Its scary, the speed of what has happened.
My husband is originally from Kirkuk, his entire family still remain there so we are extremely worried about them. Fortunately it appears that the ISIL don not wish to fight the Kurdish Peshmarga who are now in control of Kirkuk. I have heard reports (on the Kurdish news channels) that a province on the very outskirts of Kirkuk was taken by the ISIL but the Peshmerga engaged them in battle and pushed them back.
From my knowledge ISIL have been operating in Syria for some time. Last year in Anbar province in Iraq (area of mostly Sunni Muslims) people were protesting about the government (which is Shia Muslim dominant) as they felt Al Maliki (PM) was favouring the Shia Muslims in the country (he is Shia). This protest was broken up by the Iraqi army/police/security forces, it resulted in several deaths and members of the government from the area resigned. In the aftermath of this incident, with local tribes fighting against the security forces due to the deaths caused the ISIL took the opportunity to move into the area.
The ISIL are made up of Sunni Muslims so was relatively easy for them to take Rahmadi and Fulluajh due to its Sunni population and the tribesman joined forces with them initially to force out the Iraqi security forces. since Dec 13/Jan 14 ISIL have had control of these cities. Now the Iraqi army have reportedly had to resort to indiscriminate shelling from some distance to try and fight the ISIL there.
I was in Kirkuk in March (wanted to go before the elections on the 30 of April) I wanted to visit our family there as i just knew that there would be some sort of trouble there after the election. I in NO WAY expected this to happen. I think the inability to form a new government is a large factor in the timing of the ISILs movements Even though Malikis party won around 100 seats of 328 he is still PM, he was the only candidate the party put forward to be considered as PM, which I think speaks volumes for the kind of man he his; People in his own circles are afraid to go against him for fear of what will happen to them. I think Mousel fell so easily as it is a Sunni area, people here feel persecuted by the Maliki government. The army and security forces there don't believe in Maliki, are not willing to loose there lives on his orders so willingly put down their arms, removed their uniforms and left. 500,000 people fled across the Tigris river into Kurdistan on the ISILs invasion. Shira law has now been imposed there. The ISIL have told the people to go back to living their life how they never did before, they told people to return to jobs and normal life, they have reportedly paid wages to hospital staff, teachers who remain there who had not received pay from the government for several months, they are controlling and running the city.
They will try to push into Baghdad. Baghdad will be better defended. It has a larger amount of Shia civilian and armed forces who will put up a fight greater than other areas, Maliki will concentrate forces to defend Baghdad primarily as it is where he his. If Baghdad is defended and doesn't fall to the ISIL I am not sure the army/security forces have the will to push the ISIL out of the Sunni areas. They would not want to risk death for them, even though they are fellow Iraqis and Muslims, because they believe in a different successor to Mohammed as the leader of Islam after his death how many centuries ago the two sects would not risk their lives to defend the other.
I hope the Peshmerga remain in Kirkuk. It was abandoned by the Iraqi army who could/would not defend it. I feel the only way to save Iraq now is to either allow Kirkuk to be part of Kurdistan (again) and then divide the rest along sectarian lines. I don't think the iraqi army can rid us of the ISIL alone, for this to happen I think they need help from the rest of the world. Not if the form of more weapons, should they be given and then the people on which they have been bestowed desert these weapons will end up in the hands of the ISIL which has already happened in Mousel and Tikrit.
This is much bigger than Syria and Iraq, if not halted and soon the entire region has the potential to be affected.