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ISIS declares a new Islamic state in Iraq

Muslim extremists have long dreamed of recreating the Islamic state, or caliphate, that ruled over the Middle East, much of North Africa and beyond in various forms.

THE AL-QAEDA BREAKAWAY group that has seized much of northeastern Syria and huge tracts of neighbouring Iraq, ISIS, formally declared the establishment of a new Islamic state and demanded allegiance from Muslims worldwide.

With brutal efficiency, the Sunni extremist group has carved out a large chunk of territory that has effectively erased the border between Iraq and Syria and laid the foundations of its proto-state.

But the declaration, made on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, could trigger a wave of infighting among the Sunni militant factions that formed a loose alliance in the blitz across Iraq and impact the broader international jihadist movement, especially the future of al-Qaeda.

The spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria declared the group’s chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the leader of the new caliphate, or Islamic state, and called on Muslims everywhere, not just those in areas under the organization’s control, to swear loyalty to al-Baghdadi and support him.

“The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph’s authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas,” said the spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, in an audio statement posted online.

Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day.

Al-Adnani loosely defined the Islamic state’s territory as running from northern Syria to the Iraqi province of Diyala — a vast stretch of land straddling the border that is already largely under the Islamic State’s control. He also said that with the establishment of the caliphate, the group was changing its name to just the Islamic State, dropping the mention of Iraq and the Levant.

Muslim extremists have long dreamed of recreating the Islamic state, or caliphate, that ruled over the Middle East, much of North Africa and beyond in various forms over the course of Islam’s 1,400-year history.

Read: Iraqi forces attempt to retake northern city of Tikrit

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71 Comments
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    Mute Jason Power
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    Nov 9th 2013, 11:13 AM

    Fortune favours the brave

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    Mute Stephen McFarlane
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    Nov 9th 2013, 10:48 AM

    Legend.

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    Mute Jake Race
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    Feb 13th 2015, 12:33 PM

    Here’s some even better advice for young journalists.

    Go back to college and get a proper degree. Your field is dying. Nobody pays for journalism any more. If you do get a job, it will be for some kind of clickbait-oriented online rag that publishes nonsense most of the time. There are massive skills shortages in IT and Engineering. Go there and you will get paid!

    Machines like IBM’s Watson are already capable of secondary journalism that we find here. It won’t be long before all journalists are replaced by machines.

    That is all.

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    Mute V
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    Feb 13th 2015, 3:43 PM

    Journalism and engineering/IT are worlds apart. If you picked your college course purely based off which one is most likely to get you a job you’d have a hard time passing it due to lack of interest.

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    Mute Jake Race
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    Feb 14th 2015, 12:03 AM

    If you didn’t consider whether there would be a job you just wasted 4 years.

    But then again, you could always just choose gender studies and make a career out of criticising tech companies for not doing enough to attract women to the field you didn’t choose because you thought it would be boring.

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    Mute Lad
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    Feb 13th 2015, 12:01 PM

    @amanda how about an interview with an next gen journalist??
    #keeptypingtillyouwritesomething #generationmillennials

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    Mute Lasair Aireáinnach
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    Feb 13th 2015, 4:53 PM

    Real piece of advice:

    Become journalists who investigate, who are not afraid to go against the tide of mainstream policy fashions, who shine a spotlight on the policies of government, in short, people who question multicultism, mass immigration and the EU population replacement engineering programme. Instead of opting for hackism and pravdaesque state/EU cheerleading. As it is you do not engage in journalism but pro multicult mass-immigration stage managed hackism. Cowardly consensus screedists.

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    Mute Plantation Watch
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    Feb 13th 2015, 1:01 PM

    Was he widely respected by the women he broke the ribs of while off his head?

    https://twitter.com/jokeocracy/status/566094505104130048

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    Mute Jake Race
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    Feb 13th 2015, 1:48 PM

    Do you have a better source than that? I tend not to automatically believe everything I read on the internet.

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    Mute Plantation Watch
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    Feb 13th 2015, 4:32 PM

    Its all in his book.

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    Mute Doug Asker
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    Feb 13th 2015, 12:15 PM

    RIP old stock

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