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 In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama said he was reviewing
military options, short of sending combat troops, to help Iraq fight
the insurgency but warned any U.S. action must be accompanied by an
Iraqi effort to bridge political divisions.
In a rare intervention at Friday prayers in the holy city of
Kerbala, a message from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the
highest religious authority for Shi'ites in Iraq, said people should
unite to fight back against a lightning advance by militants from
the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Fighters under the black flag of ISIL are sweeping south towards the
capital Baghdad in a campaign to recreate a mediaeval caliphate
carved out of fragmenting Iraq and Syria that has turned into a
widespread rebellion against Maliki.
"People who are capable of carrying arms and fighting the terrorists
in defense of their country ... should volunteer to join the
security forces to achieve this sacred goal," said Sheikh Abdulmehdi
al-Karbalai, delivering Sistani's message.
Those killed fighting ISIL militants would be martyrs, he said as
the faithful chanted in acknowledgement.
 Amidst the spreading chaos, Iraqi Kurdish forces seized control of
Kirkuk, an oil hub just outside their autonomous enclave that they
have long seen as their historical capital, three days after ISIL
fighters captured the major city of Mosul.
There are concerns that sectarian and tribal conflict might
dismember Iraq into Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish entities. The
atmosphere in Baghdad was tense on Friday, the streets were empty,
residents were stock-piling food and arming themselves.
Reflecting fears that ISIL's insurgency could erupt into a civil war
and disrupt oil exports from a major OPEC member state, the price of
Brent crude oil edged further above $113 a barrel on Friday, up
about $4 since the start of the week.
MALIKI MUST ACT
Obama told reporters at the White House he would not send U.S.
troops back into combat in Iraq but had asked his national security
team to prepare "a range of other options" to help Iraqi security
forces confront fighters from ISIL. He made clear he expected steps
toward Iraqi political reconciliation.
"The United States is not simply going involve itself in a military
action in the absence of a political plan by the Iraqis that gives
us some assurance that they are prepared to work together," he said.
The U.S. president was facing a chorus of criticism from Republican
opponents who say that his missteps in responding to the Syrian
civil war and dithering on Iraq has left the United States with few
options.
"We need to be hitting these columns of terrorists marching on
Baghdad with drones now," said Representative Ed Royce, the chairman
of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Influential Senators John
McCain and Lindsey Graham also called for air strikes to deal the
insurgents "a crippling blow."
American officials have watched in dismay as the U.S.-trained and
-armed Iraqi security forces have crumbled and fled in the face of
an onslaught by the militants. Obama noted the United States had
invested a lot of money and training in the Iraqi security forces.
"The fact that they are not willing to stand and fight and defend
their posts ... indicates that there's a problem with morale,
there's a problem in terms of commitment," Obama said. "Ultimately,
that's rooted in the political problems that have plagued the
country for a very long time."
Western officials have long complained that Maliki has done little
to heal sectarian rifts that have left many of Iraq's minority
Sunnis, cut out of power since Saddam Hussein's demise, aggrieved
and vengeful - a mood exploited by ISIL.
A U.S. counterterrorism official questioned whether ISIL had the
capacity to turn "tactical victories in Iraq into strategic gains,"
noting that with just a few thousand fighters it was relying on
Sunni nationalist groups that might not back it in the long run.
"There are still plenty of things that could go wrong for a group
that typically has done well on its home Sunni turf but, if Syria is
any guide, is hardly invincible when confronted in unfriendly
territory by capable and motivated fighters," the official said.
The ISIL advance has been joined by former Baathist officers who
were loyal to Saddam as well as disaffected armed groups and tribes
who want to oust Maliki. Cities and towns that have fallen to the
militants so far have been mainly Sunni and the gains have largely
been uncontested.
It had long been known that Mosul, a city of two million people,
harbored not just ISIL but also the Baathist militant group the
Naqshbandi Army, believed to be headed by Ezzat Ibrahim al Douri, a
former close aide to Saddam.
After the fall of Saddam to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, officers
from the old Iraqi army who had not been reconciled to the new order
collected in the Mosu l area. The city's proximity to the border
with Syria allowed Baathists - Saddam's political party - and
Islamic radicals freedom of movement.
U.S. AND IRAN INTERESTS COINCIDE
On the advance, a member of the Mujahideen Army, consisting of
ex-military officers and more moderate Islamists, said: "We were
contacted by ISIL around three days before the attack on Mosul
asking us to join them. Speaking honestly we were reluctant to join
as we were not satisfied they could do the job and defeat thousands
of government troops in Mosul.
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"When ISIL entered Mosul and swept out government forces positions
in hours ... Only then did we decide to join forces and fight with
them as long as we had a sole objective to kick Maliki forces out of
Mosul and remove injustice."
The pace of events means that now, an alarmed Shi'ite Islamic
Republic of Iran, which in the 1980s fought Saddam for eight years
at a time when the Sunni Iraqi leader enjoyed quiet U.S. support,
may be willing to cooperate with the "Great Satan" Washington to
bolster mutual ally Maliki.
The idea is being discussed internally among the Tehran leadership,
a senior Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of
anonymity. "We can work with Americans to end the insurgency in the
Middle East," the official said, referring to the sudden escalation
of conflict in Iraq. The U.S. State Department said Washington was
not discussing Iraq with Tehran.
Thrusting further to the southeast after their seizure of Mosul in
the far north and Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, ISIL entered two
towns in Diyala province bordering Iran.
Saadiyah and Jalawla had fallen to the Sunni Muslim insurgents after
government troops fled their positions.
Iraqi army units subsequently subjected Saadiyah and Jalawla to
artillery fire from the nearby town of Muqdadiya. ISIL fighters
eventually withdrew from Jalawla and well-organized Kurdish
Peshmerga fighters took over. Iraqi army helicopters fired rockets
at one of the largest mosques in Tikrit on Friday, according to
witnesses. There were no further details available.
"CHANCE TO REPENT"
Giving a hint of their vision of a caliphate, ISIL published sharia
rules for the realm they have carved out in northern Iraq, including
a ban on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and an edict on women to wear
only all-covering, shapeless clothing.
ISIL militants were reported to have executed soldiers and policemen
after their seizure of some towns.
On Friday, ISIL said it was giving soldiers and policemen a "chance
to repent ... For those asking who we are, we are the soldiers of
Islam and have shouldered the responsibility to restore the glory of
the Islamic Caliphate”.
Residents near the border with Syria, where ISIL has exploited civil
war to seize wide tracts of that country's east, watched militants
bulldozing tracks through frontier sand berms.
ISIL has battled rival rebel factions in Syria for months and
occasionally taken on President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
ISIL's Syria branch is now bringing in weapons seized in Iraq from
retreating government forces, according to Rami Abdulrahman, head of
the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. But its
fighters appear to have held back in Syria, especially in their
eastern stronghold near the Iraqi border, while their Iraqi wing was
making rapid military gains.
At Baiji, near Kirkuk, ISIL fighters ringed Iraq's largest refinery,
underlining the incipient threat to the oil industry.
Further south, militant forces extended their advance to towns about
an hour's drive from Baghdad, where Shi'ite militia were mobilizing
for what could be a replay of the ethnic and sectarian bloodbath of
2006 and 2007. Trucks carrying Shi'ite volunteers in uniform rumbled
to front lines to defend Baghdad.
SADR HOLDS FIRE
Despite the call to arms from Sistani, influential Shi’ite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, who led revolts against U.S. forces, has not called
on his followers to mobilize. At Friday prayers, his faithful were
told to wait for directions in the coming days on how to form “peace
regiments” that will defend holy sites.
Maliki's army already lost control of much of the Euphrates valley
west of the capital to ISIL last year. With the evaporation of the
army in the Tigris valley to the north, the government could be left
with just Baghdad and areas south - home to the Shi'ite majority in
Iraq's 32 million population.
ISIL has set up military councils to run the towns they captured.
“'Our final destination will be Baghdad, the decisive battle will be
there' - that’s what their leader kept repeating," said a regional
tribal figure.
(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Ziad al-Sinjary in
Mosul Isabel Coles in Arbil, Steve Holland and Mark Hosenball in
Washington; Writing by Peter Millership and David Alexander; Editing
by Mark Heinrich and David Storey)
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