Iraq’s army is billed as having a strength of about 200,000 soldiers. And yet territories across northern Iraq have been easily turned over by IS militants over the past year.
The Iraqi government has reportedly launched a campaign with Iran-backed Shia militias to recapture the city of Ramadi from the Islamic State.
Iraqi militant leader Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who was Saddam Hussein’s right-hand man and a key force behind the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq, has been killed.
During the US war in Iraq, hundreds of thousands died the sort of deaths that, if broadcast in an Islamic State video, would have inflamed international opinion.
Militants from the Islamic State (IS) have begun destroying the ruins of the ancient city of Hatra in northern Iraq.