The Fall of Saddam and Rise of ISIS - III

(THE LAST AND CONCLUDING PART OF The Fall of Saddam and Rise of ISIS)...

 

By 2006, the number of Americans killed rose twice more than the previous year, so also the share price of Haliburton, in which Dick Cheney had a stake in. Worms kept tumbling out of the Iraqi can, the lid of which was kept tightly closed by Saddam. His ouster saw the rise two guys, from different spectrums and bitter enemies, who bitterly hated Americans, to forefront. One was a leader of Shia militia, Moqtada Al Sadr, whose father and two elder brothers were brutally  assassinated by Saddam. The other one was Abu Musaba Al Zarqawi, the head of the nascent Al Qaida in Iraq, predecessor of the current ISIS.

Iraq soon started seeing a classic sectarian warfare between the Shia and Sunni. The Al Sadr led Shia militia created checkpoints, screening the Sunnis, whose bullet ridden, iron drilled bodies would be discovered following days. So much so that, the Sunnis used Shia names, wrapped themselves with black cloths and put music extolling Imam Ali in their vehicles to pretend themselves as Shias.

Abu Musaba Al Zarqawi, the Sunni head of Al Qaida in Iraq, retaliated swiftly, by killing Shias enmass using some spectacular suicide bombings, hitherto unheard of during Saddam's time. He had tremendous leadership quality (once acknowledged by Condoleezza Rice), recruiting Al Qaida operatives in droves and being a constant pain in American ass. Soon USA had a $5 million bounty on him.

Women yet again proved to be the weakest link and nemesis to men, this time in case of Al Zarqawi. He took a young wife. The girl used a courier to fetch her obvious Feminine needs. The Americans managed to get hold of Zarqawi's location by tracking that courier. One day in June, 2006 when the Al Qaida in Iraq boss was having a meeting with his lieutenants, US bombers dropped couple of 500lb bomb on his hideout. His body was fetched out from the rubles and paraded as a trophy by the  Bush administration, desperate to show some success due to the falling support of war at home.

Abu Musaba Al Zarqawi's death was celebrated by the Shias alike, but the damage wad done. USA got him, but not before he successful led the foundation of a monster called ISIS. Almost a decade later, ISIS has expanded its territories and realms of influence. They also have ex-military members of Saddam's BAATH party as Military and intelligent operatives. Bush managed to do the unthinkable, radicalized Saddam's  wining and dining military personnel into a fundamentalists lot, whose tentacles have spread well into Europe and could knock the door steps of United States. Talk about chicken coming home to roost, Middle East is too much of a mess to fiddle with.