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[/audioplayer]Jihadist banners flying. Victorious extremists on camera slapping and then executing dehydrated and pleading Shia members of the Iraqi security forces. Dark reports of mass slaughter. City charters released in captured territory heralding the implementation of an extreme version of Islamic law. We’ve seen it all before, but it remains shocking — and the latest advance by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is arguably the most disturbing development in Iraq’s already horrifying recent history.
ISIS has surprised everyone by seizing a number of cities, but its success also raises the question: how long can the group sustain these gains? Media commentators have compared the situation now to the gains made by al-Qa’eda in the Islamic Maghreb, which in 2012 became the dominant force in northern Mali, and was able to enforce harsh religious rule over a broad stretch of territory, about 300,000 square miles.
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