Middle East Boiling

choi

It is 2:40 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), Saturday June 14, 2014.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq has been, since yesterday, in City of Samarra--80 miles north of the capital Baghdad. Pentagon 50 minutes ago ordered an aircraft carrier — the USS George HW Bush — to move from the northern Arabian Sea to the Persian Gulf, together with a guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea and a guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun. Earlier today Iran president promised to assist Iraqi government. The governments of Iraq, Iran and Syria (Bashar al-Assad is an Alawite, thus a Shiite) are Shiites.

The fast-footed rebels are from Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. See Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
(alternatively translated as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria; It was established in the early years of the Iraq War and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2004; Its aim was to establish a caliphate in the Sunni majority regions of Iraq, later expanding this to include Syria; In February 2014 al-Qaeda cut ties)