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| Iraq Shiite Turkmen families fleeing the violence in the Iraqi city of Tal Afar |
The jihadist-led alliance now running large parts of Iraq has consolidated its control to the country’s western borders, taking a town, its airport and the key trade and transport crossing to Jordan as its transnational “caliphate” becomes a reality.
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham and its allies, mainly Sunni tribes and ex-Baathist remnants of the regime of Saddam Hussein, finally completed its takeover of Tal Afar in the north. The Iraqi army’s commander in the city, who had vowed to hold out speaking by telephone from the nearby airport to The Daily Telegraph earlier, was photographed fleeing under the protection of the Kurdish army.
The army had been based at the airport, now also in Isis hands.
Isis also took the Al-Waleed border crossing with Syria, though Iraqi security forces later claimed to have taken it back. A Sunni tribe meanwhile took the Turaibil crossing with Jordan nearby and was negotiating with Isis to hand it over to their control, according to reports confirmed by the Iraqi army.
The Iraqi central government now has little or no presence on its western borders, with just one border crossing with Syria, Rabia, in the hands of the Kurdish Regional Government, autonomous from but notionally loyal to Baghdad. » | Richard Spencer, Erbil | Monday, June 23, 2014
