Akkas field unguarded in Anbar fight

Government security forces have stopped guarding the Akkas gas field, in Anbar province, although militants have not yet shown interest in controlling the fledgling facilities.

Over the past year, the Korean gas firm Kogas has begun preliminary work there, building a power plant, roads, housing, and offices. At the same time, however, a Sunni protest movement has metastasized into an insurgency led by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which on Sunday formally declared Anbar province and vast stretches of northern Iraq to be part of a new religious state based on a radical interpretation of Islam.