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 Security sources said militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL) - Sunni militants waging sectarian war on both
sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier - drove into the town of Baiji
late on Tuesday in armed vehicles, torching the court house and
police station after freeing prisoners.
The militants offered safe passage to some 250 men guarding the
refinery on the outskirts of Baiji on condition they leave.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called on his country's
leaders to come together to face "the serious, mortal" threat. "The
response has to be soon. There has to be a quick response to what
has happened," he said during a trip to Greece.
Zebari said Baghdad would work with forces from the nearby Kurdish
autonomous region to drive the fighters from Mosul.
Baiji resident Jasim al-Qaisi said the militants had also asked
senior tribal chiefs in Baiji to persuade local police and soldiers
not to resist their takeover.
"Yesterday at sunset some gunmen contacted the most prominent tribal
sheikhs in Baiji via cellphone and told them: 'We are coming to die
or control Baiji, so we advise you to ask your sons in the police
and army to lay down their weapons and withdraw before (Tuesday)
evening prayer'."
 The Baiji refinery can process 300,000 barrels per day and supplies
oil products to most of Iraq's provinces and is a major provider of
power to Baghdad. A worker there said the morning shift had not been
allowed to take over and the night shift was still on duty.
The push into Baiji began hours after ISIL overran Mosul, one of the
great Sunni historic cities, advancing their aim of creating a Sunni
Caliphate straddling the border between Iraq and Syria.
DOMINANT PLAYER
ISIL has become a dominant player in Iraq and Syria where it has
seized a string of cities over the past year, often fighting other
Sunni groups.
An estimated 500,000 Iraqis have already fled Mosul, home to some 2
million people, and the surrounding province, the International
Organisation for Migration said on Wednesday.
The fall of Mosul is a slap to Baghdad's efforts to quash Sunni
militants who have regained ground and strength in Iraq over the
past year, seizing Sunni towns of Falluja and parts of Ramadi in the
desert west of Baghdad at the start of the year.
The United States, which pulled its troops out from Iraq to and half
years ago, pledged to help Iraqi leaders "push back against this
aggression" as the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked
parliament to declare a state of emergency.
It said Washington would support "a strong, coordinated response",
adding that "ISIL is not only a threat to the stability of Iraq, but
a threat to the entire region".
ISIL control in the Sunni Anbar province as well as around Mosul in
the north, would help the Islamist group consolidate its grip along
the frontier with Syria, where they are fighting President Bashar
al-Assad, an ally of Shi'ite Iran.
Fleeing residents said ISIL fighters were leaving their stamp
everywhere in the cities they seized, planting their black flags and
banners on police stations, army barracks and other government
buildings.
"They are all masked, but they don’t do us any harm,” said a 13-year
old schoolboy, describing the militants who pushed into his hometown
of Mosul.
A 40-year old man who fled Mosul with his family said: “We are
frightened because we don’t know who they are. They call themselves
the revolutionaries. They told us not to be scared and that they
came to liberate and free us from oppression.”
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KURDISH HELP?
Critics say the failure of Maliki, a Shi'ite Muslim in power for
eight years, to address grievances among the once dominant Sunni
minority led to a rise in Sunni militancy and pushed Sunni groups
and tribes to rally behind ISIL.
Many Sunnis feel disenfranchised and some have made common cause
with foreign Islamist radicals, first against the U.S. troops that
overthrew Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003 and now Shi'ite-led
Iraqi forces.
Most families fled north towards the nearby Kurdistan region, where
Iraq's ethnic Kurds have autonomy and their own large and
disciplined military force, the Peshmerga. Some officials in
Baghdad spoke of seeking help for Mosul from Kurdish Peshmerga,
which have long been a force in the jockeying between Shi'ites,
Kurds and Sunnis for influence and, especially, for control of
oilfields in the north of Iraq.
Two officials in the ministry of Peshmerga said on Wednesday that
there was no military coordination between Baghdad and Arbil, but
that on the ground locally there was some coordination between Iraqi
army and Kurdish forces.
Peshmerga now control the Rabia area on the border with Syria after
the Iraqi army allowed them to deploy there and also the Kusk base,
45 km west of Mosul, and some other brigade headquarters
Asked whether the Peshmerga would try to enter Mosul, Halgurd
Hikmat, media officer at ministry of Peshmerga, said that depended
on the President of the region and that a formal request would have
to be made by Maliki, who is commander of the Iraqi armed forces.
ISIL, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, broke with al Qaeda's
international leader, Osama bin Laden's former lieutenant Ayman
al-Zawahri, and has clashed with al Qaeda fighters in Syria.
The group, originally rooted in austere Sunni groups like the
Tawhid, fought US and Iraqi forces after Saddam's fall and the
Shi'ite rise to power that ending decades of Sunni rule. ISIL
regards Shi'ites as heretics.
ISIL posted photographs of its fighters wearing black balaclavas on
its "Nineveh State" Twitter account, interspersed with verses from
the Koran. The group dubbed the Mosul offensive "Enter Upon Them
Through The Gates".
In a newsletter, ISIL enjoined Sunnis to join them in the fight
against Maliki's "Safavid" army - a reference to the Persian dynasty
that promoted Shi'ite Islam.
"Join the ranks oh brothers!" ran one slogan. "Maliki's tyrannical
strength no match for pious believers."
In the province of Salahuddin, they overran three villages in the
Shirqat district, torching police stations, town halls and local
council buildings before raising the ISIL banner.
Nearly 800 people were killed in violence across Iraq in May - the
highest monthly death toll so far this year. Last year was the
deadliest since the sectarian bloodletting of 2006-07.
(Additional reporting by Raheem Salman; Writing by Isabel Coles;
Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Anna Willard)
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