Liz Sly
The Washington Post
1/3/2014
BEIRUT — A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.
The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three-way war…
…In Fallujah, where Marines fought the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war in 2004, the militants appeared to have the upper hand, underscoring the extent to which the Iraqi security forces have struggled to sustain the gains made by U.S. troops before they withdrew in December 2011…
…“At the moment, there is no presence of the Iraqi state in Fallujah,” said a local journalist who asked not to be named because he fears for his safety. “The police and the army have abandoned the city, al-Qaeda has taken down all the Iraqi flags and burned them, and it has raised its own flag on all the buildings.”…
…Most residents of Fallujah do not support the al-Qaeda fighters, the journalist there said, but they also lack the means to oppose them, and they also oppose the Iraqi government…
The entire article is at The Washington Post.
Related: $150 Million Used to Subsize Taliban Through Corporate Favors
…It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we are actually financing terrorism in Afghanistan through companies operating in the US that are linked to Taliban leaders who have planned attacks on Americans.
According to a Pentagon report prepared by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, there are 43 companies who have received funding from the US government and have been linked to terrorist activity in Afghanistan…
