ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

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Latest map of Iraq

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Report: 9.32am BST

A battle for the control of Iraq's biggest oil refinery at Baiji is continuing, according to Reuters.

The sprawling Baiji refinery, 130 miles north of the capital near Tikrit, was a battlefield as troops loyal to the Shia-led government held off insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and its allies who had stormed the perimeter a day earlier, threatening national energy supplies.

Workers trapped inside the complex, which spreads for miles close to the Tigris river, said Sunni militants seemed to hold most of the compound and that the security forces were concentrated around the refinery's control room. Iraqi security officials have denied that the plant was close to falling.

The 250-300 remaining staff were evacuated early on Thursday, one of those workers said by telephone. Military helicopters had attacked militant positions overnight, he added ...

If the Baiji refinery falls, Isis and its allies will have access to a large supply of fuel to add to the weaponry and economic resources seized in Mosul and across the north.

An oil ministry official said the loss of Baiji would cause shortages in the north, including the autonomous Kurdish area, but that the impact on Baghdad would be limited - at around 20% of supplies - since it was served by other refineries.

A satelitte image from the South African company Orbital Horizons showed black smoke billowing from the plant.

[Anthea]

Report: 10.01am BST

The retired US general David Patraeus, who the led the US troop surge in Iraq, has cautioned against further military intervention, including air strikes, in Iraq.

Speaking at a conference in London, Petraeus, who commanded US troops in Mosul warned that Washington risked becoming an "air force for Shiite militias", if it agreed to Iraq's request for air strikes.

Patreaus, who also served as head of the CIA, said: "If there is to be support for Iraq, it has to be support for a government of Iraq that is a government of all the people and is representative of, and responsive to, all elements of Iraq.

It does not look as though America really wants to help Iraq - but how could it intercede when such a large percentage of the population (Sunnis) have been suppressed and ill treated by the Iraqi government (Shite) for so long

I think that the country will divide into 3 sections and about time too

[Anthea]

Report: 10.49am BST

Turkey's prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, has cautioned against air strikes in Iraq, saying they would cause a high number of civilian casualties.

"There are Isis elements which are mixed in with the people. Such an operation could result in a serious number of deaths among civilians," Reuters quoted Erdogan telling reporters in Ankara.

Erdogan actually has a brain - perhaps he could also learn a lesson from Iraq

Erdogan should remember that ISIS are mostly Sunni - ISIS could not have swept through so much of Iraq without main-stream Sunni support - Sunnis support ISIS because of the way in which the Shite Iraqi government have treated them (the Sunni)

Erdogan should start to think more about his own position - perhaps one day the Kurds in Turkey will copy ISIS and form a new organisation that could gain similar popular support among the Kurds as that of ISIS among the Sunni

[Anthea]

Maliki Orders Inmates Freed to Join Militias; Baghdad Asks for US Air Strikes

SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the release of 2,000 Shiite prisoners in the north to take up arms against Sunni insurgents advancing on Baghdad, as his embattled government formally asked the US for air strikes to stop the rebels.

"The order reached our prison on Thursday and then the Shiite prisoners, numbering 2,000, were separated,” said an official at the Chamchamal prison in the autonomous Kurdistan Region, speaking to Rudaw on condition of anonymity.

The jail is located in the town of Chamchamal, west of Sulaimani province, and houses some of the most dangerous prisoners across Iraq. Thousands of inmates were recently transferred there from the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and from Kirkuk.

“The (Shiite) prisoners had been sentenced to death or life imprisonment, and it was decided to fly them back to Baghdad," said the source.

He added that maximum security was in place at the prison, after inmates from Kirkuk were transferred there following the fall of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, to the insurgents last week.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama said he did not need to seek approval from the US Congress for any action in Iraq.

Also in Washington, America’s top military commander General Martin Dempsey confirmed that Baghdad had asked the United States for direct air strikes to stop the week-long advance by rebels led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power,” said at a Senate hearing.

Maliki has called on Iraqis to form militias and take up arms against the rebels, and the country’s Shiite authorities have issued a religious edict for Shiites to fight the Sunni extremists, who have captured several cities and want to march on Baghdad to overthrow Maliki’s government.

Meanwhile, oil companies ExxonMobil and BP began evacuating non-essential staff from Iraq, and there were reports of fighting at the Baiji refinery, Iraq’s largest, most of which has reportedly been in rebel hands since early this week.

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/19062014

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Iraq's Maliki: I won't quit as condition of US strikes against Isis militants





A spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has said he will not stand down as a condition of US air strikes against Sunni militants who have made a lightning advance across the country.

Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, on Wednesday made a public call on al-Arabiya television for the US to launch strikes, but Barack Obama has come under pressure from senior US politicians to persuade Maliki, a Shia Muslim who has pursued sectarian policies, to step down over what they see as failed leadership in the face of an insurgency.

Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, told a hearing on Wednesday that Maliki's government "has got to go if you want any reconciliation", and Republican John McCain called for the use of US air power but also urged Obama to "make very clear to Maliki that his time is up".

The White House has not called for Maliki to go but spokesman Jay Carney said that whether Iraq was led by Maliki or a successor, "we will aggressively attempt to impress upon that leader the absolute necessity of rejecting sectarian governance". The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said Washington was focused on the Iraqi people, not Maliki.

Maliki's spokesman, Zuhair al-Nahar, said on Thursday that the west should immediately support the Iraqi government's military operation against Isis rather than demand a change of government. He insisted that Maliki had "never used sectarian tactics".

"Our focus needs to be on urgent action – air support, logistic support, counter-intelligence support to defeat these terrorists who are posing a real danger to the stability of Iraq, to the whole region," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Obama is said to be still weighing military options, and US officials for days have quietly signalled that a decision is not imminent.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, confirmed that the US had received the request for air strikes but said that the fluid state of the Iraqi battlefield had left the US with incomplete intelligence, a factor that made an air campaign more difficult. "It's not as easy as looking at an iPhone video of a convoy and then striking it," he told senators.

Fighting continued in Iraq on Thursday as militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) raised their black banners at Iraq's largest oil refinery. A witness told Reuters that militants were manning checkpoints around the Baiji facility and that a huge fire in one of its tankers was raging. A security official in Baghdad said government forces were still inside the complex.

Witnesses at the Baiji refinery – between the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, both seized by Isis last week – said insurgents broke through the perimeter of the site early on Wednesday and were within sight of administration buildings.

Their advance comes despite fierce resistance from Iraqi troops stationed at the refinery. There were reports that foreign security contractors had been sent to Baiji to protect what is one of Iraq's most important strategic assets. Many plant workers have been evacuated to Baghdad.

Losing control of Baiji would be a critical blow to Iraqi forces still reeling from the capitulation of close to 50,000 troops last week, many of whom have since been replaced by militias raised from the country's majority Shia population.

In an interview with the Guardian, the Iraqi ambassador to the US, Lukman Faily, said the situation was critical, and warned of further bloodshed if Isis was not repelled. "Wherever they have the possibility, they will cleanse minorities, ethnic cleansing," he said. "Look at Mosul. They went into prisons, they executed the Shia prisoners. They went into Mosul and they executed the Sunni imams who were reluctant about handing over their mosques to them. So what does that tell you? It tells you that they cannot coexist with others."

In Iraq, the spectre of full-blown sectarian war hangs heavily over those trying to decide how to deal with the crisis, with nationalistic aims often subsumed by sect loyalties. Many Shia volunteers heading to battle zones including Tal Afar say they see the insurgents more as a threat to their sect than to Iraq itself.

"Who do you think is running the war," asked a senior Iraqi official on Tuesday. "Those three senior generals who ran away? Qassem Suleimani [a leading Iranian general] is in charge. And reporting directly to him are the militias, led by Asa'ib ahl al-Haq."

Residents of Tal Afar, a city north-west of Mosul with a large Shia population, said reinforcements, most of them Shia irregulars, had been flown in to try to regain control from Isis jihadists who took the city on Monday.

The family of one fighter said he and most of his colleagues had been flown by government helicopter from the Dora refinery in Baghdad, where they worked as a protection force, to Tal Afar, flying straight over the besieged Baiji refinery. Baiji mainly supplies fuel to northern Iraq.

"It is providing 30% of oil resources to the country," said Qahtan al-Anbaki, an oil consultant. Most of it goes to Mosul and the north. It won't affect Baghdad or the south so much. The north is already seriously affected. Oil is three times the price it was a week ago in Mosul."

The grave threat to Baiji underlines how difficult it will be for the government to retake large swaths of land in the north and centre that were seized last week. Even with vastly inferior numbers, Isis has since consolidated its control of the areas using masses of equipment looted from military bases abandoned by fleeing troops.

The group's sphere of influence crosses well into Syria, where it controls eastern oilfields, and it uses their revenues to fund the fast-growing insurgency.

Battle lines for the defence of Baghdad have been drawn 40 miles to the north of the capital, near the city of Baquba, which remained a scene of intense clashes on Wednesday as jihadists again tried to enter the city centre. Their efforts to seize Baquba's prison have so far been rebuffed, with irregular militias rushed from Baghdad proving pivotal in the fighting.

Thousands of Iranians have volunteered to defend Iraq's Shia shrines. Iran is 90% Shia, a group considered to be apostates by Isis and other Sunni extremists. Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, said the defence of Shia sacred sites in Najaf, Karbala, Baghdad and Samara was vital to his regime.

The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said that because of the significance of the Iraqi shrines, the Lebanese group was "willing to sacrifice five times as much as we sacrificed in Syria", where his members, along with Iran, have led the fightback against rebel groups who have tried for more than three years to oust Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian war has greatly amplified the threat from Isis in Iraq. However, the plains of Baquba and Anbar province in the country's far west were the original breeding ground of the group, which first rose to prominence in 2004 during a Sunni insurgency against US forces.

Maliki, who is trying to assemble a political coalition to win a third term as prime minister, has tried to assure the country that the momentum of the battle was with him. While Baghdad feels more assured than it was last week, some of the city's Sunni neighbourhoods remain paralysed. And on the Shia side of the Tigris river, militias have primacy over interior ministry or military forces.

Maliki pledged that Tal Afar would be retaken by Thursday, and fighting late on Wednesday appeared to be tipping the battle in favour of Iraqi forces. However, a fear remains that nothing decisive can be achieved without international intervention.

"If we got US drones to hit Baiji, and jets to bomb Isis elsewhere, we could slow them down," said a senior Iraqi MP. "Without them we can do nothing. Without them we can't win."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... isis-sunni

If a man hits a dog for years - is there any who would blame the dog for biting that man?

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

US ready for 'targeted action' against Iraq insurgents

President Barack Obama says the US is ready for "targeted and precise military action" against Islamists in Iraq, "if and when the situation on the ground requires it".

But he stressed "American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq".

He said that up to 300 military advisers would be sent to help the Iraqi government's efforts.

However, he stressed that the crisis could only effectively be solved through political means.

He said it was not the US's place to choose Iraq's leaders, but urged them to pursue an "inclusive agenda".

That may be seen as a veiled criticism of Shia Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who has been accused of anti-Sunni policies which have helped inflame unrest, correspondents say.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27932443

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Isis jihadists 'seize Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons stockpile'



Chemical weapons produced at the Al Muthanna facility, which Isis today seized, are believed to have included mustard gas, Sarin, Tabun, and VX.

CIA's file on the complex.

Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored there. The most dangerous ones have been declared to the UN and are sealed in bunkers.

Although declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be confirmed.

These areas of the compound pose a hazard to civilians and potential blackmarketers.

Numerous bunkers, including eleven cruciform shaped bunkers were exploited. Some of the bunkers were empty. Some of the bunkers contained large quantitiesof unfilled chemical munitions, conventional munitions, one-ton shipping containers, old disabled production equipment (presumed disabled under UNSCOM supervision), and other hazardous industrial chemicals.

The Chemical Weapons Convention, which Iraq joined in 2009, requires it to dispose of the material at Al Muthanna, even though it was declared unusable and "does not pose a significant security risk"

However, the UK goverment has acknowledgeded that the nature of the material contained in the two bunkers would make the destruction process difficult and technically challenging.

Under an agreement signed in Baghdad in July 2012, experts from the MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) were due to provide training to Iraqi personnel in order to help them to dispose of the chemical munitions and agents.

The remaining chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein's regime are stored in two sealed bunkers, both located at the Al Muthanna Chemicals Weapons Complex, a large site in the western desert some 80km north west of Baghdad.

This was the principal manufacturing plant for both chemical agents and munitions during Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Thousands of tonnes of chemical weapons were produced, stored and deployed by the Saddam Hussein regime. Iraq used these weapons during the Iran - Iraq War (1980 to 1988) and against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

U.S. officials don't believe the Sunni militants will be able to create a functional chemical weapon from the material. The weapons stockpiled at the Al Muthanna complex are old, contaminated and hard to move, officials said.

Nonetheless, the capture of the chemical-weapon stockpile by the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known as ISIS or ISIL, the militant group that is seizing territory in the country, has grabbed the attention of the U.S.

"We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the ISIL," Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a written statement. "We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -live.html

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BBC News Middle East

Iraq crisis: Fierce battles for Baiji and Tal Afar

Islamist-led militants and pro-government forces are engaged in fierce battles for the Baiji oil refinery and Tal Afar airport in northern Iraq.

Baiji, Iraq's biggest refinery, is surrounded by the rebels, who say they have seized most of Tal Afar airport.

The fighting comes a day after the US said it would send some 300 military advisers to help the fight against the insurgents.

President Barack Obama stressed that US troops would not fight in Iraq.

US Secretary of State Kerry is expected to travel to Iraq soon to press for a more representative cabinet, hoping this could ease tensions between the country's rival Muslim sects.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has been accused of pursuing anti-Sunni policies, pushing some Sunni militants to join the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which has made rapid advances in recent days.

About 500,000 people have fled their homes in the country's second-largest city, Mosul, which ISIS captured last week.

Analysis: Nick Bryant, BBC news, Washington

Drawn from America's special forces, the military advisers will set up joint command centres with the Iraqi military in Baghdad and in the north. But they will also go out into the field.

Senior administration officials have said that they are not at the stage of preparing air strikes, adding that they will be discreet and targeted if they come. They have also indicated that ISIS militants could come under American fire over the border in Syria.

At present the use of American air power is not being made conditional on Prime Minister Nouri Maliki stepping down, but clearly he has lost Washington's confidence.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to travel to Iraq as part of a wider diplomatic mission to the Middle East and North Africa. His main aim it seems will be to press for the formation of a new more inclusive government.

ISIS says it has downed two military helicopters around the Baiji refinery but this has not been independently confirmed.

The BBC's Jim Muir in Irbil, northern Iraq, says it is thought the militants may have captured part of the vast oil complex.

They have also seized a disused chemical weapons factory in Muthanna, 70km (45 miles) north-west of the capital, Baghdad.

The US says it does not believe the site contains any material that the insurgents could use to make chemical weapons.

But state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: "We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by" ISIS.

Iraq has asked the US for air strikes against the Sunni militants.

Mr Obama said the US was prepared for "targeted and precise military action, if and when" required, but he insisted there was "no military solution" to the crisis.

He also pointedly urged the Shia-led Iraqi government to be "inclusive".

Full Article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27936652

Personally: as far as the situation in Iraq - I do not think the news reports are entirely truthful - a great deal of propaganda is coming out from all sides - no side is going to admit the other is better or stronger

The Shite hate the Sunni because of the treatment they received under Saddam - the Sunni hate the Shite because of the revenge ill treatment they have been receiving in recent years

[Anthea]

Iraq crisis exclusive: US rules out military action until Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stands down



The US has told senior Iraqi officials that the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, must leave office if it is to intervene militarily to stop the advance of Sunni extremists, The Independent has learnt. The Sunni community sees Mr Maliki as the main architect of its oppression and the Americans believe there can be no national reconciliation between Sunni and Shia unless he ceases to be leader of the country.

Mr Maliki is showing every sign of wanting to cling to power despite the disasters of the past 10 days during which his army of 350,000 men, on which $41.6bn (£24.5bn) has been spent by Iraq since 2011, has disintegrated after being attacked by a far less numerous foe. He has blamed Saudi Arabia, the Kurds and treacherous generals, but has offered no real explanation nor taken responsibility for the defeat.

There is a constitutional way of getting rid of Mr Maliki when the Iraqi parliament meets before the end of June. It must choose a speaker and a president who will then ask a member of the largest party to form a government. It is unlikely that Mr Maliki would be chosen Prime Minister as other parties unite against him. “It is impossible that he should serve a third term,” said an Iraq politician who did not want to be named.

The pace of the Isis advance has slowed north of Baghdad in recent days, but it is still capturing Sunni towns and villages where much of the armed male population joins it. The original force of Isis fighters, sometimes put at 10,000 men, is thereby multiplied many times.

This happened in the Sunni town of Hibhib near Baquba, which is 40 miles north-east of Baghdad, over the last two days. A local woman speaking by phone said: “Less than 100 Daesh [Isis] came into the town and soon became more than 2,000 armed men. Even teenagers aged 14 and 15 are carrying rifles and setting up checkpoints.”

The general support for the Sunni revolt in northern and western Iraq will make it very difficult for any counter-offensive, which would be facing far more opponents than Isis originally fielded. Isis now controls almost all the Euphrates valley from Fallujah west of Baghdad through western Iraq and eastern Syria as far as the Turkish border. Any long-term campaign against Isis by the Iraqi government backed by US air power would require air strikes in Syria as well as Iraq. The two countries have effectively become a single battlefield.

Sunni see Maliki as systematically reducing them to second-class citizens and putting as many as 100,000 in jail, with prisoners often held because of confessions extorted by torture or without any charge at all. Hostility to Mr Maliki provides part of the glue that holds the Sunni coalition together.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 47311.html

[Anthea]

Unconfirmed sources tell us that there are now more than 12 Sunni jihadist groups fighting within Iraq

Iraq is in danger of becoming another Syria - that now has 100s of separate groups fighting within it's borders

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ISIS jihadists to attack Baghdad if Iraqi PM doesn't step down

ISIS jihadists to attack Baghdad if Maliki doesn't step down, says Sunni military leader

A commander of Sunni insurgent forces has said that the ISIS-led forces were willing to attack Baghdad, even at the cost of plunging Iraq into civil war.

The Telegraph quoted Sheikh Ahmed al-Dabash, a founder of the Islamic Army of Iraq, as saying that the Sunni forces would march into Baghdad if Iraqi PM Maliki did not step down.

No military intervention in Iraq sans UN backing: France

France will not consider a military option to stop insurgents' offensive in Iraq until it receives the UN green light, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

"We have a principle: we could intervene if there was a request from the Iraqi government and with UN authorisation," Fabius stressed, and added, "Western intervention can be effective if it is backed up by a unity government. With or without Maliki, what Iraq needs is a government of national unity."

Clashes kill 34 Iraq security forces on Syria border: Officials

Clashes with Sunni Muslim militants have killed 34 Iraqi security forces members in Al-Qaim, a town on the Syrian border, officials said.

The fighting broke out late Thursday night and continued until around noon Friday, with militants in control of most of the town, security forces officers and a local official said.

Top Iraq Shiite cleric has urged new government to avoid past mistakes. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for the "formation of an effective government that is acceptable on a ... national level (and) avoids past mistakes," in remarks made by his spokesman on his behalf.

Militants regrouping in Iraq refinery attack: Army

Col Ali al-Qureishi, the army officer in charge of protecting a key Iraqi refinery besieged by Sunni militants, said he feared insurgents were regrouping to resume their assault on the Beiji refinery, some 250 kilometres north of Baghdad.

Its loss would be a devastating symbol of the Baghdad government's powerlessness in the face of the offensive by Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

The Indian nationals who have been abducted remain safe, said Syed Akbaruddin, Official Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, India.

Over a million people have been forced out of their homes in Iraq this year, the UN refugee agency said on Friday, as per CNN.

A humanitarian crisis is brewing, as families who've fled fighting with little more than the clothes on their back seek water, food and shelter from the summer heat, CNN reported.

Obama lacks will – Iran

US President Barack Obama lacks "serious will" to combat terrorism, a top Iranian official said on Friday, after a request from the Iraqi government for US air strikes went unanswered.

Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian's comments followed a statement from Obama on the Iraq crisis in which he pledged to send military advisers to Baghdad but stopped short of further action at this stage.

Breaking: Iran says Obama lacks will to combat terrorism in Iraq. Details to follow.

Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said Friday that Sunni jihadists who have overrun swathes of territory must be expelled from the country before it is too late. If the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is not "fought and expelled from Iraq, everyone will regret it tomorrow, when regret has no meaning," his spokesman announced on his behalf.

Also Read: Jihadists must be expelled from Iraq now: Top Shiite cleric

Iraqi forces prepare to strike back

Iraqi forces were massing north of Baghdad on Friday, aiming to strike back at Sunni Islamists whose drive toward the capital prompted the United States to send military advisers to stiffen government resistance.

President Barack Obama offered up to 300 Americans to help coordinate the fight. But he held off granting a request for air strikes from the Shi'ite-led government and renewed a call for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to do more to overcome sectarian divisions that have fuelled resentment among the Sunni minority.

In the area around Samarra, on the main highway 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, which has become a frontline of the battle with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the provincial governor, a rare Sunni supporter of Maliki, told cheering troops they would now force ISIL and its allies back.

A source close to Maliki told Reuters that the government planned to hit back now that it had halted the advance which saw ISIL seize the main northern city of Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, 10 days ago and sweep down along the Sunni-populated Tigris valley toward Baghdad as the US-trained army crumbled.

Governor Abdullah al-Jibouri, whose provincial capital Tikrit was overrun last week, was shown on television on Friday telling soldiers in Ishaqi, just south of Samarra: "Today we are coming in the direction of Tikrit, Sharqat and Nineveh.

"These troops will not stop," he added, saying government forces around Samarra numbered more than 50,000.

France has called for the formation of a unity government in Iraq with or without Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to fight Sunni jihadists advancing towards Baghdad.

Full Article:

http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/liv ... 41054.html

[Anthea]

For latest information concerning oil please remember to look at following thread:

Kurdistan Oil & Gas Development

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=5889&p=109084#p109084

[Anthea]

Financial Times

Shia cleric calls for new Iraq government
By Simeon Kerr in Baghdad and Geoff Dyer in Washington

Iraq’s most influential Shia cleric appealed on Friday for the country’s politicians to form a new government with “broad national support”, raising the pressure on prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has been blamed for loss of territory in the north to Sunni insurgents.

Speaking the day after US President Barack Obama called for a coalition in Baghdad that would embrace disaffected Sunnis and sent military advisers to help fight the insurgents, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani urged the various political blocs to quickly form an “effective” government.

Although he did not mention Mr Maliki by name, Ayatollah Sistani’s comments were an indirect criticism of the prime minister and his Shia-dominated government.

The government has been accused of provoking insurgency by Sunni militants who have taken control of several towns and cities in the north.

The two-week campaign by forces from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, has pushed Iraq to the brink of sectarian civil war and has called into question the unity of the country.

The violence has forced Mr Obama to reverse his long-stated pledge to end US military involvement in Iraq. On Thursday, he said the US would send up to 300 military advisers to help Iraqi forces counter the onslaught from Isis.

The US fears that if Isis, which has links to al-Qaeda, gains a permanent hold on territory in northern Iraq, it could be used as a platform to launch attacks on the US, or US interests around the Middle East.

John Kerry, US secretary of state, is travelling to Europe and the Middle East this weekend to consult allies on diplomatic action.

US officials have been lobbying Iraqi leaders in recent days to forge a government to try to heal the sectarian divisions. Although they have not called on Mr Maliki to stand down, US officials say he has helped to provoke the violence by adopting sectarian policies that alienated many Sunnis.

Among the Iraqi politicians meeting Brett McGurk, deputy assistant secretary for Iraq, in recent days has been Ahmad Chalabi, the one-time exile who helped persuade the Bush administration to invade Iraq in 2003 and who is a member of parliament.

Some of Mr Maliki’s political rivals say the US has been encouraging them to form a government that excludes the prime minister.

In a message delivered by a representative in the holy city of Karbala, Ayatollah Sistani said a government should be formed by the end of the month following April elections.

“It is necessary for the winning political blocs to start a dialogue that yields an effective government that enjoys broad national support, avoids past mistakes and opens new horizons towards a better future for all Iraqis,” he said.

Ayatollah Sistani’s intervention in domestic politics , the second in a week, comes as thousands of supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, one of Mr Maliki’s rivals, prepare for a show of force across the country today.

Mr Sadr, who fought against the US occupation, says his paramilitary force will help protect religious sites but will not join a sectarian war. Sadrist politicians say Sunni tribes that have backed the Isis insurgency have legitimate grievances that require a political solution.

Clerics loyal to Mr Sadr at Friday prayers preached in favour of a national unity government.

After sweeping through Sunni areas of northern and western Iraq for 10 days, the lightning progress of the jihadi militants has been checked by elite units of the Iraqi army reinforced by battle-hardened Shia militias.

These ideologically-motivated fighters have helped the government regain momentum as they seek to protect shrines threatened by Isis and to fight jihadi militants who regard the country’s majority Shia as apostates who should be killed.

Although the US decision to send troops back to Iraq is likely to be controversial with many Democrats, Mr Obama has so far won political cover from senior members of the party.

“I support President Obama’s decision to deploy a very limited number of advisers to Iraq for a non-combat training mission,” said Harry Reid, the majority leader in the Senate. “This decision gives America the flexibility to take precise action against threats to our national security and keeps Iraqi authorities accountable for maintaining the security of their own country.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d666cb60-f890 ... abdc0.html

[Anthea]

Sistani official statement - Friday sermon - 20/06/14 w/English subs

phpBB [video]