The extent of the Iraqi army's defeat at the hands of militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) became clear on Wednesday when officials in Baghdad conceded that insurgents had stripped the main army base in the northern city of Mosul of weapons, released hundreds of prisoners from the city's jails and may have seized up to $480m in banknotes from the city's banks.
Iraqi officials told the Guardian that two divisions of Iraqi soldiers - roughly 30,000 men - simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters. Isis extremists roamed freely on Wednesday through the streets of Mosul, openly surprised at the ease with which they took Iraq's second largest city after three days of sporadic fighting.
Senior government officials in Baghdad were equally shocked, accusing the army of betrayal and claiming the sacking of the city was a strategic disaster that would imperil Iraq's borders.
The developments seriously undermine US claims to have established a unified and competent military after more than a decade of training. The US invasion and occupation cost Washington close to a trillion dollars and the lives of more than 4,500 of its soldiers. It is also thought to have killed at least 100,000 Iraqis.
In a day of extraordinary developments, Isis gunmen also encircled the city of Deir el-Zour across the border in Syria, kidnapped 80 Turkish citizens in two mass abductions, made advances in two other provinces and claimed to have successfully smuggled a huge weapons haul to eastern Syria's Hassaka province.
Isis fighters rode unopposed into Saddam Hussein's birthplace of Tikrit. There, as in Mosul the day before, they quickly set up checkpoints, sacked government buildings and filled trucks with weapons and cash, some of which were quickly dispatched to Syria.
Militants seized the Turkish consulate in Mosul and kidnapped the head of the diplomatic mission along with 24 staff members. A local police colonel told AFP he had spoken with the kidnappers who said those held "are safe with us" and would be moved to a "safer place". Turkish forces have targeted Isis forces in Syria.
Militants also destroyed a police station in Baiji, site of Iraq's largest refinery. Local officials said the insurgents withdrew on Wednesday after local tribal leaders persuaded them not to seize the refinery and power stations.
At least half a million residents of northern Iraq are reported to be on the move, with most attempting to flee to the Kurdish far north where border officials were overwhelmed and expecting refugee numbers to increase sharply in coming days.
The UN said it was scrambling to deal with the crisis. Save the Children said: "We are witnessing one of the largest and swiftest mass movements of people in the world in recent memory. The majority of Iraqis fleeing Mosul had to escape in a matter of minutes."
As security unravelled in the country's north and centre, the radical Shia Islamic leader Moqtadr al-Sadr threatened to reform the Mahdi army - a key protagonist in the sectarian war that nearly ripped Iraq apart in the wake of the US invasion. Militias had primacy nationwide during the worst of the war years and are once again ascendant as the Iraqi military's authority crumbles.
Foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari urged Kurdish and central government leaders to set aside their differences to deal with the "mortal threat" facing the country. Kurdish authorities were letting nearly all new arrivals enter in an early sign of closer than normal cooperation.
For a second day, the road between Mosul and Kirkuk was choked with cars full of families who described chaos in the city as troops beat an undignified retreat.
Source: theguardian
