Yesterday, it was reported that the Iraqi military forces had to retreat from a point only 85 miles outside the capital city of Bagdad. As a result of this disastrous defeat, NBC reported that over 180,000 Iraqi civilians were left as refugees under constant threat of death or persecution from the ISIS militants.
Meanwhile, NBC also reported that President Barrack Obama is still limiting American intervention in the fight against the Islamic State to air strikes. To add insult to injury however, the area around Syrian Turkish border is on the verge of falling into ISIS occupation. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the Turkish government is still not showing any signs of directly intervening in the conflict as they had originally promised the U.S. ambassadors.
The Turkish government is refusing to allow the U.S. military to access one of its major air force bases located very close to the Turkish-Syrian border. Until now, the U.S. navy and air force have been launching its air strikes from a carrier that is situated in an area near the Persian Gulf, around 2,000 kilometers away from their area of operations where the ISIS militants were believed to be the most active. If Turkey agrees to this request, not only would the USAF be able to save a great deal of money, but they would be able to strike ISIS more swiftly.
It is also reported that the Turkish government has revealed that their utmost priority is bringing down the current Syrian government and assisting the Syrian rebels, not combatting the Islamic State.
Despite the fact that the ISIS Jihadists are greatly overpowering both the Iraqi government forces as well as the Kurdistan forces who are fighting with them, the majority of the international community have expressed that Iraq should be the one to take charge of the crisis on the ground. For instance, John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State noted that many nations such as Egypt have expressed that the Iraqi military needs to be the one to be leading the ground assaults without relying on outside power. The U.K. government was reported to have a similar view.
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) still reigns supreme in the Middle East accumulating more and more territory as time passes. It is reported that ISIS is enslaving the Iraqi and Syrian women to wed them off as militants’ wives or sexual slaves, and are even forcing teenagers and children to fight for their cause and portraying their deaths as martyrdom.
There are even some reports that ISIS may even have the assets and capabilities to use chemical weapons in the conflict. Despite the seriousness of the situation, most of the global community is refusing to directly intervene in the fight against the most influential terrorist group in the world, too occupied with other priorities.
