Kurds take control of Kirkuk as Sunni militants surge toward Baghdad

www.reuters.com

BY AHMED RASHEED AND ISABEL COLES

BAGHDAD/ARBIL Iraq Thu Jun 12, 2014 12:03pm EDT

(Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdish forces took control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk on Thursday, after government troops abandoned their posts in the face of a triumphant Sunni Islamist rebel march towards Baghdad that threatens Iraq's future as a unified state.

In Mosul, Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant staged a parade of American Humvee patrol cars seized from a collapsing Iraqi army in the two days since ISIL fighters drove out of the desert and overran the northern metropolis. At Baiji, near Kirkuk, they surrounded Iraq's largest oil refinery.

At Mosul, which had a population close to two million before the weeks events forced hundreds of thousands to flee, witnesses saw ISIL fly two helicopters over the parade, apparently the first time the militant group has obtained aircraft in years of waging insurgency on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier.

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Once the militants have taken over control of the Iraqi government, there will be no reason for the Kurdistan Regional Government not to declare independence, which will set up a scenario for conflict between the two forces. Jeremiah prophesies that after the cities of Iraq burn (Judgment 4), and the reconstructionists abandon their efforts and leave Iraq to face its future alone (Judgment 5), the nation will be invaded by armies from the north, led by the "kings of the Medes", today known as the Kurds of Kurdistan (Judgment 6). The Chaldeans (Iraqis) will be defeated by the Medes (Kurds), who will then plunder the "treasures" of Iraq (Judgment 7). A catastrophic flood event will wipe out the cities of Iraq (Judgment 8), and then severe drought sets in (Judgment 9) to render the nation desolate and uninhabitable (Final Outcome).

If the cities of Iraq go up in flames soon, the Judgments will have resumed in sequential order to the above.