Scores of Iraqis flee ISIL fighting, scores more volunteer for battle
- 10 years ago
One by one, the men arrive to volunteer for the battle ahead.
Iraqis flocked to recruitment centers on Sunday, like this one in Baghdad.
They're joining the fight against radical Sunni militants called ISIL.
They're an al Qaeda offshoot and they've seized towns and cities across the north of the country in just two weeks.
The fighting has divided Iraq along sectarian lines.
A division some Iraqis resist.
(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) VOLUNTEER AHMED JASSIM SAYING:
"This is the cause of a country and it is not a cause of a Sunni or a Shi'ite. We have to cooperate to terminate the rats."
If official estimates are true, more than two million have volunteered over the past week.
This, after a call from the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric, to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni insurgency, that many here believe includes foreign fighters.
(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) VOLUNTEER ABBAS JABBAR SAYING:
"We responded to the call to f
Iraqis flocked to recruitment centers on Sunday, like this one in Baghdad.
They're joining the fight against radical Sunni militants called ISIL.
They're an al Qaeda offshoot and they've seized towns and cities across the north of the country in just two weeks.
The fighting has divided Iraq along sectarian lines.
A division some Iraqis resist.
(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) VOLUNTEER AHMED JASSIM SAYING:
"This is the cause of a country and it is not a cause of a Sunni or a Shi'ite. We have to cooperate to terminate the rats."
If official estimates are true, more than two million have volunteered over the past week.
This, after a call from the country's most influential Shi'ite cleric, to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni insurgency, that many here believe includes foreign fighters.
(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) VOLUNTEER ABBAS JABBAR SAYING:
"We responded to the call to f