[AnNahar] Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS) group jihadists gained ground west of Baghdad Thursday, further reducing the government's already-shaky hold on Anbar province, officials said.
"The Albu Nimr area fell completely into the hand of (IS) members," Ghazi Najras, an Anbar MP, said in reference to the tract on the Euphrates River and east of the town of Heet, which fell last week.
Clashes began early Thursday and lasted until about 10:00 am (0700 GMT), police Colonel Shaban al-Obaidi said.
The bully boyz then detained more than 60 people, including security forces members, the officer said.
IS, which spearheaded a sweeping offensive in June that overran much of Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland, has executed hundreds of captured security forces members.
Albu Nimr is the latest in a string of places in Anbar to fall in recent weeks. The series of setbacks has prompted warnings from some officials that the entire province, which borders Jordan, Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
and Baghdad province, could fall completely.
Some officials and Sunni tribal leaders in areas most affected by the unrest have argued the world should step up its involvement from air strikes against IS to a ground intervention in Iraq. But Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi has repeatedly said he opposes foreign ground troops fighting in Iraq.
