ISIS EXPANDS ITS “STATE”: Almost a year after the ISIS terrorist organization’s shock capture of Mosul, Iraq's second city, the black flags of the jihadis have been raised over Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province to the west of Baghdad, seat of Iraq's increasingly theoretical central government. Nobody talks of Mosul or recapturing it from ISIS. It is a forgotten city. Now it is all about the fall of Ramadi, the neighboring ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in central Syria and beyond. Although many leaders dismissed ISIS as vainglorious when it declared its cross-border caliphate in eastern Syria and western Iraq last summer, in its cohesion and purpose it is now seen by some - particularly Iraq's minority Sunnis - as more of a state than the Iraqi government it is fighting. "Simply put, ISIS is, or is on the verge of becoming, what it claims to be: a state," wrote David Kilcullen who was a key player in the USA 2007-08 Iraq troop 'surge' and a close observer of the rise of ISIS. He argues that unless Washington and its allies urgently change their counter-terrorism strategy the threat will only get worse. "ISIS fights like a state. It fields more than 25,000 fighters, including a hard core of ex-Baathist professionals and Qaida veterans. It has a hierarchical unit organization and rank structure, populated by former regular officers of Saddam Hussein's military," added Kilcullen. It controls territory that includes major cities and covers a third each of Iraq and Syria. It has its own military and security force, an administration that runs daily life - schools, government offices, utilities, hospitals, taxation and a judiciary system that follows sharia law. Its resources are vast, including oilfields, refineries and agricultural land. It operates more like a regular army with a recruiting network, training camps and a propaganda machine. (J. Post)