Is Baghdad ready for an assault by ISIS? - CNN

By Holly Yan and Chelsea J. Carter, CNN

updated 4:02 AM EDT, Wed June 25, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A major highway leading out of Baghdad appears sparse
• Farther out into Iraq, ISIS posts photos of soldiers with guns to their heads
• Iraq's military says it has regained two key border crossings from militants
• Jordan's foreign minister: The threat of ISIS could spread across the region

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- The seesaw claims and counterclaims of who controls what across Iraq fluctuate by the day.

But on the outskirts of Baghdad, the eerie sparseness of a major highway raises questions about whether the capital would be prepared for a militant invasion.

The Iraqi military insists it's ready to beat back members of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria if they reach Baghdad.

A post-battle video purportedly shows army forces celebrating a victory over ISIS just west of Baghdad. The bodies of two militants are draped over the hood of a Humvee.

"Look at those ISIS! We killed them!" one man says in the video.

But the opponents are formidable. ISIS fighters have captured more than a dozen cities and towns across Iraq in an effort to create an Islamic state stretching from Syria to Iraq.

The highway showed few signs of readiness for ISIS. No tanks or big guns could be seen, CNN's Nic Robertson said.

What used to be a thriving roadside marketplace now looks like a deserted wasteland.

It's unclear what lies ahead further down the highway. But photos posted on the Internet by ISIS show the soldiers sitting cross-legged on the ground, guns pointed at their heads.

Who has what?

Iraq's military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, said that security forces had regained control of two key border crossings after briefly losing them to the militants.

In a briefing in Baghdad aired on state TV, Atta said Iraqi forces, aided by Sunni tribes, retook al-Walid, which connects Iraq with Syria -- as well as the Trebil border crossing between Iraq and Jordan.

He also said that all towns between Samarra and Baghdad, 80 miles (129 kilometers) to the south, are in the hands of Iraqi security forces.

And a spokesman for Iraq's counterterrorism service told CNN that two senior ISIS figures -- an Algerian militant named Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hafsa, the self-styled governor of Tikrit -- were killed late Monday in airstrikes in Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The spokesman, Sabah Al-Nouman, offered no evidence of the deaths.

CNN cannot independently confirm any of the claims.

Large swaths of Iraq, particularly in the north and west, have fallen from government control to the hands of ISIS in recent weeks.

U.S. officials say they think ISIS now has as many as 10,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria -- including those who have broken out of prisons and loyalists who have joined the fight as the group has advanced, several U.S. officials have told CNN in recent days.

It is unknown, officials say, exactly how many are in Iraq because it's not clear how many go back and forth across the Syrian border and how many loyalists have joined ISIS as it took over various towns.

The United States is expected to have about 300 military advisers in Iraq. On Tuesday, 90 arrived from outside the country, said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby.

The advisers are expected to assess the situation on the ground and then "advise and assist" Iraqi military forces as they counter the threat from ISIS militants, Kirby said.

The spread of ISIS

Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said he fears the strength of radical militants could spill further across borders.

"We've been saying for a while, that the rise and spread of extremism and the politics of exclusivity will threaten the security of the entire region," Judeh told CNN's Becky Anderson.

"The root cause of ethnic and sectarian division, the root cause of instability and the rise and spread of terrorism and extremism has to be addressed."

CNN's Chelsea J. Carter reported from Baghdad; Holly Yan reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Jim Sciutto, Barbara Starr, Hamdi Alkhshali and Mohammed Tawfeeq also contributed to this report.

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