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Page added on June 11, 2014
Insurgents take control of second major city in Iraq
Al-Qaeda-inspired militants have seized the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit — hometown of former leader Saddam Hussein — in a move that represents the second major advance this week for rebel forces in an escalating insurgency that has left the government on the defensive.
Witnesses described hearing heavy gunfire Wednesday from different parts of the city that began mid-afternoon before hundreds of pick-ups equipped with weapons appeared on city streets.
“The police didn’t fight at all, and withdrew, one-by-one,” said Hassan al Obaidi, 45, who works in an oil refinery in Tikrit.
In Tikrit, like Mosul, militants freed prisoners and took control of government buildings. Thousands of residents fled the city, adding to the hundreds of thousands who have left Mosul in the past 24 hours.
“I left the city with my family to stay in a village after I saw everything crumbling,” said Mahmoud Al Samaraie, 38, a shop owner from Tikrit, located about 100 miles from Baghdad. “I don’t know for how long I will stay there, there is no electricity and no clean water — I fled just to protect my children. They were very scared because of all of this.”
The offensive — which the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), an al-Qaeda splinter group, started Monday — is part of an attempt to create an Islamic caliphate including Iraq and Syria.
The group has now taken control of all of Iraq’s Nineveh province as well as parts of Anbar to the west, Kirkuk to the southeast and Salaheddin to the south.
ISIL militants don’t pose an imminent threat to attack the United States but their growing strength will further destabilize the Middle East and could affect American allies there, said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. He condemned the ISIL for attacking Mosul and Tikrit.
U.S. officials, in consultation with the Iraqi government, are monitoring the situation in Iraq with concern, Warren said. The Pentagon is aware of reports that U.S. military equipment has fallen into the hands of militants, but he did not confirm that, saying “the situation remains fluid and the situation on the ground remains murky.”
The Pentagon has supplied the Iraqi military with Apache attack helicopters, missiles, rockets, tank rounds, small arms and ammunition. U.S. Special Operations personnel are also training Iraqi security forces in a counter-terrorism exercise in Jordan.
ISIL fighters pose “a severe challenge” to Iraqi security forces, Warren said. But it is up to them, he said, “to step up to fight and defeat this enemy.
The Iraqi government is scheduled to meet Thursday to decide on whether to declare a state of emergency requested by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. That would give the Iraqi leader broader powers to fight the militants than he has had in the past year. In that time, the country has experienced a spike in sectarian violence not seen since 2006 when an average of 2,000 people died every month. Almost 9,000 people were killed in 2013, according to the United Nations. An estimated 4,000 died in the first four months of this year.
Meanwhile, in Mosul, witnesses fleeing the ISIL fighters who took control of the city Tuesday were bitter and confused about the collapse of the Iraqi military’s defenses. Many believed the army’s quick exit and lack of preparedness proved the government had abandoned hope of exercising its authority in Mosul even before the insurgents launched their assault.
“I think Mosul was given up according to a predetermined plan,” said Mohammed Munaf, a resident who fled his neighborhood on the eastern side of Mosul when the fighting began. “There was no resistance.”
Residents say ISIL has had de facto control for months and the only difference is that now it is official. The militants have been running extortion rackets in Mosul for years — collecting fees in exchange for protection from local merchants who had little choice but to pay, said Munaf.
“Many sleeper cells are present in the city,” he said. “Taxes are imposed on well-known merchants, pharmacists, doctors and contractors. They assassinate people. Their work is mafia-like, well organized.”
Middle East analyst Guido Steinberg of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin said ISIL had been using Mosul as a base for expansion in the region since it formed as a chapter of al-Qaeda a decade ago. The two terrorist organizations split in February over internal squabbles. Now, ISIL uses money raised in Mosul to fund its campaign against President Bashar Assad in Syria.
“They have been strong in Mosul for years already,” said Steinberg. “It has been one of the strongholds of al-Qaeda in Iraq.”
Steinberg doesn’t believe ISIL has sufficient fighters to occupy the city permanently. But he said the capture of Iraq’s strategically important, second-largest city is a major symbolic victory that is a direct challenge to the legitimacy of embattled Prime Minister al-Maliki.
“It shows how confident they (the fighters) have become in recent weeks,” he said.
Those who remain in Mosul now express fear of what’s coming — and the government’s expected push to dislodge them.
Civilians and soldiers flee to Iraqi Kurdistan after a morning of heavy fighting between the military and insurgents in Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul. Video provided by Reuters Newslook
“Mosul is a great city, a city of peace, art and science, I hope (Prime Minister) al-Maliki takes that into consideration,” said Mohmood Faris, a doctor who refused to leave Mosul. “I hope all this ends soon so our city can be saved. If it will be bombed, it would be the biggest catastrophe in this century.”
Faris said that some people were afraid of the militants at first but then welcomed them. “The city was not looted,” he said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands were trying to enter Kurdish territory but denied entry and looking for safety elsewhere.
One man who asked that he be identified only by his initials, O.J., to protect his safety, said that he took nothing but his passport and laptop as he headed toward Dohuk, a northern semiautonomous governorate near the border with Kurdistan.
31 Comments on "Insurgents take control of second major city in Iraq"
shortonoil on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 3:35 pm
Things that make you HMMMMM. An extremist radical Islamic group takes the the primary oil producing area of Iraq, and oil prices don’t move. Sounds like gold, LIBOR and a few other markets.
Davey on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 3:44 pm
I wonder how the Iranian Card may play out? Shias helping Shias? They are already fighting ISIL in Syria.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 4:19 pm
Actually, I’m surprised the stock market didn’t skyrocket with wildly unanticipated gains on news of the radical Islamic takeover of much of Iraq’s oil production territory.
These days, it seems like what most think of as good news results in a drop in the stock market, and what most think of as bad news seems to move the stock market up a notch or two.
Or does it just seem that way?
One might even get the sneaking suspicion that on “bad news” days, somebody or some machine purposely works a little magic to pump up the stock market, and that on “good news” days that same somebody or some machine just lets the stock market float on its own which tends to be downward, away from the vastly over-inflated stock prices.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 4:42 pm
Well, NR good news is good news and bad news is good news but just BTFD stupid and tell your friends and family so they BTFD also but at a higher price so you make more money.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 4:46 pm
Davy — I’ve been doing that for a while already, which is how I make a little extra money AND get even with my family and friends for not appreciating me for the extremely reliable and valuable source of investment advice that I am.
Hey, if you want to know what stocks to buy, just ask me, anytime… 🙂
mack on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 5:01 pm
The oil price hasn’t moved because while Mosul area has some oil the super giant fields are in the south.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Iraq
noobtube on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 5:02 pm
Iraq is in turmoil.
Libya is in turmoil.
Venezuela is in turmoil.
Nigerians are fighting the oil multinationals.
NATO has Russia preparing to shutoff Europe.
And, as has been noted, gas prices don’t move.
Weird how that works.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 5:06 pm
noobtube — None of that turmoil would cause gas prices to move downward, that’s for sure. One would expect them to move upwards, but like you point out, they aren’t. And yeah, that is really freaking weird how that works in today’s global economy — way different than it used to work back in “the good old days”, that’s for sure.
Perk Earl on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 5:45 pm
Bush junior & neocons ousted Saddam to get their oil moving, only to upset the balance of powers. What will happen to oil infrastructure during a civil war between Sunni and Shiite? Kurds will just watch in horror knowing if the Sunni win they will want some % of their oil.
World is descending further into chaos with each passing news flash. Near daily mass shootings in the US. A thousand kids without attending parents cross the US border up from central America. Libya still a mess with oil exportation way down. Crimea, Ukraine, China drilling in Vietnamese waters, Venezuela, and still no oil from deep offshore Brazil sub-salt. Kasagstan poisonous oil fields way over budget and still not producing much. Texas and California with high percentage of land in extreme drought conditions. Tundra in Alaska softening, tearing up roads and foundations. Sea level rise, dogs with cats, fire and brimstone, wrath of God, mass hysteria, Cantor loses – victory for tea party, all right I’ll stop ranting.
westexas on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 6:27 pm
Peak Earl: Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ZOKDmorj0
eugene on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 6:40 pm
In America, all news is good news!
Juan Pueblo on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 6:52 pm
I think short is correct. It is almost obvious by now to those of us here following these news that the oil price is being manipulated. It should be swinging wildly and it is steady as a rock.
Someone must be buying dips. Could it be that the Chinese may be syncronizing their extra purchases to fill their growing strategic reserves by buying dips?
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 7:21 pm
Juan here is an older article from the drum might be worth reading in regards to the manipulation of the oil market:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9742
dissident on Wed, 11th Jun 2014 9:53 pm
The manipulated behaviour of the oil price confirms we are in a shortage situation, i.e. the demand is greater than the supply. A condition which is more important to the global economy than the timing of peak production. As we transition into the post peak regime, the shortage is going to get more acute and it will become impossible to hide it with price fixing.
Plantagenet on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 1:03 am
Obama walked away from Iraq in 2009. The Islamists are walking into Iraq in 2014
Another Obama disaster is now in progress
FriedrichKling on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 3:42 am
So Plantagenet now it’s all Obama’s fault for not permanently occupying Iraq? In case you have forgotten, Iraq is a sovereign country with the right to self-determination. What an idiotic statement.
Perk Earl on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 5:04 am
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10892299/Iraq-crisis-al-Qaeda-militants-push-towards-Baghdad-in-sight-live.html
Iraq crisis: al-Qaeda militants push towards Baghdad in sight – live
Kurdish forces have control Thursday of the disputed Iraqi oil hub of Kirkuk, officials have told AFP.
The decision of Paul Bremer, the head of the occupational authority in Iraq, to disband the 700,000-man Iraqi Army eleven years ago is the root cause of the crisis, Mr Zahawi, who was born in Iraq, said.
ISIS has said it will now march on Baghdad, AFP reports.
Should be interesting to see if these ongoing events reduce oil exports.
Perk Earl on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 5:07 am
Peak Earl: Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ZOKDmorj0
wt, yes that was the inspiration for the latter portion of my rant. Was funny to watch again though, thanks.
Perk Earl on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 5:23 am
“The manipulated behaviour of the oil price confirms we are in a shortage situation, i.e. the demand is greater than the supply.”
I’m wondering if instead of being manipulated, investors are savvy to demand at a higher oil price just not being there due to a weak global economy. The idea being if oil price did rise, reduced demand would level it back to the previous price point. In other words maybe we are at a price point ceiling, where supply & demand collide to cancel out a higher price. Supply cannot go much higher but neither can demand. A stalemate in which we simply have to live at that price point ceiling.
However, as this situation moves forward, it may be a case of that ceiling price dropping due to a descending economy brought on by high oil prices in the first place. A negative feedback loop that will act to reduce supply as higher priced non-conventional sources become mothballed. This of course feeds into the notion of a shark fin descent from peak. If so, we may be near the cliff edge of that fin.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 6:20 am
Highly unlikely Baghdad will fall to ISIL. Baghdad is in a mixed region but the Shia’s have strength in numbers the further south you go. The shia’s have oil revenue supporting their war effort. It appears the Shia’s can call on the US for air support. It could get nasty around Bahgdad but it is doubtful it will fall to ISIL.
bobinget on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 8:13 am
“Militants believed to be from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, overmatched government forces and now control a vast swath of its territory. Hundreds of thousands have fled, becoming refugees overnight. Sectarian violence plagues some areas not under ISIS control.
And amid all this, some believe the Baghdad-based central government won’t be able to do much about it.”
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/world/meast/iraq-predictions-revisited/
My input:
Worst case, Iraq turns into another Syria adding an additional million refugees to an already overstressed neighborhood.
bobinget on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 8:28 am
Oil prices have moderated some (H-$106.56)
In a few days big news coverage will be all about the World Cup. (not a coincidence)
The skinny: Russia and Iran have to decide if they can do business with a Saudi Proxy government in Baghdad.
KSA will throw US relations overboard if they can force their way into the ‘new’ OPEC. The Saudis want an Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. I’m guessing, US doesn’t.
The beauty of a quickly moving force of Toyota PU’s instead of clumsy, targetable tank battalions is obvious.
Military history is being made here.
bobinget on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 8:56 am
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-06-12/peak-oil-notes-jun-12
Tom Whipple is ex CIA and IMO the best oil analyst writing for the progressive environmental movement.
Perhaps unrelated but, civil strife in Nigeria is escalating. Overshadowed by important World Cup news, we can soon write off Nigerian light oil exports.
http://www.sctimes.com/story/opinion/2014/06/10/times-writers-group-terrorists-threaten-entire-world-including-muslims/10308739/
shortonoil on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 9:11 am
’m wondering if instead of being manipulated, investors are savvy to demand at a higher oil price just not being there due to a weak global economy.”
What you have to understand is that there are two markets for oil. One is the end consumer, the other is the petroleum industry itself. It takes energy to produce petroleum, and that amount is increasing as time progresses. That is, it is taking more and more oil to produce oil. The petroleum industry is increasing demand for petroleum, on the other hand increasing price (declining energy) is slowing the rest of the economy. As a result, as our model shows, production costs are increasing faster than price increases can compensate. The death of the oil age will come when the two meet!
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
Steen Jakobsen, chief economist of Saxo Bank:
“Understand energy and its marginal price of production and its delivery and you have
the keys to predicting the world.”
Baggins on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 11:30 am
That’s what “democracy”spreading ends up like.
J-Gav on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 11:41 am
@Short – “Production costs are increasing faster than price increases can compensate” definitely gives an inkling of where we’re headed.
I’m not sure what “predicting the world” means but I think I get the gist of what Jakobsen’s talking about too.
Just as I think I get your point about the end of the oil age coming when production costs and price increases “meet.” If I were to re-phrase that to fit the way my own head works, it might read something like this:
Pictured on a graph with two lines moving out over time from left to right, one representing production costs, the other price … When those two lines part company, i.e. when one (production costs in this case) continues upward for any length of time while the other flatlines or dips, it’s the beginning of the end of the oil age.
Perhaps not quite ‘game over,’ but a sure sign that a major transition to some new social/economic/political forms is underway. If that’s a fair assessment of your position, I certainly share it with you.
shortonoil on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 1:01 pm
J-GAV said:
“Pictured on a graph with two lines moving out over time from left to right, one representing production costs, the other price … When those two lines part company, i.e. when one (production costs in this case) continues upward for any length of time while the other flatlines or dips, it’s the beginning of the end of the oil age.”
Another way of saying that is that the slope of the production cost curve has now become steeper than the price curve. What that tells us is that we have moved beyond the growth phase of the oil age, and are now in the decline phase. The decline (by our model) will be fairly steady at about $2.4 trillion per year for the world economy. Of course the implications of all this are serious. For one, I don’t see how a debt based fiat currency can survive when debt can longer grow. There will not be enough money generated to continue servicing the debt that already exists. Rough times ahead!
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
Northwest Resident on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 1:11 pm
“There will not be enough money generated to continue servicing the debt that already exists.”
They’ll just print more.
It’s like a gang of thieves who all owe each other gambling debts. As long as none of the thieves demand payment, they can keep their game going for quite a while, robbing and stealing from the lower classes to continue funding their extravagant lifestyles. But once the thieves start to demand payment from each other and the knives come out, that’s when it all falls apart.
Or, does that analogy totally suck?
Kenz300 on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 1:16 pm
One more reason for every country to develop a plan to diversify its energy sources and produce more local energy.
Alternative energy sources like wind, solar, wave energy, geothermal and second generation biofuels made from algae, cellulose and waste can all be produced locally providing local jobs and ensuring domestic energy sources.
Northwest Resident on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 1:54 pm
BTW, when I said “They’ll just print more”, I was being facetious.
From Pew Research:
* As of Sept. 30 the federal government’s total debt stood at $16.74 trillion
* The debt is about equal to gross domestic product (GDP), which was $16.661 trillion in the second quarter
* Though U.S. government debt is perhaps the most widely held class of security in the world, as of the end of September 28.4% of the debt (about $4.76 trillion) was owed to another arm of the federal government itself. The single biggest creditor, in fact, are Social Security’s two trust funds
* In fiscal 2013, which ended Sept. 30, net interest payments on the debt totaled $222.75 billion, or 6.23% of all federal outlays (artificially low interest rates held this number down)
* Largely due to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive efforts to keep interest rates low, the U.S. government is paying historically low rates on its debt
Of course, it is impossible for the USA to pay off its debt. But it does appear that as long as interest rates are kept very low and enough people kept working (so they pay taxes), the USA can continue to service the interest on its debt, for the foreseeable future.
Inability to pay interest on the national debt isn’t what will put the final nail into the coffin of the global economy, IMO. It will be the sudden jolt of oil/energy shortfalls — ones so large that they can’t be covered up with propaganda or technology fairy tales. Ones so large that everybody feels them and knows that something really big just happened. The ones that signal “end of economic growth — forever” — that cause panic in the streets, banks to stop handing out loans, and all kinds of mayhem. The ones that I anticipate will be start arriving in the next year or two, or sooner than that.
J-Gav on Thu, 12th Jun 2014 1:57 pm
Short – Exactly. And the implications are indeed serious. Foolishly allowing the private, debt-based money system to place itself on a pedestal, as opposed to flushing it down the john, is at the root of many of our problems. Not easy to thwart head on, it may have to collapse under its own sleazy weight.
Andrew Jackson thought he’d pulled it off back in the 1830s, even had “I killed the Bank” inscribed on his gravestone (NB – this is not a plug for Jackson in general, also well-known as an Indian killer – see “The Trail of Tears” ethnic cleansing episode for example.)
It all started big-time at the end of the 17th century with the establishment of the Bank of England. Before that, it had been Italy, then the Dutch, but they crashed out. The English model spread far and wide and is still with us. Lincoln tried to get around it with his Greenbacks and we know what happened to him.
Those who have refused to cooperate have been, and still are, routinely demonized and/or bombed.
If a way is not found to make the issuance of money and the terms of credit for lending it a public service, then indeed, we are in for very rough times.