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believed that Iran’s role, which relies on militias accused of sectarian abuses, can make matters worse by angering Sunnis and making them more sympathetic to the militants.

In Syria, where the government of Bashar al-Assad is an enemy, America’s ally is the Kurds.

in Iraq, where the United States backs the central government, and trains and advises the Iraqi Army, it has been limited by the role of Iran, the most powerful foreign power inside the country.

“There are no patriots, no real religious people in Falluja. It’s our chance to clear Iraq by eradicating the cancer of Falluja.”

The United States has thousands of military personnel in Iraq and has trained Iraqi security forces for nearly two years, yet is largely on the sidelines in the battle to retake Falluja.

A Shiite militia leader, in a widely circulated video, is seen rallying his men with a message of revenge against the people of Falluja, whom many Iraqi Shiites believe to be Islamic State sympathizers rather than innocent civilians.

“Falluja is a terrorism stronghold

It’s been the stronghold since 2004 until today.”

restrain themselves and abide by “the standard behaviors of jihad.”

“The Prophet Muhammad used to tell his companions before sending them to fight, to go forward in the name of Allah, with Allah and upon the religion of the messenger of Allah. Do not kill the elderly, children or women, do not steal the spoils but collect them, and do not cut down trees unless you are forced to do so.”

“saving an innocent human being from dangers around him is much more important than targeting and eliminating the enemy.”

If the militias do hold back as promised, then the United States is likely to step up the tempo of the air campaign

The American military role in Iraq has been limited mostly to airstrikes and the training of the army.

In northern Iraq, where they work with Kurdish forces, two American Special Forces soldiers have been killed.

The United States military estimates that between 500 and 1,000 Islamic State fighters remain in Falluja,

A big question going into the battle is whether the Islamic State fighters will dig in and fight or, as they have in some other battles, throw away their weapons and try to melt into the civilian population.

Led by the Marines, its forces fought two bloody battles for Falluja in 2004. Mindful of this past, American officials would have preferred that the Iraqis left Falluja alone for now and focused on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul in the north.

The battle over Falluja has evolved into yet another example of how United States and Iranian interests seemingly converge and clash at the same time in Iraq. Both want to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS

In Syria, where the government of Bashar al-Assad is an enemy, America’s ally is the Kurds.

But in Iraq, where the United States backs the central government, and trains and advises the Iraqi Army, it has been limited by the role of Iran, the most powerful foreign power inside the country.

In an extraordinary statement on Wednesday, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the world’s pre-eminent Shiite religious leader, who lives in Najaf in southern Iraq and is said to be concerned by Iran’s growing role in Iraq, urged security forces and militia to restrain themselves and abide by “the standard behaviors of jihad.”

The United States has thousands of military personnel in Iraq and has trained Iraqi security forces for nearly two years, yet is largely on the sidelines in the battle to retake Falluja. It says its air and artillery strikes have killed dozens of Islamic State fighters, including the group’s Falluja commander.

Militiamen have plastered artillery shells with the name of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a Shiite cleric close to Iran whose execution this year by Saudi Arabia, a Sunni power, deepened the region’s sectarian divide, before firing them at Falluja.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has stressed that civilians must be protected in the operation and ordered that humanitarian corridors be opened to allow civilians to leave the city safely, disavowed the militia leader’s comments.

She said that some residents had been killed for refusing to fight for the jihadists, and that those inside were surviving on old stacks of rice, a few dates and water from unsafe sources such as drainage ditches.

To allay fears that the battle for Falluja will heighten sectarian tensions, Iraqi officials, including Mr. Abadi, and militia leaders have said they will adhere to a battle plan that calls for the militias not to participate in the assault on the city.

The American military role in Iraq has been limited mostly to airstrikes and the training of the army. But, as in northern Syria, there are also Special Forces soldiers in Iraq, carrying out raids on Islamic State targets.

Iraq’s elite counterterror forces are preparing to lead the assault on Falluja; they have long worked closely with the United States and are considered among the few forces loyal to the country and not to a sect.

A big question going into the battle is whether the Islamic State fighters will dig in and fight or, as they have in some other battles, throw away their weapons and try to melt into the civilian population.

For the United States, there is also the matter of history: Led by the Marines, its forces fought two bloody battles for Falluja in 2004. Mindful of this past, American officials would have preferred that the Iraqis left Falluja alone for now and focused on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul in the north.

The American military’s assault on Falluja in April of 2004 was in retaliation for an episode that became an early symbol of a war spiraling out of control, the image of it as indelible as it was gruesome: the bodies of four Blackwater contractors dangling from the ironwork of a bridge.

advance did signal a new setback for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, at a time when it is already under concerted attack in Falluja, Iraq, and in parts of Syria.

risks destabilizing the fragile peace effort by fostering violent competition between rival groups

slamic State fighters have presided over a brutal rule in the city, with public executions and floggings, as well as shortages of food and medicines

a potential plan for extensive airstrikes against the militant group’s camps,

faltered badly as the unity government, which arrived in the capital, Tripoli, in March, has failed to gain broad political acceptance.

a significant prize because its loss to the Islamic State last June was seen as a significant step in the group’s domination of the Surt region.

seized the coastal town of Bin Jawad and claimed on Tuesday to have moved on nearby Nawfaliyah.

principally involved in intelligence gathering and reconnaissance.

such efforts are being frustrated by the tribal and personal rivalries that have fueled chaos in Libya since the fall of Colonel Qaddafi in 2011

“These forces lack crucial capabilities,”

The coastal city is thought to be home to a majority of the Islamic State fighters in Libya, estimated to number between 3,000 and 6,500.

the eastern branch of the country’s central bank this week announced that it had printed 4 billion Libyan dinars through a company in Russia, drawing a furious reaction from the main central bank in Tripoli.

either the strength or the will to push into Surt, which is thought to be heavily fortified and also harbor several thousand foreign fighters

also risks destabilizing the fragile peace effort by fostering violent competition between rival groups.

two groups were battling for control of the so-called oil crescent

has become a preoccupation for Western countries worried that it could become a refuge for militants fleeing Iraq and Syria.

small groups of American, British and French special operations forces have quietly deployed across Libya, making contact with friendly Libyan militias in an effort to gather intelligence on the Islamic State.

Now, with the sudden move against the Islamic State, military action on the ground is moving faster than the country’s tangled politics.

The power plant where fighting raged on Wednesday is a significant prize because its loss to the Islamic State last June was seen as a significant step in the group’s domination of the Surt region.

attackers had captured both the Surt power plant and an area south of the city

That would bring his group, known as the Petroleum Facilities Guard, within 80 miles of Surt.

It is unclear whether foreign forces are playing a direct role in the offensive.

As the two-pronged assault on Islamic State territory unfolded, several analysts pointed to the role of the unity’s government’s new defense minister, Almahdi Al-Barghathi, who has been trying to bring rival militant factions under a central command that could become a national army

The coastal city is thought to be home to a majority of the Islamic State fighters in Libya, estimated to number between 3,000 and 6,500.

there is a danger of deepening divisions between east and west in Libya.

political mood in Libya had become increasingly confrontational during recent months as the United Nations,

In a sign of those divisions, the eastern branch of the country’s central bank this week announced that it had printed 4 billion Libyan dinars through a company in Russia

190 former Iraqi Security Forces

October 17, ISIS has taken "tens of thousands" of men, women and children from the outskirts of Mosul into the city.

civilians being murdered as ISIS tries to herd people into its last stronghold in Iraq

had evacuated 5,000 to 6,000 civilians from there.

"90% surrounded Hammam al-Alil,"

Iraqi security forces might storm Hammam al-Alil in the next few hours but that it would depend on the situation on the ground,

using a "scorched earth" policy by destroying houses, buildings and bridges to slow down the advancing Iraqi security forces, he said.

US and its allies have killed between 800 and 900 ISIS fighters

3,000 to 5,000 ISIS fighters defending the last major stronghold

additional 1,500 to 2,000 ISIS soldiers in a zone outside the city

Syrian official and activists said government troops pushed into areas in the central province of Hama and south of Idlib in the boldest multipronged attack on rebel-held areas, benefiting from the Russian air cover. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Moscow

has mainly targeted central and northwestern Syria, strategic regions that are the gateway to Assad's strongholds in Damascus, and along the Mediterranean coast where Russia has a naval base.

The Islamic State group is not present in the areas where the ground fighting is underway.

To put it another way: If God asks mankind to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God,” He does not intend that those virtues be confined to church. The fruits of the spirit—“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”—are not mere Sunday School values. They should pervade our interactions with the wider world.

Moreover, if and when those seven key institutions become instruments of injustice, Christians should respond. To take some obvious examples, if the “mountain” of government turns against its citizens, Christians have an obligation to stand with the oppressed. If the mountain of popular culture transforms the beauty of art into the perversion of porn, Christians must resist. And if the mountain of education teaches falsehoods, Christians have an obligation to tell the truth. 

But there is an immense and important difference between seeking justice and seeking power. In fact, the quest for power can sideline or derail the quest for justice. And that’s where we get to the real problem—the difference between a Seven Mountain concept and a Seven Mountain mandate or Seven Mountain dominionism.

In 2013, Bethel Church pastor Bill Johnson and author Lance Wallnau co-authored a short book called Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate. In that book, here’s how Wallnau described the stakes:

Each of these seven mountains represents an individual sphere of influence that shapes the way people think. These mountains are crowned with high places that modern-day kings occupy as ideological strongholds. These strongholds are, in reality, houses built out of thoughts. These thought structures are fortified with spiritual reinforcement that shapes the culture and establishes the spiritual climate of each nation. I sensed the Lord telling me, “He who can take these mountains can take the harvest of nations.” (Emphasis added.)

Wallnau went on to describe the importance of “mountain kings”—those individuals who have a “position in a high place” and who wield influence over “their own sphere directly and other spheres indirectly.” It is thus of urgent importance for Christians to reach, influence, or even become these “mountain kings.”

At its most extreme edges, Seven Mountain dominionism holds that Christ will not return unless and until the church successfully invades or “occupies” each of the seven key spheres of life.

Astute readers will by now have noticed two things. First, you’ll note the extent to which the heart of this strategy (or mandate) isn’t based on clear scriptural commands but rather on claimed special revelations from God. Second, you’ll note how much it emphasizes the importance of placing people in positions of power and control

The business of shifting culture or transforming nations does not require a majority of conversions.” What does it require? “We need more disciples in the right places, the high places.”

What is the alternative to the pursuit of power? I prefer the wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr. “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.”

Christians can never forget that they live in what my pastor once called an “upside-down kingdom.” The last shall be first. If you want to save your life, you’ll lose it, but if you lose your life for Christ, you’ll save it. And don’t forget, the Son of God himself spent his entire life on earth far from the mountaintop.

“Obviously, the effort to question and undermine vote by mail has worked very well,” said Justin Lee, Utah’s director of elections, faulting the “national discussion” for what he and others described as an unprecedented level of confusion threatening to derail a well-functioning system in a Republican-controlled state.

a powerful feedback loop has made it impossible to tune out these national controversies. One-off incidents documented by local media are flowing to partisan voices, who use their online megaphones to reframe the details as indictments of the entire balloting process.

The misleading narrative applied at the national level then filters back down to voters, causing them to distrust a system they have used for years.

Bongino, an influential conservative pundit closely aligned with Trump, shared the piece on Twitter to his nearly 2.5 million followers. “It’s only going to get worse,” he wrote on Facebook

The transformation of the Utah story — from a small-town technical mishap into purported proof of widespread voter fraud — illustrated to some experts the extent to which mainstream news reporting collides with the reach of social media sites and the agenda of influential political figures to stoke fear and reinforce the misconceptions of nervous voters.

A study released this month by Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society offered fresh evidence of the dangers posed by homegrown misinformation. For months, Trump has generated entire news cycles that serve to cast doubt about mail-in voting, which mainstream outlets have at times covered uncritically, the report found. The president’s influential allies have eagerly shared these and other stories with their vast online audiences, enhancing their reach and fomenting fresh doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 vote.

“With respect to mail-in voter fraud, the driver of the disinformation campaign has been Trump, as president, supported by his campaign and Republican elites,” said Yochai Benkler, who leads the center and co-wrote the report.

In these and other cases, Benkler said, misconceptions and hoaxes that take root in the White House come to frame reporting in mainstream and partisan news sources alike. Any development related to the process of voting becomes fodder in a competition for narrative control.

"It has been a decade-plus of building and the sustained work of organizing between electoral cycles have been critical."

Arizona, by going blue, is moving closer to its neighbor to the northwest -- Nevada, where Democrats have taken control of almost all aspects of government

Maricopa is the fastest-growing county in the country, transforming over the last two decades into a sprawling mass of metropolitan hubs, sun-scorched planned communities and bustling strip malls.

"Maricopa County won the state of Arizona for Mark Kelly and Joe Biden," said Steven Slugocki, chair of Maricopa County's Democrats. "Here in Maricopa, we committed our resources to contact voters of color, women and traditionally underrepresented groups throughout the state. Our strategy proved to be effective."

Biden is just the second Democrat to win Arizona since 1948, when Harry Truman won. Bill Clinton narrowly won the state in 1996, but Arizona moved further right in the next two decades, electing hard-line immigration proponents like Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and passing laws like SB 1070, a controversial state law that required officers to make immigration checks while enforcing other laws if "reasonable suspicion" of illegal immigration exists.

The Democratic victory builds on the work by grassroots organizations on the ground in Arizona, many of which focused on the state's growing Latino population by uniting around the opposition to Arpaio and the immigration crackdown

"This year was a victory for the decade-plus of work in this state," said Laura Dent, the executive director of Chispa Arizona

Three key shifts in the state helped Democrats this year: a growing Latino population that leans Democratic, a surge in voters moving to Arizona from more liberal states like California and Illinois, and the way suburban voters have starkly broken with a Republican Party led by someone like Trump.

Dent said the organizing around SB 1070 was a "catalyst" for these groups to unify around something and "build that collective power" on display this year

"I thought by 2024, Arizona would be for real a swing state," said Yasser Sanchez, an immigration lawyer who volunteered for Republican Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign and worked for McCain's 2016 reelection to the Senate before rejecting a Trump-led Republican Party and helping organize Latino voters for Biden. "Every time I heard it would be before, I thought that was wishful thinking."

Looming over Biden's victory is the legacy of McCain, an Arizona stalwart whose "maverick" conservatism carried a coalition of Democrats, independents and Republicans for years in the state.

Trump to double down on his mocking attacks of the Republican senator, even after he died in 2018. This, along with comments Trump reportedly made about military members and veterans, spurred McCain's widow, Cindy McCain, to back Biden, an endorsement that was front page news in the state.

But Arizona was considered so reliably red in 2014 that a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California-Los Angeles dubbed Mesa -- a sprawling suburb east of Phoenix -- the "most conservative American city."

"Ten years ago, if you wanted to be politically relevant and if you wanted your vote to have an impact, you were foolish to be registered as a Democrat because they failed to field a candidate for some offices," said Mesa Mayor John Giles, a registered Republican in a nonpartisan job. "And even then, it was just volunteering to get killed in the general by the Republican."

"I am hoping to change the state blue," Schaefer said after casting her ballot. "Believe me, I have tried to turn everybody that I can possibly turn."

"Trump is dangerous for the country," Hudock said after voting days before the election. "In the last four years, Republicans have shown their true colors. ... I just wish there was a centrist party.

That quickly changed as the virus spread throughout the state, with more than 160,000 cases and 3,600 people dying in Maricopa County alone.

Biden's win in Arizona was not for a lack of trying on Trump's part. The President held seven events in the state in 2020. Biden held one event after the Democratic National Convention over the summer, a bus tour around Maricopa in October.

Mr. Abiy succeeded partly by mobilizing ordinary citizens to take up arms to block the Tigrayan advance. “Nothing will stop us. The enemy will be destroyed,”

Drones have also hit refugee camps in Tigray and killed dozens of civilians. Despite recent releases of political prisoners by Mr. Abiy, which prompted a phone call with President Joe Biden, the prospect of a cease-fire seems distant.

The conflict threatens to tear apart Ethiopia, a once-firm American ally, and further destabilize the volatile Horn of Africa region.

But after he took office in 2018, he set about draining the group of its power and influence in Ethiopia, infuriating the Tigrayan leadership, which retreated to its stronghold of Tigray. Tensions grew.

In September 2020, the Tigrayans defied Mr. Abiy by going ahead with regional parliamentary elections that had he had postponed across Ethiopia.

Two months later, T.P.L.F. forces attacked a federal military base in Tigray in what they called a pre-emptive strike against federal forces preparing to attack them from a neighboring region.

The Ethiopian military suffered a major defeat in June when it was forced to withdraw from Tigray, and several thousand of its soldiers were taken captive.

Through it all, civilians have suffered most. Since the war started, witnesses have reported numerous human rights violations, many confirmed by a U.N.-led investigation, of massacres, ethnic cleansing and widespread sexual violence.

The T.P.L.F. was born in the mid-1970s as a small militia of ethnic Tigrayans, a group that was long marginalized by the central government, to fight Ethiopia’s Marxist military dictatorship.

Tigrayans make up just 6 or 7 percent of Ethiopia’s population, compared with the two largest ethnic groups, the Oromo and the Amhara, which make up over 60 percent.

But at home, the Tigrayan-dominated government systematically repressed political opponents and curtailed free speech. Torture was commonplace in government detention centers.

Mr. Abiy, a onetime T.P.L.F. ally, moved quickly to purge the old guard. He removed Tigrayan officials from the security services, charged some with corruption or human rights abuses and in 2019 created a new political party. The Tigrayans refused to join.

At the same time, he strengthened his ties to President Isaias Afwerki, the authoritarian leader of Eritrea, who nursed a bitter, longstanding grudge against the Tigrayans.

But by mid-2020 that peace pact had become an alliance for war on Tigray.

Children are dying of malnutrition, soldiers are looting food aid, and relief workers have been prevented from reaching the hardest-hit areas, according to the United Nations and other aid groups. Since July, a government-imposed blockade of Tigray has kept desperately needed aid from reaching the area. In late November, the World Food Program announced that 9.4 million people across northern Ethiopia required food aid.

In western Tigray, ethnic Amhara militias have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes as part of what the United States has called an ethnic cleansing campaign.

Ethiopia’s ties to the United States, once a close ally, have come under great strain. Mr. Biden has cut off trade privileges for Ethiopia and threatened its leaders with sanctions.

He freed political prisoners, abolished controls on the news media and helped mediate conflicts abroad. His peace deal with Eritrea and its authoritarian leader, Mr. Isaias, caused the Ethiopian leader’s international profile to soar and led to his Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

But even before the war erupted in Tigray, Mr. Abiy had resorted to old tactics of repression — shutting down the internet in some areas, arresting journalists and detaining protesters and critics.

In a stark speech in November, Mr. Abiy called on soldiers to sacrifice their “blood and bone” to bury his enemies in “a deep pit” and “uphold Ethiopia’s dignity and flag.”

During 1754 and 1755, the French won a string of victories, defeating in quick succession the young George Washington, Gen. Edward Braddock and Braddock’s successor, Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts. In 1755, Governor Shirley, fearing that the French settlers in Nova Scotia (Acadia) would side with France in any military confrontation, expelled hundreds of them to other British colonies; many of the exiles suffered cruelly. Throughout this period, the British military effort was hampered by lack of interest at home, rivalries among the American colonies and France’s greater success in winning the support of the Indians. 

The tide turned in 1757 because William Pitt, the new British leader, saw the colonial conflicts as the key to building a vast British empire. Borrowing heavily to finance the war, he paid Prussia to fight in Europe and reimbursed the colonies for raising troops in North America. 

In July 1758, the British won their first great victory at Louisbourg, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. A month later, they took Fort Frontenac at the western end of the river. 

The British then closed in on Quebec, where Gen. James Wolfe won a spectacular victory in the Battle of Quebec on the Plains of Abraham in September of 1759 (though both he and the French commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, were fatally wounded). 

The arrangement strengthened the American colonies significantly by removing their European rivals to the

north and south and opening the Mississippi Valley to westward expansion.

The British crown borrowed heavily from British and Dutch bankers to bankroll the war, doubling British national debt. King George II argued that since the French and Indian War benefited the colonists by securing their borders, they should contribute to paying down the war debt.To defend his newly won territory from future attacks, King George II also decided to install permanent British army units in the Americas, which required additional sources of revenue.

Fifteen years after the Treaty of Paris, French bitterness over the loss of most of their colonial empire contributed to their intervention on the side of the colonists in the Revolutionary War.

Eastern Aleppo is the last major rebel stronghold in Syria, but taking it won’t be easy. Assad is backed not only by the Russian military—airstrikes and a soon-to-arrive naval fleet in the Mediterranean—but also fighters from Iran, and Hezbollah, the Shia militia from neighboring Lebanon

The city is many times bigger than any other that the ultra-hardline militant group has ever captured, and it was from its Grand Mosque in 2014 that the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a "caliphate" that also spans parts of Syria.

"They are not near [Mosul] at this time ... Our forces do accompany .... the Iraqi security forces and the Peshmerga. So they will get nearer to the city as those forces get nearer to the city ... We are not going to be part of the occupation or hold forces."

European leaders have said they were concerned the effort to take Raqqa had not begun yet, which would allow the extremists to continue planning and inspiring the sorts of attacks that have hit France and Belgium during the last year.

We need do justice. And we need to do it fast," said Carter, who was heading to a meeting with NATO defense chiefs in Brussels later on Wednesday.

Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish militia have faced ISIS suicide attacks, car bombs and other attacks in their march toward Iraq's second-largest city which the extremists captured in 2014.

Pennsylvania is a good example. The state’s southern strip stretches from distant suburbs of Pittsburgh through the Appalachian Mountains and Interstate 76, ending in Lancaster County, not far from Philadelphia. It’s solidly Republican territory, even in a normal year.

This year, the number of votes cast in the counties along that strip rose almost 10 percent relative to 2012. In Pennsylvania’s big cities and the labor union stronghold of Allentown, the vote count rose only a few percent.

For every one voter nationwide who reported having voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016, at least five people voted for Trump after not having voted four years ago. Clinton attracted substantially fewer 2012 nonvoters, the data show. On net, Trump’s gains among nonvoters mattered more than his gains from vote switchers

Many strong Democratic constituencies — like young voters, Latinos and Asian-Americans — have relatively low turnout rates. African-American turnout has trailed white turnout when Obama was not on the ballot.

Second, the Democrats should recommit themselves to old-fashioned organizing without giving up on the emerging science of voter turnout.

Finally, the Democrats should remember that inspiring turnout and persuading swing voters aren’t separate problems. It’s a lot easier to do both with a galvanizing message that makes voters feel part of a larger project — be it an uplifting project or a combative one

Thus far the battle has seen far less damage done to Mosul's infrastructure than previous attritional struggles like Ramadi in Iraq or Kobane in Syria, though the daily damage to neighbourhoods has intensified since the offensive restarted.

the prime minister is fighting for his political life, fending off withering attacks from all sides. Success in Fallujah could help his case.

Iraqis will once again suffer rolling blackouts that threaten to spark widespread anti-government protests like those that roiled the country last year.

"Daesh is the ultimate corruption and whoever prevents us from fighting Daesh is corrupt," he added, using a pejorative Arabic acronym for ISIS.

he extremist Sunni group is unlikely to give up Fallujah without a fight.

given the symbolic importance of the fight, both to Abadi himself and the military, Iraqi security forces will also be reluctant to give up.

With sky-high stakes on both sides, the battle is likely to wear on to a bloody conclusion, said Khatib.