Recent gains by ISIS suggest they are almost finished shoring up control of the Anbar Province and nearby regions, and are getting closer to their threatened invasion of Baghdad. The locals are expecting the worst.
In Shi’ite areas of the capital, the markets are busy, with locals buying up food and other necessities in anticipation of a long, bloody siege.
The busiest businesses are the arms dealers, however, which since Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s call to arms have seen soaring sales to Shi’ites planning to join various militias aiming to resist ISIS.
Local Sunnis feel themselves in an even worse position, who see growing violence in the anti-ISIS backlash aimed primarily at them. For the Sunnis in Baghdad, it isn’t clear which is worse: a bloody ISIS takeover or a victory for Shi’ite militias that will quickly move on to purging the rest of them.
According to Senator Paul, the CIA is funding and training ISIS. Senator Rand Paul said the US government has been arming ISIS militants in Syria and funding its allies. US Republican Senator Rand Paul has accused the US government of arming the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Paul has told NBC News’s ‘Meet the Press’ that the US government has been funding ISIS's allies and supporting the terrorist group in Syria.
“They're emboldened because we've been supporting them … It could be Assad [could have] wiped these people out months ago,” the Kentucky senator said.
“I personally believe that this group would not be in Iraq and would not be as powerful had we not been supplying their allies in the war.”