As if there wasn't enough to concentrate on given all that's happening in Ukraine between Russia and the West, and in Gaza between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the situation in Iraq has been taking some decidedly worrisome turns of late.
As ever, we keep our eye on this hot spot because of its special importance to the world supply of oil, any loss of which will rapidly lead to much higher prices.
First, there was the huge setback for the Al-Maliki government forces as they fought to defend, and eventually lost, the Camp Speicher military base north of Baghdad in mid July.
(Source)
The base was a profound loss as a large number of troops were garrisoned there who were valuable to Al-Maliki's plans to retake and defend captured territory in the north.
During the same offensive in which Camp Speicher was captured by ISIS, the Iraqi forces lost and had to fully retreat from the city of Tikrit. Combined, these were embarrassing routs of the Iraqi army that reinforce the opinion that the US left behind a fully dysfunctional and ineffective Iraqi military.
One week later, the ISIS rebels targeted the Taji base, the closest camp before reaching the "Green Zone" in Baghdad where the US embassy resides. All throughout the last two weeks of July, massive explosions were rocking Baghdad on an almost daily basis with enormous loss of life.
And here in the first week of August, major developments are still taking place.
ISIS has fought for and seized the Mosul dam, which is a true game changer if they can hold it. The interesting part is that they had to fight the peshmerga fighters of Kurdistan for it:
ISIS Seizes Major Iraqi Dam, Oil field in Victory Over Kurds
8/3/2014
BAGHDAD — Islamic State fighters seized control of Iraq's biggest dam, an oil field, and three more towns on Sunday after inflicting their first major defeat on Kurdish forces since sweeping through the region in June.
Capture of the Mosul Dam after an offensive of barely 24 hours could give the Sunni militants the ability to flood major Iraqi cities or withhold water from farms, sharply raising the stakes in their bid to topple Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government.
by sagerxx 
