Iraq

[alopezg1]

not all religions require a belief in God and .... facts proven by science are just that . Science is not metaphysics , any scientist worth his salt will tell you that

[alopezg1]

science is a paradigm . It is a way of looking at the world. It is not the world .... map for the territory there

[trebli]

I think I can understand it ... thanks trebli - the catholic vs protestant argument has shaped Britain today and has manifested itself in so many ways throughout our history and it still occupies certain areas of our culture today ... but in our fortunately stable situation it no longer presents a danger of civil war. But to suggest that it no longer is a problem for some is ridiculous.

Iraq is basically not an American problem - it's a British one as we drew those ridiculous borders after WW1. I think that has a lot to do with why Britain got involved so readily in the recent conflicts. My view is still that the people that live there needs to be able to sort their own cultural borders out though.

Of course the religion that people believe in is a ridiculous reason to fight over because it is all fairy tales - each and every religion is absolute rubbish in terms of a doctrine by which to live your life ... because it needs a God. Every reasonable person knows that the only real God that exists is facts provable by science - but it will take a long time for everyone on the planet to accept that given the huge power structure built up around religions over the past 2000 years - so we should simply accept that the middle east will be complicated for a long time and we should let them sort themselves out in that region.

I'd give the British the benefit of the doubt on that. After the sudden collapse of the Ottoman Empire the whole Middle East was in turmoil. And the Brits were given the job of trying sort things out. They did the best they could.

[alopezg1]

The whole deification of reason and science is extremely damaging and, ironically enough- being the core doctrine of liberal humanism- dehumanizing. Camille Paglia said God was man's greatest idea, turning the idea of man being conceived by God on it's head I believe that's is valid here, inductive logic- the basis of science- is another one of mans ideas, albeit a much more sophisticated one than God. We assume there is a thing called 'science' somewhere, out there, and that it is running the show? everything is running according to a set of predetermined laws . It doesn't occur to some people that maybe there are other 'laws' that we are completely incapable of observing , laws that may invalidate the 'laws' we believe we have discovered, that is infact what is constantly happening in the scientific world . To say existence can be reduced to a set of linguistic or mathematical statements is absurd, to say we should live our lives guided by them is worse imo Science is probably mans greatest idea , but it is just that

[alopezg1]

I'll be quiet now

[wa3zrm]

ISIS butchers leave 'roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers'

The full horror of the jihadists’ savage victories in Iraq emerged yesterday as witnesses told of streets lined with decapitated soldiers and policemen.
Blood-soaked bodies and blazing vehicles were left in the wake of the Al Qaeda-inspired ISIS fanatics as they pushed the frontline towards Baghdad.
They boasted about their triumphs in a propaganda video depicting appalling scenes including a businessman being dragged from his car and executed at the roadside with a pistol to the back of his head.
In the swathe of captured territory across northern Iraq, ISIS declared hardline Sharia law, publishing rules ordering women not to go outside ‘unless strictly necessary’, banning alcohol and smoking, and forcing all residents to attend mosques five times a day. BBC correspondent Paul Wood said one woman from Mosul, Iraq’s second city, had spoken of seeing a ‘row of decapitated soldiers and policemen’.
The refugee woman told how the victims’ heads were placed in rows – a trademark, trophy-style execution favoured by ISIS militants.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

[wa3zrm]

ISIS butchers leave 'roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers'

The full horror of the jihadists’ savage victories in Iraq emerged yesterday as witnesses told of streets lined with decapitated soldiers and policemen.
Blood-soaked bodies and blazing vehicles were left in the wake of the Al Qaeda-inspired ISIS fanatics as they pushed the frontline towards Baghdad.
They boasted about their triumphs in a propaganda video depicting appalling scenes including a businessman being dragged from his car and executed at the roadside with a pistol to the back of his head.
In the swathe of captured territory across northern Iraq, ISIS declared hardline Sharia law, publishing rules ordering women not to go outside ‘unless strictly necessary’, banning alcohol and smoking, and forcing all residents to attend mosques five times a day. BBC correspondent Paul Wood said one woman from Mosul, Iraq’s second city, had spoken of seeing a ‘row of decapitated soldiers and policemen’.
The refugee woman told how the victims’ heads were placed in rows – a trademark, trophy-style execution favoured by ISIS militants.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

[wa3zrm]

Clinton: US military intervention in Iraq not appropriate at this stage

The US should not stage another military intervention in Iraq despite the recent gains made by Islamic extremists, the nation's former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has said.
She appeared to contradict the White House, which has said that nothing was being ruled out as Isis fighters took and held major Iraqi towns, including its second city, Mosul.
Clinton insisted that, while she did not believe a military intervention at this stage was appropriate, President Barack Obama was right not to take any options off the table.
She added that Obama was setting out preconditions to Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, before there could be any question of providing the military support the latter was seeking. Iraqi forces, she said, should take the lead in fighting Isis.
"Maliki has to be willing to demonstrate unequivocally that he is a leader for all Iraqis, not for a sectarian slice of the country," she said.
Speaking to the BBC's Newsnight programme, she added: "The [Iraqi] army, which has not been able to hold territory, has to have an injection of discipline and professionalism, something the US has been trying to help with."
Clinton said that sending American troops in on the ground was "not going to happen … certainly not in any foreseeable future".

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...

[wa3zrm]

As jihadists take aim at Baghdad, Iran steps in to help historical foe


FOXNEWS.com

Iran is coming to the aid of its historic nemesis, sending elite fighters to Iraq in the wake of a Sunni insurgency that has claimed two key northern cities and now threatens Baghdad, Fox News has learned.

Some 150 fighters from the Revolutionary Guards elite Quds force have already been dispatched by Tehran, and the division's powerful commander, Qassem Suleimani, met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Thursday and pledged to send two notorious Iranian brigades to aid in the defense of Baghdad. That could amount to as many as 10,000 soldiers sent to fight the Sunni group known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).
Maliki is believed to be considering the offer, especially in light of reported decisions by the U.S. to reject his request for American airstrikes against the Al Qaeda-affiliated militants who have recently overrun Mosul and Tikrit and appear to be preparing for a march on the capital. The two brigades that Suleimani offered are Asaab Ahel Haq, a Shi’ite paramilitary unit, and the Shi’ite insurgency group Kata'ib Hezbollah.

“Baghdad is going to be overrun. The Green Zone is going down.”- U.S. intelligence official

After U.S.-trained security forces dropped their weapons and fled their posts in Mosul, the regime in Baghdad has reason to fear for its survival, an intelligence official said.
“Baghdad is going to be overrun," he said. "The Green Zone is going down.”
Although Iran and Iraq were at war in the 1980s, both the Maliki regime and the rulers in Tehran are Shi'ite, and Iran does not want a fanatical jihadist takeover of its neighbor. Iran has positioned troops along its border with Iraq and has threatened to bomb opposition forces if they come within about 60 miles of Iran’s border, according to an Iranian army general.
News about the fall of these two cities, which caused about 500,000 to flee, worried Iran. Mosul is in the western Iraqi province of the Biblically-mentioned Nineveh, which shares a 300-mile border with Syria, where the Iranian government has been pulling the political and financial puppet strings to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power against the opposing rebels and militants.
In addition to protecting the strategic border to Syria, Iran’s government has interests in safeguarding holy shrines and sites in Najaf and Karbala, significant to the Shiite Islamic religion. Many Iranians make pilgrimage to these sites every year.
Predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran will combat the "violence and terrorism" of Sunni extremists who have launched an anti-government offensive in neighboring Iraq, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani warned on Thursday.
“This is an extremist, terrorist group that is acting savagely," Rouhani said live on state television.
If Iraq's pleas for support are rebuffed by the U.S., it may have no choice but to turn to Iran, said experts.
“My sources tell me Maliki believes he is in a desperate situation and wants and needs our support," said retired four-star Gen. Jack Keane, former vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army. "If he doesn't get it in a way that will help him, he will certainly turn to Iran.”
Iran has more to offer than just the region's most powerful army, Keane said. Tehran could support Maliki with intelligence and advisors, too.
ISIS, a Sunni Islamic jihadi group, which is an offshoot of Al Qaeda, has gained control of geopolitically vital cities in both Syria and Iraq over the last year. It considers Shi'ite Muslims heretics that must be killed at the sword. Its goal is to cleanse Iraq from its Shiite influences.
ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani said in an audio released by intelligence sources that the group is planning to march toward Baghdad and other pivotal cities, including Karbala and Najaf.
"March to Baghdad al-Rashid, the Baghdad of the Caliphate. We have a score to settle...Be certain of the victory of Allah as long as you fear Him," Al-Adnani said in the recording.
As ISIS forces have stormed their way across northern Iraq, they have put into effect Sharia law on the citizens of Nineveh province, circulating a document on social media warning local leaders and religious sheikhs not to “work with (the Iraqi) government and be traitors.” The document also prohibits women from leaving the house unless absolutely necessary and for women to “dress decently and wear wide clothes.”
The document also bans drugs, alcohol, cigarettes in public and the possession of guns and non- ISIS flags.
ISIS terrorists in Iraq are allegedly made up of Tunisians and Yemenis, along with other “international fighters,” according to one Iraqi witness.
As the militants went from Mosul to Tikrit, they seized oil fields in Salahuddin province and looted the central bank and collected $420 million. They also took 48 Turkish citizens hostage as they seized the Turkish consulate in Mosul, which could bring another regional power down on them. Many eyes are on Turkey, a NATO ally, that has shown interest in northern Iraq for some time now for economic reasons and to support Iraq’s marginalized Kurdish minority.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey held an emergency briefing with high ranking security officials and the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who said, “No one should try to test the limits of Turkey’s strength.”

[Burnsey]

I'm conflicted on it. That clusterfsck is 100% our fault. They had the kind of leadership they need, and we unseated him.......

It was a safer country with Saddam......

[wa3zrm]

Obama’s Iraq

When in 2011 President Obama announced, against the advice of his commanders, the complete withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq, he grandly declared “the tide of war is receding.”
Two days later, his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, answered critics such as John McCain, who said the president’s announcement was a victory for Iran.
Said Mrs. Clinton: “No one, most particularly Iran, should miscalculate about our continuing commitment to and with the Iraqis going forward.”
This week these promises have been rendered hollow by the humanitarian and strategic crisis unfolding in Iraq. There, key northern cities have been falling to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an offshoot of al Qaeda.
The horrors we are seeing fulfill some of the worst fears of critics who had warned that leaving Iraq without a new status of forces agreement imperiled the gains bought with American blood and treasure.
--SNIP--
The president’s practice has been to blame his failures on his predecessor. But in Iraq, President George W. Bush did not hand over a mess. He handed over a victory that Obama only had to sustain.
All that the President has squandered — in a humiliation for America, a vindication for al Qaeda, a gain for Iran and a catastrophe for long-suffering Iraqis caught in the violence.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...

[wa3zrm]

Fareed Zakaria: Who Lost Iraq? The Iraqis Did, With An Assist From George W. Bush

June 12 at 8:27 PM It is becoming increasingly likely that Iraq has reached a turning point. The forces hostile to the government have grown stronger, better equipped and more organized. And having now secured arms, ammunition and hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from their takeover of Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city — they will build on these strengths. Inevitably, in Washington, the question has surfaced: Who lost Iraq?
Whenever the United States has asked this question — as it did with China in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1970s — the most important point to remember is: The local rulers did. The Chinese nationalists and the South Vietnamese government were corrupt, inefficient and weak, unable to be inclusive and unwilling to fight with the dedication of their opponents. The same story is true of Iraq, only much more so. The first answer to the question is: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lost Iraq.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...

[wa3zrm]

ISIS just stole $425 million, Iraqi governor says, and became the ‘world’s richest terrorist group’

Of the many stunning revelations to emerge out of the wreckage of Mosul on Wednesday — 500,000 fleeing residents, thousands of freed prisoners, unconfirmed reports of “mass beheadings” — the one that may have the most lasting impact as Iraq descends into a possible civil war is that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria just got extremely rich.
As insurgents rolled past the largest city in northern Iraq, an oil hub at the vital intersection of Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and into Tikrit, several gunmen stopped at Mosul’s central bank. An incredible amount of cash was reportedly on hand, and the group made off with 500 billion Iraqi dinars — $425 million.
The provincial governor of Nineveh, Atheel al-Nujaifi, said that the radical Islamists had lifted additional millions from numerous banks across Mosul, as well as a “large quantity of gold bullion,” according to the International Business Times, which called ISIS the “World’s Richest Terror Force.”
The declaration isn’t an easy one to fact-check. Not only is the definition of “terrorist” nebulous — are murderous but wealthy Mexican cartels terrorists? — it’s also exceedingly difficult to quantify a terrorist organization’s finances. One of the closest stabs anyone has made comes from the well-versed Money Jihad.
According to its analysis, which drew on journalistic and academic accounts, the cash seizure would make ISIS the richest terrorist organization in the world — at least for the time being.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...

[wa3zrm]

Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric issues call to fight jihadist rebels



(Reuters) - Iraq's most senior Shi'ite Muslim cleric urged followers to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni militant insurgency to topple Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, escalating a conflict that threatens civil war and a possible break-up of the country.

In a rare intervention at Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, a message from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the highest religious authority for Shi'ites in Iraq, said people should unite to fight back against a lightning advance by militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Fighters under the black flag of ISIL are sweeping south towards the capital Baghdad in a campaign to recreate a mediaeval caliphate carved out of fragmenting Iraq and Syria that has turned into a widespread rebellion against Maliki.
"People who are capable of carrying arms and fighting the terrorists in defense of their country ... should volunteer to join the security forces to achieve this sacred goal," said Sheikh Abdulmehdi al-Karbalai, delivering Sistani's message.
Those killed fighting ISIL militants would be martyrs, he said as the faithful chanted in acknowledgement.
U.S. President Barack Obama threatened military strikes against ISIL on Thursday, highlighting the gravity of the group's threat to redraw borders in an oil-rich region which is sending shockwaves through the Middle East.
Amidst the spreading chaos, Iraqi Kurdish forces seized control of Kirkuk, an oil hub just outside their autonomous enclave that they have long seen as their historical capital, three days after ISIL fighters captured the major city of Mosul.
There are now concerns that sectarian and tribal conflict might dismember Iraq into Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish entities. The atmosphere in Baghdad was tense on Friday, the streets were empty, residents were stock-piling food and arming themselves.
Reflecting fears that ISIL's insurgency could erupt into a civil war and disrupt oil exports from a major OPEC member state, the price of Brent crude oil edged further above $113 a barrel on Friday, up about $4 since the start of the week.
MALIKI MUST ACT, KERRY SAYS
Obama said military action alone was no panacea against ISIL and alluded to long-standing Western complaints that Maliki has done little to heal sectarian rifts that have left many of Iraq's minority Sunnis, cut out of power since Saddam Hussein's demise, aggrieved and vengeful - a mood exploited by ISIL.
"Prime Minister Maliki and all of Iraqi leaders need to do more to put sectarian differences aside," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at a news conference in London on Friday.
The ISIL advance has been joined by former Baathist officers who were loyal to Saddam as well as disaffected armed groups and tribes who want to oust Maliki. Cities and towns that have fallen to the militants so far have been mainly Sunni and the gains have largely been uncontested.
It had long been known that Mosul, a city of two million people, harbored not just ISIL but also the Baathist militant group the Naqshbandi Army, believed to be headed by Ezzat Ibrahim al Douri, a former close aide to Saddam.
After the fall of Saddam to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, officers from the old Iraqi army who had not been reconciled to the new order collected in the Mosul area. The city's proximity to the border with Syria allowed Baathists - Saddam's political party - and Islamic radicals freedom of movement.
On the advance, a member of the Mujahideen Army, consisting of ex-military officers and more moderate Islamists, said: "We were contacted by ISIL around three days before the attack on Mosul asking us to join them. Speaking honestly we were reluctant to join as we were not satisfied they could do the job and defeat thousands of government troops in Mosul.
"When ISIL entered Mosul and swept out government forces positions in hours ... Only then did we decide to join forces and fight with them as long as we had a sole objective to kick Maliki forces out of Mosul and remove injustice."
The pace of events means that now, an alarmed Shi'ite Islamic Republic of Iran, which in the 1980s fought Saddam for eight years at a time when the Sunni Iraqi leader enjoyed quiet U.S. support, may be willing to cooperate with the "Great Satan" Washington to bolster mutual ally Maliki.
The idea is being discussed internally among the Tehran leadership, a senior Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We can work with Americans to end the insurgency in the Middle East," the official said, referring to the sudden escalation of conflict in Iraq. (Full Story)
Thrusting further to the southeast after their seizure of Mosul in the far north and Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, ISIL entered two towns in Diyala province bordering Iran.
Saadiyah and Jalawla had fallen to the Sunni Muslim insurgents after government troops fled their positions.
Iraqi army units subsequently subjected Saadiyah and Jalawla to artillery fire from the nearby town of Muqdadiya. ISIL fighters eventually withdrew from Jalawla and well-organized Kurdish Peshmerga fighters took over. Iraqi army helicopters fired rockets at one of the largest mosques in Tikrit on Friday, according to witnesses. There were no further details available.
"CHANCE TO REPENT"
Obama said on Thursday he was considering "all options" to support Maliki's central government that took full control when the U.S. occupation wound up in 2011.
"I don’t rule out anything because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria," Obama said at the White House, when asked whether he was contemplating air strikes.
Giving a hint of their vision of a caliphate, ISIL published sharia rules for the realm they have carved out in northern Iraq, including a ban on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and an edict on women to wear only all-covering, shapeless clothing.
ISIL militants were reported to have executed soldiers and policemen after their seizure of some towns.
On Friday, ISIL said it was giving soldiers and policemen a "chance to repent ... For those asking who we are, we are the soldiers of Islam and have shouldered the responsibility to restore the glory of the Islamic Caliphate”.
Residents near the border with Syria, where ISIL has exploited civil war to seize wide tracts of that country's east, watched militants bulldozing tracks through frontier sand berms - as a prelude to trying to revive a mediaeval entity straddling both modern states.
ISIL has battled rival rebel factions in Syria for months and occasionally taken on President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
ISIL's Syria branch is now bringing in weapons seized in Iraq from retreating government forces, according to Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. But its fighters appear to have held back in Syria, especially in their eastern stronghold near the Iraqi border, while their Iraqi wing was making rapid military gains.
Matthew Henman, Head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre said in a report that ISIL's capture of Iraqi territory along the Syrian border will give the group greater freedom of movement of men and material across the two countries.
"Light and heavy weaponry, military vehicles, and money seized by ISIL during the capture of Mosul will be moved into desert area of eastern Syria, which ISIL has been using as a staging ground for attacks," he said.
At Baiji, near Kirkuk, ISIL fighters ringed Iraq's largest refinery, underlining the incipient threat to the oil industry.
Further south, militant forces extended their advance to towns about an hour's drive from Baghdad, where Shi'ite militia were mobilizing for what could be a replay of the ethnic and sectarian bloodbath of 2006 and 2007. Trucks carrying Shi'ite volunteers in uniform rumbled to front lines to defend Baghdad.
SADR HOLDS FIRE
Despite the call to arms from Sistani, influential Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who led revolts against U.S. forces, has not called on his followers to mobilize. At Friday prayers, his faithful were told to wait for directions in the coming days on how to form “peace regiments” that will defend holy sites.
Maliki's army already lost control of much of the Euphrates valley west of the capital to ISIL last year. With the evaporation of the army in the Tigris valley to the north, the government could be left with just Baghdad and areas south - home to the Shi'ite majority in Iraq's 32 million population.
ISIL and its allies took control of Falluja at the start of the year. It lies just 50 km (30 miles) west of Maliki's office.
ISIL has set up military councils to run the towns they captured. “'Our final destination will be Baghdad, the decisive battle will be there' - that’s what their leader kept repeating," said a regional tribal figure.
As with the concurrent war in Syria, Iraq's conflict cuts across global alliances. The United States and Western and Gulf Arab allies back the mainly Sunni revolt in Syria against the Iranian-backed President Assad, but have had to watch as ISIL and other Islamists have come to dominate large parts of Syria.
The global oil benchmark price has jumped in reaction to ISIL's rise, although Iraq's main oil export facilities are in the largely Shi'ite areas of the south and are "very, very safe", Oil Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi said.
The million-strong Iraqi army, trained by the United States at a cost of nearly $25 billion, is floundering amid poor morale and corruption. Its effectiveness is hurt by the perception in Sunni areas that it pursues the hostile interests of Shi'ites.

[wa3zrm]

Obama urges Iraq's leaders to 'solve their problems,' reviewing US options

President Obama urged Iraq's leaders Friday to "solve their problems" as they face Al Qaeda-inspired militants overrunning cities and marching toward Baghdad -- but said he was reviewing possible U.S. military responses.

Obama, speaking on the South Lawn before departing for North Dakota, reiterated that the U.S. would "not be sending U.S. troops back into combat."
He said the unrest in Iraq, though, poses a "danger" to the Iraqi people and could threaten American interests.
Indicating a decision on possible U.S. intervention could still be days away, the president said he's asked his security team for options and is reviewing them.
Obama made clear, however, that any U.S. involvement likely would be limited, pressing the embattled Iraqi government to develop a "political plan" and make a "sincere effort" to resolve sectarian divisions.
"We can't do it for them," Obama said.
The message echoed that delivered earlier in the day by Secretary of State John Kerry, who put the onus on the Nouri al-Maliki government to "put sectarian differences aside and to come together in unity to begin to be more representative and inclusive."
Republican lawmakers and military analysts are urging the administration to get more involved -- Obama appeared to open the door Thursday to the possibility of air strikes, but no decision has been made. Kerry said Friday the U.S. has "discussed a range of options including military action to provide support for the Iraqi government." He predicted "timely decisions" from the president.
Meanwhile, the Sunni militants continue their march through northern cities and towns, toppling fragile security forces and threatening to lay siege to the capital city of Baghdad.
Congressional Republicans say the Maliki government is far from blameless here, having stoked sectarian tensions by alienating the Sunni minority -- in turn fueling the insurgency -- but say U.S. intervention is needed.
"The Iraqi government is far from perfect," Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, R-Calif., said. "But if we don't want to see an Iraq with large swaths of territory under militant control, and we shouldn't, we should answer Iraqi requests to target these Al Qaeda terrorists with drone strikes."
Heavily armed ISIS forces (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Syria) pushed Friday into a province northeast of Baghdad, capturing two towns there after having already toppled cities in the country¹s north.
Police officials said ISIS forces driving machine gun-mounted pickups entered two towns in Diyala province late Thursday -- Jalula, 80 miles northeast of Baghdad, and Sadiyah, 60 miles north of the Iraqi capital.
Iraqi soldiers abandoned their posts there without any resistance, the officials told The Associated Press.
There were reports that the main highway from the north to Baghdad was strewn with the decapitated bodies of government security forces, and that ISIS forces were driving and displaying captured armored vehicles.
The fresh gains come as Maliki's Shiite-led government struggles to form a coherent response after the Sunni militants blitzed and captured the country's second-largest city of Mosul as well as other, smaller communities and military and police bases.
The new offensive by the militant group is the biggest threat to Iraq's stability since the U.S. withdrawal at the end of 2011, and it has pushed the nation closer to a precipice that would partition it into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish zones.
Trumpeting their victory, the militants declared they would impose Shariah law in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city they captured on Tuesday, and other areas they seized, and promised to march on Baghdad, joined by Saddam Hussein-era loyalists and other disaffected Sunnis.
In northern Iraq, Kurdish security forces moved to fill the power vacuum caused by the retreating Iraqi forces, taking over an air base and other posts abandoned by the military in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk.
The Obama administration is still struggling to put together an appropriate response to the crisis -- but insisted it does not want U.S. troops in the middle of the fight.
"We are not contemplating ground troops," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday.
President Obama promised Thursday to send more military aid, without saying what kind of new assistance would be given to Baghdad. Two U.S. officials who are familiar with ongoing negotiations told The Associated Press the White House is considering air strikes and increased surveillance, requested this week by the Iraqi defense minister, as the insurgency nears Baghdad.
According to the White House, Vice President Biden spoke Thursday with Maliki and expressed "solidarity" with the Iraqi government in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Meanwhile, three planeloads of Americans -- mostly contractors and civilians -- were in the process of being evacuated Friday from an Iraqi air base north of Baghdad, the Associated Press reported. The State Department said Thursday that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is operating as usual.
The development signals the worsening security environment in the northern part of the country. One senior official told Fox News that the focus for evacuation at this point is on people outside of Baghdad.
Two senior intelligence sources, though, told Fox News there is serious concern about how to evacuate other Americans out of Iraq if the situation further deteriorates.
"We need places to land, we need safe and secure airfields," one source said, noting that the militants are "seizing airfields and they have surface-to-air missiles, which very clearly threatens our pilots and planes if we do go into evacuation mode."
Sources said "all western diplomats in Iraq are in trouble," and American allies are scrambling to put together an evacuation plan. Military officials said there are "not a lot of good options."
Baghdad authorities, meanwhile, tightened security and residents stocked up on essentials. Hundreds of young men crowded in front of the main army recruiting center in Baghdad after authorities urged Iraqis to help battle the insurgents.
Security officials said ISIS fighters had control of two weapons depots holding 400,000 items, including AK-47 rifles, rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, artillery shells and mortars.
The U.N. Security Council met on the crisis, underscoring the growing international alarm over the stunning advances by the Islamic State.
The Iraqi government has been asking for more than a year for surveillance and armed drones to combat a Sunni insurgency that has gained strength from battlefield successes in neighboring Syria.
Republican lawmakers were harshly critical Thursday of the Obama administration's response. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called for Obama to replace his national security team.
House Speaker John Boehner snapped: "What's the president doing? Taking a nap."
Obama commented on the violence shortly afterward.
"What we've seen over the last couple of days indicates the degree to which Iraq is going to need more help," Obama said. "It's going to need more help from us, and it's going to need more help from the international community."
In addition to the possible military assistance, the U.S. is sending about $12 million in humanitarian aid to help nearly a million Iraqis who have been forced from their homes by recent fighting in the nation's north and west.