A top commander of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq has told The Telegraph how his men are fighting alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham to take back Baghdad, even if it means pushing the country to civil war.
Sheikh Ahmed al-Dabash, 47, a founder of the Islamic Army of Iraq, who fought the allied invasion in 2003, has told how thousands of his men are participating in the Isis-led insurgency that swept across northern Iraq, and which now threatens the gates of the capital.
The Islamic Army, however, does not share the same extremist ideology of Isis, Mr Dabash said in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, and raised the prospect of his faction one day turning its guns on their jihadist comrades.
“If Maliki [the Iraqi prime minister] does not step down, then there is no doubt that we are moving on Baghdad,” said Mr Dabash. “We will go all the way.” » | Ruth Sherlock, and Carol Malouf in Erbil | Friday, June 20, 2014
