Saudi, Kuwaiti groups helped create Islamist monster in Iraq they can't control

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4. Isis breach of Iraq-Syria border merges two wars into one 'nightmarish reality'

Under a burning sun, fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) sang and waved their automatic weapons and black jihadi flags as they celebrated breaching the lonely desert frontier between Iraq and Syria.

To the soundtrack of a haunting Quranic chant, they watched as a bulldozer burst through a sand berm separating Nineveh in Iraq from the neighbouring Syrian province of al Hassaka, followed by US-made Jeeps and Humvees with Iraqi army insignia that had been captured in the recent fighting.

The slick Isis propaganda machine sent the images out under the Twitter hashtag #SykesPicotOver – a gloating reference to the first world war Anglo-French agreement that secretly carved up the territories of the dying Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres of influence and (among others) new Arab nation states ruled from Baghdad and Damascus.

Yet jihadi advances are not only erasing the old borders and allowing Isis to claim it is in reach of its goal of creating a new Muslim caliphate, but also ensuring that the wars for Syria and Iraq have merged into one, each feeding on, affecting and sustaining the other.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/18/isis-iraq-syria-two-wars-one-nightmare