[xzins]

There is a broad coalition of Sunni groups--both nationalist and Islamist--who had been plotting against Iraq's Shia government for years before ISIS's rise provided the chance to strike. ISIS and its partners are unnatural allies. Maintaining their unity was the key to their early success, and is the only way they can hold the ground they have taken,

Basically, they're being supported by Iraqi Sunni groups.

[R_Kangel]

... You would think that with ISIS on a route pushing south on any of the MSR’s .... they are a big enough target on the ground of a featureless desert to pave the MSR into a red highway of death with the help of airborne units raining hellfire upon them. But then again maybe their testosterone mandates that they only fight ground battles and hand to hand combat to qualify for entry into paradise or something. Something us westerners wouldn’t understand.

[trebb]

Basically, they're being supported by Iraqi Sunni groups.

Whoever they defer to as being in command is the defacto leader - until such time as the various "support groups" decide that it's time for their specific interests to be taken care of. It could turn into an even bigger mess.

[Hardastarboard]

The question I have in all of this is who's funding these militants? In the photos they have similar late model trucks, guns, uniforms after a fashion, ammo, supplies, RPG's. War is expensive, even guerilla war. Who is paying for all of this? That's what I want to know.

And I suspect it's the Saudis, the Russians or the Chinese. Who else has the money, and who else would benefit?

And Zero and his team probably aren't smart enough to ask that very simple question.