{"id":1116,"date":"2014-11-04T19:51:58","date_gmt":"2014-11-05T00:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2014-11-04T19:51:58","modified_gmt":"2014-11-05T00:51:58","slug":"isil-fighters-make-gains-in-northern-iraq-middle-east-al-jazeera-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=1116","title":{"rendered":"ISIL fighters make gains in northern Iraq &#8211; Middle East &#8211; Al Jazeera English"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/middleeast\/2014\/11\/isil-fighters-make-gains-northern-iraq-2014114163756991143.html\">ISIL fighters make gains in northern Iraq &#8211; Middle East &#8211; Al Jazeera English<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)\u00a0has continued to gain ground in northern Iraq despite weeks of US-led air strikes, and are now moving closer to the Iraq-Kurdish city of Erbil.<\/p>\n<p>ISIL fighters\u00a0are battling Kurdish volunteer\u00a0troops in the town of al-Kuwayr, about 60km southwest\u00a0of Erbil.<\/p>\n<p>However, national security expert Douglas Ollivant, of the New America Foundation, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday\u00a0that for now there\u00a0was no immediate threat of ISIL closing in on Erbil.<\/p>\n<p>Ollivant\u00a0said that it is likely that the\u00a0armed group\u00a0will concentrate on al-Kuwayr, as they face a stronger resistance from Kurdish fighters and US-led air power should they make their way further into Kurdish areas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are significant defences between these\u00a0towns and Erbil,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Erbil and Baghdad are still safe at this point.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISIL fighters make gains in northern Iraq &#8211; Middle East &#8211; Al Jazeera English. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)\u00a0has continued to gain ground in northern Iraq despite weeks of US-led air strikes, and are now moving closer to the Iraq-Kurdish city of Erbil. ISIL fighters\u00a0are battling Kurdish volunteer\u00a0troops in the town [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[275,442,445,474,834],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-erbil","tag-iraq","tag-isil","tag-kurds","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}