Recently, in Mosul, Iraq, members of Al Qaeda had been taking control over blood banks and hospitals. The point of this action is to steal blood for their wounded fighters rather than risk having them arrested.
Iraqi health officials said that these raids have been occurring for a while in areas with large Sunni Arab populations.
At the medical facilities, there are normally Iraqi security force members that guard them but when the robberies came, they often stood there, doing nothing and letting the robberies continue.
The question that comes into play when they steal so much blood is whether or not the stolen blood will do any good for an injured person. If you do not match the blood perfectly, it will be fatal. But most doctors in Iraq believe that Al Qaeda has its own specialist who can perform blood transfusions.
My reaction to this event that is occurring in Iraq is that I feel that Al Qaeda is getting desperate. They are losing large amounts of their soldiers to the point where they canâÂÂt risk any more casualties.
They are stealing blood from blood banks and hospital to heal their injured so that they can safeguard their main forces. I believe that they are almost at their limit since they are trying so hard to heal up their forces and to prevent any more casualties.
Al Qaeda is getting desperate and they are using any means to help their remaining forces, even if that means stealing blood.