Iraq crisis: ISIS militants push towards Baghdad - live

A man is executed in a new video released by ISIS

Senior Tehran official says leadership discussing cooperation with United States in face of insurgent threat in region, as militants battle Iraqi security forces 50 miles from Baghdad - follow latest Developments.

● 07.55 - The UN says that some half a million people have fled their homes since Monday, fearing violence, kidnapping and rape as ISIS militants tighten their grip on large parts of the country's north. Most have headed for the autonomous Kurdish region and workers were yesterday busy expanding the Khazer checkpoint in the area known as Kalak to cope with the flood of refugees.
● 07.45 - ISIS fighters have gained more ground overnight, taking two towns in the eastern province of Diyala after security forces abandoned their posts. Reuters cited security sources as reporting that the towns of Saadiyah and Jalawla have now fallen to the militants, who have also moved into several villages around the Himreen mountains, long a sanctuary for insurgent groups. Iraqi troops launched artillery rounds at the two towns, causing many families to flee towards Khaniqin, close to the Iranian border, the sources said.

xymphora ■ "Enter Ken Pollack and Tom Friedman– the Iraq experts!" || Note that the inability to grasp - or even talk about! - the role of World Jewry and ZOG in the long, long line of Wars For The Jews has not only permanently wrecked the United States, but is leading to the dangerous insanity of attacking the Islamists in Iraq while supporting them in Syria. World Jewry is also still trying to block the necessary Iranian nuclear negotiations! It is now more than ever critical for Americans to know, and attack, their real enemies.

Oded Yinon ■ A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties || Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization. [Additional links here and here]

PressTV: ISIL Takfiri militants, tools of Zionists: Analyst
Angry Arab: Human Rights Watch: in praise of ISIS
Kenny's Sideshow: Isis oh Isis
Robert Fisk: Sunni caliphate has been bankrolled by Saudi Arabia
Peter Oborne: A powerful and merciless force has emerged on the world stage
Bill Van Auken: Iraq crisis threatens to ignite regional war
Antiwar.com: US Readies Air Strikes Against al-Qaeda in Iraq
The Straits Times: Iran to combat terrorism in Iraq: Iran President Rouhani