Mosul falls to militants, Iraqi forces flee northern city

[News Manager]

By Ziad al-Sinjary MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - An al Qaeda splinter group seized control of the Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, putting security forces to flight in a spectacular show of strength against the Shi'ite-led Baghdad government. The capture of the northern city of 2 million by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - Sunni Muslims waging sectarian war on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier - complements ISIL's grip on key western towns and followed four days of heavy fighting in Mosul and the border province of Nineveh around it. The United States, which pulled out its troops two and a half years ago, pledged to help Iraqi leaders "push back against this aggression" as the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked parliament to declare a state of emergency that would give him extraordinary powers to tackle the crisis. "We have lost Mosul this morning," said a colonel at a local military command center.




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[MontyB]

I dont get how this can happen, how much time, money and effort has gone into training and equipping the Iraqi military that they can still be in a position to lose control of not towns but cities within their own country to what amounts to dodgy militias?