General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I Support The Actions Described By President Obama Tonight, Ladies And Gentlemen [View all]The Magistrate
(95,241 posts)They were one of the jihadi groups in the west of Iraq, dodging back and forth across the Syrian border, while we still occupied Iraq.
They became a rising faction in the fighting against Assad, with considerable backing from a Saudi prince and nabobs of the Gulf emirates.
Around the start of this year, various rebel factions in Syria began to fight against them, in part as a condition of aid from the U.S., and in part because, while their battlefield performance was useful indeed, they serious alienated the populace of areas under rebel control.
The group, in response, moved back across the border into Iraq, where the policies of Maliki in Baghdad over the last few years had wholly alienated the Sunni region. A good deal of the apparently explosive expansion was pre-arranged by co-operation with local tribal leadership and Sunni resistance groups active against the Baghdad government. The fact is, they have not got much beyond the area in which Sunni Arabs greatly predominate in Iraq.
I expect their turning north against the Kurds stems from two considerations. First, that Baghdad is likely to be a very tough nut to crack, and the Kurds are more isolated and have oil fields directly in reach, without having to battle through a good deal of Shia territory to get to the southern portion of the country; war requires funds, and these people do seem to like putting things on a paying basis. Second, they certainly have aspirations towards the Mediterranean coast, and when they move west to gratify them, the Kurds would be a standing menace to their rear if left unsubdued.