Iraqi Forces Have Blunted the Militant Offensive

Reports indicate that the Iraqi army, aided by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has checked the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant's push south toward Baghdad. Forces allied with Baghdad apparently stopped the rebel fighters just north of As Samarra and have begun to venture north, reasserting control over large portions of Tikrit.

 

Additional Iraqi forces, and possibly Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps elements, are deploying in Baghdad. U.S. President Barack Obama has said that any form of military response to the militants is on the table. The ability of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant to maintain a conventional military threat north of Baghdad seems to have been strongly blunted. The group's unconventional and insurgent tactics, however, will continue to undermine Iraqi security and stability.