In June 2014, a group of armed militants and extremists made their dramatic journey across the Syrian border into Iraq, quickly capturing Mosul and Baiji and almost reaching the capital Baghdad. The group possessed convoys of identical Toyota trucks and the kind of arsenal some countries in the region would be envious of. The media was flooded with footage of drive-by shootings, large-scale death marches, mass executions and mass graves. Any Iraqi soldier captured was executed. That incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq was part of a planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by various states. The jihadists … Continue reading The Absurdity Amid the Ruins: Islamic State Pines For its Fictional ‘Caliph’…