As fears grow of a widening war across the Middle East, fed by reports that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) envisions a region-wide, all controlling theocracy, we found ourselves talking about another war. The Great War – or World War I, as it would come to be called — was triggered one hundred years ago this month when an assassin shot and killed Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Through a series of tangled alliances and a cascade of misunderstandings and blunders, that single act of violence brought on a bloody catastrophe. More than 37 million people were killed or wounded.
Col. T.E. Lawrence, shown Oct. 3, 1928. (AP Photo)
In America, if we reflect on World War I at all, we think mostly about the battlefields and trenches of Europe and tend to forget another front in that war — against the Ottoman Empire of the Turks that dominated the Middle East. A British Army officer named T.E. Lawrence became a hero in the Arab world when he led nomadic Bedouin tribes in battle against Turkish rule. Peter O’Toole immortalized him in the epic movie, “Lawrence of Arabia.”
You may remember the scene when, after dynamiting the Hijaz railway and looting a Turkish supply train, Lawrence is asked by an American reporter, “What, in your opinion, do these people hope to gain from this war?”
“They hope to gain their freedom,” Lawrence replies, and when the journalist scoffs, insists, “They’re going to get it. I’m going to give it to them.”
At war’s end, Lawrence’s vision of Arab independence was shattered when the Versailles peace conference confirmed the carving of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine into British and French spheres of influence; arbitrary boundaries drawn in the sand to satisfy the appetites of empire – Britain’s Foreign Office even called the former Ottoman lands “The Great Loot.”
The hopeful Lawrence drew his own “peace map” of the region, one that paid closer heed to tribal allegiances and rivalries. The map could have saved the world a lot of time, trouble and treasure, one historian said, providing the region “with a far better starting point than the crude imperial carve up.” Lawrence wrote to a British major in Cairo: “I’m afraid you will be delayed a long time, cleaning up all the messes and oddments we have left behind us.”
Since 2003, as the reckless invasion of Iraq unfolded, demand for Lawrence’s book, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” increased eightfold. It was taught at the Pentagon and Sandhurst — Britain’s West Point — for its insights into fighting war in the Middle East. In 2010, Major Niel Smith, who had served as operations officer for the US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, told The Christian Science Monitor, “T.E. Lawrence has in some ways become the patron saint of the US Army advisory effort in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
But then and now, Lawrence’s understanding of the ancient and potent jealousies of the people among whom he had lived and fought generally was ignored. In 1920, he wrote for the Times of London an unsettling and prophetic article about Iraq – then under the thumb of the British. He decried the money spent, the number of troops and loss of life, and warned that his countrymen had been led “into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information…. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It… may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.”
Not for the last time in the Middle East would disaster come from the blundering ignorance and blinding arrogance of foreign intruders convinced by magical thinking of their own omnipotence and righteousness. How soon we forget. How often we repeat.
Video Credits: Producer: Rob Booth. Editors: Sikay Tang and Rob Kuhns.
The most influential Shi'ite cleric in Iraq called on the country's leaders on Friday to choose a prime minister within the next four days, a dramatic political intervention that could hasten the end of Nuri al-Maliki's eight year rule.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who commands unswerving loyalty from many Shi'ites in Iraq and beyond, said political blocs should agree on the next premier, parliament speaker and president before a newly elected legislature meets on Tuesday.
Sistani's intervention makes it difficult for Maliki to stay on as caretaker leader as he has since a parliamentary election in April. That means he must either build a coalition to confirm himself in power for a third term or step aside.
Sistani's message was delivered after a meeting of Shi'ite factions including Maliki's State of Law coalition failed to agree on a consensus candidate for prime minister.
The United States and other countries are pushing for a new, inclusive government to be formed as quickly as possible to counter the insurgency led by an offshoot of al Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
The embattled Maliki accused his political foes of trying to prevent parliament from meeting on time and stirring up violence to interfere with the political process.
"They worked to postpone the elections... and now they are working to postpone the first session of the council of representatives... but if they are not able to pressure us to postpone, they will go for inciting security incidents in Baghdad," he said during a televised meeting with commanders.
Over the past fortnight, militants have overrun most majority Sunni areas in northern and western Iraq with little resistance, advancing to within an hour's drive of Baghdad.
Iraq's million-strong army, trained and equipped by the United States at a cost of some $25 billion, largely evaporated in the north after the militants launched their assault with the capture of Mosul on June 10.
Thousands of Shi'ite volunteers have responded to an earlier call by Sistani for all Iraqis to rally behind the military to defeat the insurgents.
Under Iraq's governing system put in place after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the prime minister has always been a Shi'ite, the largely ceremonial president a Kurd and the speaker of parliament a Sunni. Negotiations over the positions have often been drawn out: after the last election in 2010 it took nearly 10 months for Maliki to build a coalition to stay in office.
Divvying up the three posts in the four days before parliament meets, as sought by Sistani, would require leaders from each of Iraq's three main ethnic and sectarian groups to commit to the political process and swiftly resolve their most pressing political problems, above all the fate of Maliki.
"What is required of the political blocs is to agree on the three (posts) within the remaining days to this date," Sistani's representative said in a sermon on Friday, referring to Tuesday's constitutional deadline for parliament to meet.
Maliki, whose Shi'ite-led State of Law coalition won the most seats in the April election, was positioning himself for a third term before the ISIL onslaught began. His closest allies say he still aims to stay, but senior State of Law figures have said he could be replaced with a less polarising figure.
Sunnis accuse Maliki of excluding them from power and repressing their sect, driving armed tribal groups to back the insurgency led by ISIL. The president of Iraq's Kurdistan region has also said Maliki should go.
A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, predicted that Maliki was now done.
"It looks like the debate is whether it is going to be Tareq Najem from inside State of Law or someone from outside Maliki's alliance," the diplomat said, referring to Maliki's one-time chief of staff and a senior member of his Dawa party.
"It is generally understood it will not be Maliki," the diplomat said. "Security was his big thing, and he failed."
Allies of Maliki said Sistani's call for a quick decision was not aimed at sidelining the premier but at putting pressure on all political parties not to draw out the process with infighting as the country risks disintegration.
The Kurds have yet to agree on a candidate for president and the Sunnis are divided among themselves over the speaker's post.
Mass executions
Iraqi helicopters fired on a university campus on Friday in Tikrit, the hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein and second major city to fall to insurgents more than a fortnight ago. Government commandos launched an airborne assault on the campus on Thursday, a rare push back into rebel-held territory.
"My family and I left early this morning. We could hear gunfire, and helicopters are striking the area," said Farhan Ibrahim Tamimi, a professor at the university who fled Tikrit for a nearby town.
Helicopters also fired on the emergency department of the hospital, a doctor said later. There was no word on casualties.
ISIL fighters' dramatic advance after capturing the main northern city of Mosul on June 10 has placed Iraq's very survival as a state in jeopardy, threatening to reignite the wholesale sectarian slaughter that saw at least 100,000 Iraqis killed during US occupation from 2003-2011.
Most of the fighting has been north of Baghdad, but on Friday, six mortar rounds were fired on the Shi'ite town of Mahmoudiya, 30 km (19 miles) south of the capital, killing eight people, security and medical sources said.
US President Barack Obama has ruled out sending ground troops back but has sent up to 300 advisers, mostly special forces, to help the government fight the insurgents.
General Martin Dempsey, the top US military officer, told National Public Radio on Friday that "additional options" for potential future US military actions in Iraq included going after "high value individuals who are the leadership of ISIL" and working to protect Iraq's "critical infrastructure."
The Pentagon also said that some of the drones and manned aircraft it was flying over Iraq were armed, but said the flights were aimed at gathering intelligence and ensuring the safety of US personnel on the ground rather than conducting air strikes.
ISIL fighters who aim to set up a caliphate on both sides of the Syria-Iraq border consider all Shi'ites heretics deserving death. They proudly boasted of executing scores of Shi'ite government soldiers captured in Tikrit.
New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said on Friday that analysis of photographs and satellite imagery indicated ISIL had killed as many as 190 men in at least two locations over three days after they captured Tikrit. The death toll may be much higher, but the difficulty of locating bodies and getting to the area had prevented a full investigation, it added.
However, there have also been accounts of government forces killing large numbers of prisoners. Several police officials told Reuters 69 prisoners had been killed on Monday while being transported from a jail in Hilla south of Baghdad. Last week 52 prisoners were killed in a jail in Baquba to the north.
In both cases the official account was that prisoners died in custody in the crossfire during insurgent attacks.
Amnesty International also said it had gathered evidence pointing to a pattern of extrajudicial executions of detainees carried out by government forces before withdrawing from cities, including Tal Afar, west of Mosul, which militants now control.
Fighters from ISIL have been joined by other, less radical groups who share their view that Sunnis have been persecuted under Maliki. The onslaught has been halted outside the capital, but militants have continued to advance and consolidate their gains elsewhere, including the area around Mosul in northwestern Iraq, which is home to many religious and ethnic minorities.
Militants took control of six villages populated by the country's Shi'ite Shabak minority southeast of Mosul after clashing with Kurdish "peshmerga" forces securing the area, according to a lawmaker and community leader.
Up to 10,000 people have also fled from the predominantly Christian communities of Qaraqosh, some 30 kilometres southeast of Mosul, since Wednesday, fearful of becoming a target for ISIL, the UN refugee agency said.
POSTED 4:00 PM, JUNE 27, 2014, BY MELISSA PAMER, UPDATED AT 05:34PM, JUNE 27, 2014
The body of an Arcadia firefighter who has been missing for two weeks in a remote, rugged area of the Los Padres National Forest was found Friday morning less than a mile from where he was last seen, authorities said.
A family photo shows Mike Herdman with his dog, who ran off before Herdman went missing.
Mike Herdman, 36, disappeared June 13 when he and a firefighter colleague and friend chased after Herdman’s runaway dog, Duke, in the mountain above Fillmore. The two men, who were on a four-day backpacking trip in the Sespe Wilderness, became separated. Herdman did not return to camp that night.
He was barefoot and wearing only shorts and a T-shirt. It took Herdman’s friend Taylor Byars two days to walk out of the wilderness and alert authorities.
The discovery of Herdman’s body in a “rugged cliff area” was announced at a Ventura County Sheriff’s Office news conference about 4 p.m. Friday at Camarillo Airport.
They was no indication of foul play and it was not known if Herdman had fallen, Sheriff Geoff Dean said.
Herdman’s body was found in a rugged cliff area, shown, on June 27, 2014. (Credit: KTLA via Ventura County Sheriff’s Office)
Herdman was found partially covered by brush below a cliff in a location 1,200 feet above and three-quarters of a mile away from the spot on Sespe Creek where he was last seen, Dean said.
“It was obviously a long hike up very, very difficult terrain,” Dean said.
Searchers had ruled out looking in that area on foot because it seemed unlikely Herdman would have ventured that far up in elevation, Dean said.
“What are the chances that someone at night in bare feet and shorts would scale a 1,200-foot mountain?” Dean said. “The likelihood just wasn’t that high, so the search was focused in areas that there was a higher likelihood that he might be located.”
Sheriff Geoff Dean points to photos of the location where Mike Herdman’s body was found June 27, 2014. (Credit: KTLA)
The body, spotted by a pilot who had just dropped off four ground searchers Friday morning, was transported out after a challenging retrieval effort. Herdman was identified via dental records by a county medical examiner, Dean said.
Herdman’s family was notified after the body was identified, Dean said.
The cause of his death was undetermined; the medical examiner planned to do an autopsy, said Dean, who would not comment specifically on the condition of Herdman’s body.
“Sadly, nobody but Mike is ever going to know … why he would take off into this kind of terrain, in the dark, in bare feet,” Dean said.
The search for Herdman began June 16 and involved multiple agencies, with up to 75 people searching every day during the peak effort, authorities said. Helicopters and drones were also used in the search.
Searchers were trying to find firefighter Mike Herdman deep within the Los Padres National Forest on June 17, 2014. (Credit: KTLA)
At least four searchers were injured, including an assistant fire chief sent to intensive care with arattlesnake bite.
Initially, rescuers found only Herdman’s footprints and backpack.
On Sunday, Duke was found hungry and dehydrated at a parking lot at Dough Flat, where the firefighters’ hike began, some 12 miles from their camp.
“That critical time, that time where we believe he is still alive, has gone by,” sheriff’s Capt. Don Aguilar told the Pasadena Star-News on Monday. “It’s tough to survive out there past a week. We’ve given a good push on this and covered a lot of area and haven’t come up with much at all.”
The search was scaled back in recent days, but a group from Herdman’s Arcadia firefighters’ union searched on foot in the mountains above Fillmore, the union stated onits Facebook page.
Family photos show Mike Herdman with his wife and their daughter. He went missing June 13, 2014, during a camping trip in a remote area of the Sespe Wilderness.
Four people were on the ground Thursday, Aguilartold the Pasadena Star-News, saying efforts would continue Friday.
Dean said at Friday’s news conference that searchers had been in the area every day since the effort began.
A seven-year veteran of the Arcadia Fire Department, Herdman is survived by a wife and young daughter. He lived in Dana Point, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Friends said he was very physically fit and had extensive backcountry experience.
Off-duty Arcadia firefighter Mike Herdman went missing during a hike north of Fillmore on June 13, 2014. (Credit: City of Arcadia)
He was reported missing when his friend emerged from the forest and contacted authorities.
Duke was found June 23 in a parking lot where Herdman's car had been parked. Much of the search focused on finding Duke, who had been spotted twice in a week.
Authorities combed through a 50-square mile radius in in the Los Padres National Forest. At one point as many as 86 search and rescue volunteers had been looking for Herdman. Two manned flight crews and two drones were used to search the rugged terrain.
Several Southern California sheriff’s departments and a team of special agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are also involved.
Officials have said that Herdman is an outdoors enthusiast with experience backpacking in the backcountry.
June 25, 2014: Kurdish peshmerga fighters take their positions behind a wall on the front line with militants from the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic States of Iraq and Syria/Levant (ISIS), in Tuz Khormato, 62 miles south of the oil rich province of Kirkuk, northern Iraq.AP
Sunni militants in Iraq took control of several small oil fields and targeted one of the country’s largest air bases Wednesday, while a suicide bomb blast rocked an outdoor market just south of the capital of Baghdad.
The militants, led by the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria/Levant, also known as ISIS, overran the Ajeel oil site 19 miles outside of Tikrit, an engineer at the facility told Reuters.
The Ajeel oil fields produce 28,000 barrels a day and are connected to two pipelines, one of which runs to the oil refinery in Beiji, the largest in Iraq.
In fighting Wednesday, Sunni militants launched a dawn raid on the Beiji refinery they have been trying to take for days, but security forces fought them back, said Col. Ali al-Quraishi, the commander of the Iraqi forces on the scene.
Along with a nearby power plant, the refinery supplies Iraq with a third of its refined fuel and nearly a tenth of its electricity, according to Barclays analysts.
Elsewhere, four militants were killed in fighting inside the town of Yathrib, around 55 miles outside of Baghdad, witnesses and the deputy head of the municipality told Reuters.
Insurgents surrounded three sides of a huge air base nearby -- called “Camp Anaconda” when it was under U.S. occupation – and shelled it with mortars, witnesses added.
In the Mahmoudiya area 20 miles south of Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials told The Associated Press that a suicide bomber has blown himself up at an outdoor market, killing 13 people and wounding 25.
The officials said the attack took place around sunset on Wednesday. The area has a Shiite majority.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but it bore the hallmarks of Sunni militants who have for years targeted security forces and Shiite civilians.
Northeast of Baghdad, a mortar shell smashed into a house in Jalula, killing a woman and her two children. That town in the turbulent Diyala province is under the control of Kurdish fighters known as peshmerga.
Also Wednesday, a report by Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said an attack near Iran's western border with Iraq has killed three Iranian border guards. They were killed Tuesday night while patrolling along the border in western Kermanshah province. A border outpost commander was among the three killed, Fars quoted a local security official, Shahriar Heidari, as saying.
Heidari said an unspecified "terrorist group" was behind the attack but provided no details.
Meanwhile, western diplomats reportedly have expressed concerns that the spreading Sunni Muslim insurgency in Iraq has triggered a crisis that may result in the dissolution of the nation-state.
Britain's Daily Telegraph cited a Western diplomat who warned that the threat presented by ISIS could be mortal to "Iraq's existence as a state, and it is also a threat to the wider region, too."
"We have used the word crisis about Iraq before, but this is the real thing," said the diplomat, who also expressed doubts about the capability of Iraq's leaders to resolve the sectarian disputes that have laid the groundwork for the ISIS insurgency.
"Iraq's political leaders now mostly realize the problems," the diplomat said. "But has it translated into action yet? It has not."
Anyone seeking reassurance was unlikely to find it from Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, who told Secretary of State John Kerry Tuesday, "We are facing a new reality and a new Iraq."
Iraqi officials told the Associated Press Tuesday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was ready to concede the loss of large portions of territory in the north and west of Iraq -- at least temporarily -- and had deployed the military's best-trained and best-equipped soldiers to defend Baghdad.
"The danger facing Iraq requires all political groups to reconcile on the basis and principles of our constitutional democracy."
- Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
The militants have vowed to march to Baghdad and the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala, a threat that prompted the nation's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to issue an urgent call to arms that has resonated with young Shiite men.
The number of troops normally deployed in Baghdad has doubled, the officials said, but declined to give a figure. Significant numbers are defending the Green Zone, the sprawling area on the west bank of the Tigris River that is home to al-Maliki's office, as well as the U.S. Embassy.
"Al-Maliki is tense. He is up working until 4 a.m. every day. He angrily ordered staff at his office to stop watching TV news channels hostile to his government," one of the officials said.
In his weekly address to the nation, Nouri al-Maliki gave only a vague call for "all political forces to reconcile" with the principles of Iraq's constitutional democracy.
But several politicians, including Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who has been named as a possible contender to replace al-Maliki, have called on him to step down and form a so-called national salvation government that could provide leadership until a more permanent solution can be found.
Maliki rejected forming a "national salvation" government, which he said would go against the results of parliamentary elections held on April 30. Al-Maliki's coalition, the State of the Law, won the most seats in that vote — 92 of the 328-seat chamber. In office since 2006, al-Maliki needs the support of a simple majority in the chamber to hold on to the job.
"We desperately need to take a comprehensive national stand to defeat terrorism, which is seeking to destroy our gains of democracy and freedom, set our differences aside and join efforts," said al-Maliki on Wednesday. "The danger facing Iraq requires all political groups to reconcile on the basis and principles of our constitutional democracy."
Meanwhile, dozens of newly arrived U.S. military advisers and special operations forces began assessing the Iraqi forces in an effort to strengthen Baghdad's ability to confront the insurgency.
President Barack Obama last week announced he would send as many as 300 advisers into Iraq to advise Iraqi security forces.
U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said the American advisers already in Baghdad included two teams of special forces and about 90 advisers, intelligence analysts, commandos and support personnel needed to set up a joint operations center in the Iraqi capital. Another four teams of special forces would arrive in the next few days, Kirby said.
Iraqi officials have said the U.S. advisers were expected to focus on the better units the Americans had closely worked with before pulling out. Combined with approximately 360 other U.S. forces in and around the American Embassy in Baghdad to perform security, they would bring the total U.S military presence in Iraq to about 560.
Iraq's best-trained and equipped force is a 10,000-strong outfit once nicknamed the "dirty division" that fought alongside the Americans for years against Sunni extremists and Shiite militiamen. Now it is stretched thin, with many of its men deployed in Anbar province in a months-long standoff with Sunni militants who have since January controlled the city of Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad.
The Iraqi military, rife with corruption and torn by conflicting loyalties, lacks adequate air cover for its ground troops and armor, with the nation's infant air force operating two Cessna aircraft capable of firing U.S.-made Hellfire missiles. That leaves the army air wing of helicopter gunships stretched and overworked.
While Iraq's security forces number a whopping 1.1 million, with 700,000 in the police and the rest in the army, corruption, desertion and sectarian divisions have been a major problem. With a monthly salary of $700 for newly enlisted men, the forces have attracted many young Iraqis who would otherwise be unemployed. Once in, some bribe commanders so they can stay home and take a second job, lamented the officials.
By Mohammed Tawfeeq, Holly Yan and Chelsea J. Carter,CNN
updated 10:10 AM EDT, Wed June 25, 2014
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Local Iraqi official says Syrian warplanes hit markets and fuel stations
Iraq's Prime Minister slams Sunnis and the call for a salvation government
A major highway out of Baghdad appears sparse as the threat of ISIS looms
Iraq's military says it has regained two key border crossings from militants
Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- At least 57 Iraqi civilians were killed and more than 120 others were wounded by what local officials say were Syrian warplanes that struck several border areas of Anbar province Tuesday.
Sabah Karkhout, the head of Iraq's Anbar provincial council, told CNN that the attacks struck markets and fuel stations in areas such as Rutba, al-Walid and Al-Qaim.
"Unfortunately, (the) Syrian regime carried out barbarian attacks against civilians in Anbar province," he said Wednesday. "Today, we will hold an emergency meeting in Ramadi to address this issue."
Karkhout said he was certain the warplanes were Syrian because they bore the image of the Syrian flag.
"Also, the planes flew directly from Syrian airspace and went back to Syria," he said.
Iraq's ethnic divide
Kerry to Iraq: 'Words are cheap'
Iraqi Kurdish leader on region's future
Local officials said residents used scopes and other equipment to see details on the warplanes.
CNN is seeking a response from the Syrian government in Damascus.
Iraq's border region has been targeted by Syria in the past -- as the Syrian conflict escalated in 2012, there was at least one instance where rockets fired from Syria landed in Al-Qaim.
Iraq's Foreign Ministry said at the time that it was ready to respond in the event of additional attacks from Syria, but the Iraqi government was noticeably quiet after Tuesday's incursion.
The claims come as Iraqi forces continue fighting radical Sunni militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
In recent weeks, ISIS has taken over swaths of Iraq in its attempt to create an Islamic state stretching from Syria to Iraq.
Inside Syria, the government, for the most part, appears to have avoided directly targeting ISIS, even though the group's positions are well known. Only in the last week did the Syrian regime intensify strikes on Raqqa, a border town on the Syrian side that ISIS controls.
Whether the strikes signify a concerted effort by Syria to intensify its fight against ISIS is yet to be seen. It is also unclear whether the Syrian strikes in Iraq were a unilateral action or were coordinated with the Iraqi government.
Al-Maliki slams Sunnis
The sectarian rift in Iraq may have widened Wednesday when Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed his political rivals for "coordinating" the crisis.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, accused Sunnis of collaborating with militants and slammed the call to have a national salvation government that would remove him from power.
"Iraq is facing a cross-border terrorist attack that is supported by some neighboring countries," al-Maliki added in a televised speech Wednesday.
He appealed to his Shia constituency by saying he is adhering to the wishes of Shiite religious leader Ali Sistani, who called for volunteers to support the Iraqi army and government.
Is Baghdad ready for an ISIS attack?
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Baghdad, the eerie sparseness of a major highway raises questions about whether the capital would be prepared for a militant invasion.
Kerry pledges 'intense' support in Iraq
ISIS launches social media campaign
Why should Americans worry about ISIS?
The Iraqi military insists it's ready to beat back ISIS if the fighters reach Baghdad.
A post-battle video purportedly shows army forces celebrating a victory over ISIS just west of Baghdad. The bodies of two militants are draped over the hood of a Humvee.
"Look at those ISIS! We killed them!" one man says in the video.
But the opponents are formidable. ISIS fighters have captured cities and towns across Iraq in its effort to create an Islamic state.
And the highway from Baghdad to Abu Ghraib in Anbar province showed few signs of readiness for ISIS.
No tanks or big guns could be seen, CNN's Nic Robertson said. What used to be a thriving roadside marketplace now looks like a deserted wasteland.
It's unclear what lies farther down the highway, but images on the Internet suggest a dire situation. Photos posted by ISIS show two soldiers sitting cross-legged on the ground, guns pointed at their heads.
Who has what?
Iraq's military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, said security forces had regained control of two key border crossings after briefly losing them to the militants.
Atta said Iraqi forces, aided by Sunni tribes, retook al-Walid, which connects Iraq with Syria. He also said Iraqi forces regained the Trebil border crossing between Iraq and Jordan.
He also said that all towns between Samarra and Baghdad, 80 miles (129 kilometers) to the south, are in the hands of Iraqi security forces.
But large swaths of Iraq, particularly in the north and west, have fallen from government control to the hands of ISIS.
U.S. officials say they think ISIS now has as many as 10,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria. But is unknown, officials say, exactly how many are in Iraq because it's not clear how many go back and forth across the Syrian border and how many loyalists have joined ISIS as it has taken over various towns.
The United States is expected to have about 300 military advisers in Iraq. On Tuesday, 90 arrived from outside the country, said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby.
The advisers are expected to assess the situation on the ground and then "advise and assist" Iraqi military forces as they counter the threat from ISIS militants, Kirby said.
The spread of ISIS
Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said he fears the strength of radical militants could spill further across borders.
"We've been saying for a while that the rise and spread of extremism and the politics of exclusivity will threaten the security of the entire region," Judeh told CNN's Becky Anderson.
"The root cause of ethnic and sectarian division, the root cause of instability and the rise and spread of terrorism and extremism has to be addressed."
