Updated: Spread Of Caliphate in Iraq

Last updated August 15, 2014 3:38 AM ET

The Islamic State (Full Length)
Published on Aug 14, 2014
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The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced its intention to reestablish the caliphate and has declared its leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.
The lightning advances the Islamic State made across Syria and Iraq in June shocked the world. But it's not just the group's military victories that have garnered attention — it's also the pace with which its members have begun to carve out a viable state.
 Flush with cash and US weapons seized during its advances in Iraq, the Islamic State's expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings.

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Posted August 8, 2014 5:48 AM ET; updated August 11, 2014 3:51 AM ET

The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State (Part 1 and II)

VICE News

Part 1
Published on Aug 7, 2014
The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced their intention to reestablish the caliphate and declared their leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.

Flush with cash and US weapons seized during recent advances in Iraq, the Islamic State’s expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

Elsewhere in territory it has held for some time, the Islamic State has gone about consolidating power and setting up a government dictated by Sharia law. While the world may not recognize the Islamic State, in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group is already in the process of building a functioning regime.

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings. In part one, Dairieh heads to the frontline in Raqqa, where Islamic State fighters are laying siege to the Syrian Army’s division 17 base.




Part 2

Published on Aug 8, 2014

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In Part 2 of VICE News’ exclusive look at the emergence of the Islamic State, filmmaker Medyan Dairieh meets an Islamic State member from Belgium who works to indoctrinate some of the youngest members of the group. He also gains further insight into the minds of Islamic State fighters as they host celebrations and military parades featuring American tanks and APCs seized from the Iraqi army.

The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group which formerly had ties to al Qaeda, is now in control of a large swath of territory in Iraq and Syria. The group, which adheres to the strictest form of Sharia law, is determined to establish a caliphate that stretches across the Middle East and into the rest of the Muslim world.

As the Islamic State continues its violent expansion in Syria and Iraq, it is also working to win the hearts and minds of new recruits and potential new members in areas it controls.

Obama Resumes War in Iraq

This article from the paper of liberal records indicates that they continue to distort reality. Here is the legal definition of genocide, which differs from what the article states. This is not potential genocide it is already in progress. In addition this verifies what some believe that Valerie Jarrett is influencing, if not making policy in the White House.

The crime of genocide is defined in international law in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.[. . .]

[From article]
the militants had trapped thousands of members of Iraqi minority groups on a barren mountaintop, with dwindling supplies, raising concerns about a potential genocide.
[. . .]

Mr. Obama, in a speech late Thursday announcing his decision, insisted this was not a return to war — that Iraq’s fate still ultimately rested in the hands of its three main groups, the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. But he made clear that he would take action to protect Americans in Erbil and Baghdad.
“We have an embassy in Baghdad, we have a consulate in Erbil, and we have to make sure that they are not threatened,” [. . .] About 8 p.m., the meeting broke up and Mr. Obama again left the White House, an hour late, for a dinner date with his wife and a close confidante, Valerie Jarrett, at an Italian restaurant in Georgetown.
[. . .]
the militants had seized a critical dam in Mosul, which controls water levels on the Tigris River as far south as Baghdad. The capture of the dam shook Kurdish officials and fueled the sense of crisis during Thursday’s meetings, with officials worried that the militants could either blow it up or use it to cut off water supplies or as a bargaining chip in negotiating anything they wanted.
[. . .]
Members of an ancient religious sect known as Yazidi, they were branded as devil worshipers by the militants. The women were to be enslaved; the men were to be slaughtered.

[. . .]

Officials told Mr. Obama there was a real danger of genocide, under the legal definition of the term.

[. . .]

On Thursday evening, after a long day in the West Wing, Mr. Obama had a message for Iraqis: “Today, America is coming to help.”

RUN!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/world/middleeast/fear-of-another-benghazi-drove-white-house-to-airstrikes-in-iraq.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=a-lede-package-region&region=lede-package&WT.nav=lede-package&_r=1

Fear of ‘Another Benghazi’ Drove White House to Airstrikes in Iraq
MARK LANDLER, ALISSA J. RUBIN, MARK MAZZETTI, HELENE COOPER
AUG. 8, 2014
New York Times