Patrick Cockburn
As the attention
of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (Isis) captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of
Iraq it had seized in June. The frontiers of the new Caliphate declared
by Isis on 29 June are expanding by the day and now cover an area larger
than Great Britain and inhabited by at least six million people, a
population larger than that of Denmark, Finland or Ireland. In a few
weeks of fighting in Syria Isis has established itself as the dominant
force in the Syrian opposition, routing the official al-Qaida affiliate,
Jabhat al-Nusra, in the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor and executing
its local commander as he tried to flee. In northern Syria some five
thousand Isis fighters are using tanks and artillery captured from the
Iraqi army in Mosul to besiege half a million Kurds in their enclave at
Kobani on the Turkish border. In central Syria, near Palmyra, Isis
fought the Syrian army as it overran the al-Shaer gasfield, one of the
largest in the country, in a surprise assault that left an estimated
three hundred soldiers and civilians dead. Repeated government
counter-attacks finally retook the gasfield but Isis still controls most
of Syria’s oil and gas production. The Caliphate may be poor and
isolated but its oil wells and control of crucial roads provide a steady
income in addition to the plunder of war.
"The only large-scale counter-attack launched by the regular army and the newly raised Shia militia was a disastrous foray into Tikrit on 15 July that was ambushed and defeated with heavy losses."
ReplyDeleteGo Maliki!