the shiah government had adopted a very discriminatory policy against the sunnis. are your champions," and they swept into mosul, the second city, and took it over with just a few hundred soldiers. the iraqi army fled, leading to mass executions. they were able to establish this caliphate that has covered 88 km2, -- 80 8000 km2. about eight million people were underneath that, they made their money from oil wells, extortion, wheat fields, from bribery and so on. the policy of actually having a physical caliphate is quite controversial. so osama osama bin laden, before he was killed in 2011, said — his advice to jihadists in the syria own iraq was, "now is not the time. the time will day, maybe years ahead. but now is not the time because you present a target to your enemies." and sure enough, that is exactly what happened. al—baghdadi overreached himself, making two big fundamental errors. they advanced eastwards towards the kurdish capital, where there's a lot of oil and us interests. so they enslaved the yazidis, horrifying the whole world, and they beheaded west