The Ministry of External Affairs recently confirmed that around 40 Indians working on projects near the Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul were kidnapped by suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s or ISIS militants. Meanwhile, the 46 Indian nurses in a hospital in the strife-torn Iraqi town of Tikrit, the home town of Saddam Hussein, have sent an SOS to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure their safe return to India as militants have taken control of a vast swath of northern Iraq.
The advances of the Sunni rebels from a small division of al Qaida is a sign of Iraq’s reversals since American forces exited the nation at the end of 2011. In 2013 alone, ISIS, says it has carried out nearly 10,000 operations in Iraq, 1,000 assassinations, planted 4,000 improvised explosion devices and freed hundreds of radical prisoners.
The instability in Iraq is a cause of concern for the entire region as well as the global energy markets.
Neelam Deo, Director of Gateway House, explains the rise of ISIS and analyses the geopolitical implications and the impact on India.
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