Nouri al-Maliki... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Maliki imposed order on Basra wen the Shiites were going nuts, but has proven incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda's Sunni insurgency. Reelected to his third term in 2014...
waited for a U.S. response to an appeal for air strikes to beat back the threat to Storied Baghdad.
Sunni snuffies hung their black banners on watch towers at Iraq's Beiji oil refinery, a witness said Thursday, suggesting the vital facility had fallen to the bad boys, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.
However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
a top Iraq security official said the government force protecting the refinery was still inside Thursday and that they were in regular contact with Storied Baghdad, according to the AP.
At the refinery, 200 km (130 miles) north of the capital near Tikrit, troops loyal to the Shi'ite-led government were fighting bully boyz from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
(ISIL) and its allies who had stormed the perimeter a day earlier, threatening national energy supplies.