA Novosti during a video conference between Washington and Moscow on Tuesday.

With the fall of Mosul yesterday, counting US foreign policy failures is becoming a full-time job…

[Lucille]

And now they're rich too.

Al-Qaeda Jihadis Loot Over $400 Million From Mosul Central Bank, Seize Saddam's Hometown
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0...ddams-hometown

As reported yesterday, in yet another humiliating blow to US foreign policy and the State Department, Al Qaeda-linked ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) militants took over the key northern town of Mosul, where an unknown number of US-made Black Hawk helicopters were parked and have been captured by Al Qaeda (potentially the same forces that have been trained by the US across the border in Syria).

Adding insult to injury the Al Qaeda militants also appear to have looted some $429 million from local banks. From IBtimes:
[...]
In other words, now that it is armed with US-made weapons, this particular al-Qaeda group also happens to be the world's richest terror force!

And so with all disposable cash it needs for a long time and armed to the teeth, what is Al Qaeda to do? Why continue expanding of course. Moments ago, via Reuters, we got confirmation that the "insurgents" have just captured yet another symbolic Iraqi town, Tikrit: the birthplace of none other than Saddam.
[...]
Will they stop here? Of course not. Expect the ISIS force to continue south until finally it overruns Baghdad itself and until all of Iraq, courtesy of a crippled army, officially belongs to Al Qaeda. America's job is done here.

One can't wait until Al Qaeda is also in charge of all the other countries recently liberated by the US and/or CIA.

[vita3]

Would love to know who is running them inside/outside CIA, British Intelligence etc

[Lucille]

The Conservative War on Christians get worse.

http://www.theamericanconservative.c...o-mighty-isis/

Meanwhile, Nina Shea reports that the cleansing of Christians from Iraq, where they have lived for nearly 2,000 years, is now entering its endgame:

The government of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, fell overnight to the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, also called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Mosul’s panic-stricken Christians, along with many others, are now fleeing en masse to the rural Nineveh Plain, according to the Vatican publication Fides. The border crossings into Kurdistan, too, are jammed with the cars of the estimated 150,000 desperate escapees.

The population, particularly its Christian community, has much to fear. The ruthlessness of ISIS, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, has been legendary. Its beheadings, crucifixions and other atrocities toward Christians and everyone else who fails to conform to its vision of a caliphate have been on full display earlier this year, in Syria.

Great job, America. We empowered these monsters. Oh, and look:

The toll of the desertions came into sharp relief on Tuesday, as soldiers and their commanders abandoned bases in Mosul, all but ceding Iraq’s second-largest city to extremist fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The fleeing troops left weapons, vehicles and even their uniforms behind, as militants took over at least five army installations and the city’s airport. In a desperate bid to stem the losses, the military was reduced to bombing its own bases to avoid surrendering more weapons to the enemy. American officials who had asserted that the $14 billion that the United States had spent on the Iraqi security forces would prepare them to safeguard the country after American troops left were forced to ponder images from Mosul of militants parading around captured Humvees.

[JK/SEA]

Wait so the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner was wrong

no...the Patriot Act is law now.

[surf]

Are you saying we should ramp up forces there again? Sent in more troops?

it's called a "surge," or have you forgotten already?

[oyarde]

So , when they are done they are attacking Iran ?

[jkob]

how isn't this a bigger story?

[UWDude]

Yeah, I am starting to wonder if this is a move by the CIA.
However, if they start mercilessly shelling the green zone after they take Baghdad, then we'll know they are not at the direction of the CIA, but out of control of the CIA.


All those shed uniforms will be used for infiltration of Iraqi bases. The amount of uniforms and ID's left over will be enough to sneak in dozens if not hundreds of fighters in their own personal trojan horses.

[Lucille]

They arm them in some countries, and kill them in others.

Iraq Gives Obama Green Light To Commence "Kinetic Support" Against Al Qaeda
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0...ainst-al-qaeda

It appears that the best diversion from Obama's latest bevy of scandals, including the VA snafu and the Bergdahl fiasco, will be yet another war, one which Iraq just gave the green light for. As the WSJ reported moments ago, Iraq has privately signaled to the Obama administration that it would allow the U.S. to conduct airstrikes with drones or manned aircraft against al Qaeda militant targets on Iraqi territory, senior U.S. officials said Wednesday.

More:

The Obama administration is considering a number of options, including the possibility of providing "kinetic support" for the Iraqi military fighting al Qaeda rebels who seized two major cities north of Baghdad this week, according to a senior U.S. official who added that no decisions have been made.

Officials declined to say whether the U.S. would consider conducting airstrikes with drones or manned aircraft.

Wait, so the US is now the world's largest mercenary army, doing the bidding of defenseless, third-world governments (which just happen to be drowning in crude)?

Iraq has long asked the U.S. to provide it with drones that could be used in such strikes, but Washington has balked at supplying them, officials said.

Until now.

And just like that the war in Iraq, "Bush's war" according to so many, is about to come back with a vengeance this time under Nobel peace prize winning president, and what makes it most grotesque is that this time the US will be waging combat with at a military force that it itself is training and arming in neighboring Syria.

Which of course is good news for the military-industrial complex and US Q3 GDP, if not so good for millions of innocent civilians soon to be known as "collateral damage."

Someone please make this insanity stop.