Islamic Revival

This spe­cial report from  Revolution Observer  analy­ses the back­ground and emerg­ing trends from the upris­ing in Iraq. Part 1 looks at the back­ground and con­di­tions that have led to the upris­ing. By  Idrees Devries Since the begin­ning of 2014 the cen­tral gov­ern­ment of Iraq has slowly but steadily lost con­trol over sub­stan­tial parts of the country. On the 4 th  of Jan­u­ary 2014 rebels took con­trol of Fal­lu­jah and parts of Ramadi. The Iraqi army fought back, but the rebel­lion nev­er­the­less spread both north­wards and west­wards, until on the 10 th  of June the Iraqi army aban­doned its bases in and around Mosul and Tikrit in the north of the coun­try and had to begin prepa­ra­tions to defend the cap­i­tal Bagh­dad against an approach­ing rebel army. In the inter­na­tional media the Al Qaeda spin-off “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ( ISIS )” is por­trayed as the dri­ving force behind this rebel­lion. While the analy­ses of the events are mul­ti­ple, there