ISIS insurgents have almost surrounded Baghdad

Memlik Pasha reports for Vice:

In late December 2013, Iraqi security forces stormed a Sunni protest camp in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s restive Anbar province. The Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki claimed that the protest camp had become a haven for militants with ties to al Qaeda.

Maliki’s crackdown provoked an uprising in Anbar’s cities, as tribal rebels assaulted and seized control of government buildings and police stations. As he seemed set to lose his grip on Anbar, Maliki withdrew the army from Ramadi and Fallujah, Anbar’s main cities, on New Year's Eve. Unhelpfully for the Prime Minister, this proved an even more disastrous step – as the Iraqi army moved out, in poured hundreds of vehicles flying the flag of the al Qaeda originated, homegrown jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) from the surrounding desert.

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