| CNN | - |
Baghdad,
Iraq (CNN) -- As Islamic militants continue their murderous advance
across Iraq, they have a new target in their sights: the city of Baquba,
less than 40 miles north of Baghdad.
Iraq crisis: ISIS advances on Baquba as U.S. moves firepower to region
updated 1:06 PM EDT, Tue June 17, 2014
Source: CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: British PM: ISIS is the "most dangerous threat to Britain's security that there is today"
- Iraqi Prime Minister accuses Saudis of giving radical groups material, moral support
- Former Bush official Paul Wolfowitz says mistakes were made in Iraq
- John Kerry: Airstrikes against Iraqi targets are under consideration
Gun battles erupted in
the city, only a 45-minute drive from the capital, on Tuesday as
fighters and Iraqi government forces clashed.
Civilians are fleeing
violence there and elsewhere in Iraq even as the United States bolsters
its manpower in the region while it mulls what action to take.
According to a Baquba
police official and an official in the Baquba governor's office,
militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, have "made a great advance on Baquba" and are pushing very hard to take it, but the city has not fallen.
The Baquba officials told
CNN that ISIS is moving in on the western side of Baquba and that
villages just west of the city, as well as some areas in western Baquba,
are under ISIS control.
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Kurdish fighters hold back ISIS
Some families, mainly
Shiite, are fleeing that side of the city, the officials said. They are
moving deeper into Baquba or leaving the city altogether to escape the
looming violence.
The ISIS push started late Monday with a large-scale attack on the Al Wahda police station on the western edge of Baquba.
Heavy clashes between
Iraqi security forces and ISIS militants ensued, leaving at least one
Iraqi security force member, nine militants and 44 prisoners dead,
according to the Baquba officials. Iraqi state television reported that
52 prisoners were killed after ISIS militants threw hand grenades into
the local prison.
In central Baghdad, at
least three people were killed and nine injured when a roadside bomb
exploded in a busy commercial street, city police officials said. Most
of the casualties were civilians.
Kurdish security sources
also reported fighting around Saadiya, about 55 miles (89 kilometers)
north of Baghdad, as Kurdish fighters, known as Peshmerga, seek to
retake control from ISIS militants there. The two sides are also
battling for control of Bashir village, southwest of Kirkuk city, as
terrified civilians flee shelling by ISIS.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon
is moving more firepower and manpower into the region to prepare for
whatever U.S. President Barack Obama orders.
Already at the U.S.
Embassy in Baghdad, dozens of Marines and Army troops have moved in to
beef up security. Another 100 personnel are in the region to provide
support if needed, the Pentagon said.
The aircraft carrier
George H.W. Bush and five other warships are now in the Persian Gulf.
More than 500 Marines and dozens of helicopters are on standby.
A top priority: evacuate all Americans at the embassy, if it comes to that.
Britain was allied with
the United States during the war in Iraq. On Tuesday, British Prime
Minister David Cameron said at a news conference that ISIS's advances in
Syria and Iraq constitute the "most serious threat to Britain's
security that there is today."
"The number of foreign
fighters in that area, the number of foreign fighters including those
from the UK who could try to return to the UK, this is a real threat to
our country," Cameron said. "And we will do absolutely everything that
we can to keep our people safe."
It means, he said,
"arresting people who are involved in plots" and "focusing our security,
our policing, our intelligence effort" on the area of the world where
ISIS operates.
ISIS photos seem to show mass execution
Photos: Iraq under siege
Map: Unrest in Iraq
General: Don't make deal with the devil
An unpalatable option
On Monday, Secretary of
State John Kerry, in an interview with Yahoo! News, acknowledged that
airstrikes on Iraqi targets are under consideration.
"Well, they are not the
whole answer, but they may well be one of the options that are important
to be able to stem the tide and stop the movement of people who are
moving around in open convoys and trucks and terrorizing people," he
said.
The Unites States is
considering several options, including what may be the politically
unpalatable act of cooperating with Iran to stop militant gains.
While Kerry didn't say
that cooperation with Iran is under active discussion, he wouldn't "rule
out anything that would be constructive to providing real stability."
"I think we are open to
any constructive process here that could minimize the violence, hold
Iraq together -- the integrity of the country -- and eliminate the
presence of outside terrorist forces that are ripping it apart," Kerry
said.
ISIS militants, who
already control a chunk of war-torn Syria, began an offensive last week
that has seen vast swaths of northern Iraq fall out of government hands.
The extremist group has dominated parts of western Anbar province for
months already, amid worsening sectarian division.
Iran plays a key role since it's an ally of Iraq's Shiite-led government. The ISIS militants are Sunni.
A senior security
official in Baghdad told CNN last week that the country had sent about
500 Revolutionary Guard troops to help fight the ISIS militants. Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani denied the report over the weekend, but said
he would be open to helping if asked.
Given the forces at play, some analysts favor direct talks with Iranian officials.
"If we engage in a
military action without a political solution, we will be seen as backing
Maliki in a Sunni-Shia civil war. And that is exactly the opposite of
what we want to do," said Col. Peter Mansoor, retired.
Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki's media adviser, Ali al Mosawi, told CNN on Tuesday that
the leader's meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq had been
"productive."
The government hopes
"there will be more cooperation from the American side to combat
terrorism," Mosawi said. "There is cooperation, but we are looking for
more support."
At the same time, a
statement from al-Maliki's office accused the Saudi government of
appeasing terrorists and providing radical groups with material and
moral support.
"The Saudi government must bear responsibility of the serious crimes committed by these groups," the statement read.
Tough choices
Obama criticized over handling of Iraq
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Who's to blame for Iraq chaos?
The United States and
Iran held "very brief discussions" about Iraq and the threat posed by
ISIS in Vienna, Austria, on Monday, State Department spokeswoman Marie
Harf said.
Deputy Secretary of State William Burns is in Vienna for nuclear talks with Iran.
The Obama administration faces some tough choices should it opt to respond.
The U.S. has increased
drone surveillance over western and northern Iraq in an effort to gather
more intelligence. But using fighter jets to strike at militant targets
could be difficult.
"It's the same reason it
was so hard to target them when we had 160,000 troops there: They
intermingle with the people," said retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling. "I
think the uninitiated might say: 'Hey, What's so hard about that? Let's
just drop a couple bombs.' "
Obama has ruled out U.S. troops on the ground.
Former U.S. Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the original architects of the
U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, told CNN's "New Day" that the United
States "should have found a way to keep an American presence in Iraq."
American military forces
ended their withdrawal from the country in December 2011. At the time
of the U.S. drawdown, Iraq's leadership had agreed that a residual U.S.
military presence was desirable, but talks broke down over the prickly
issue of legal immunity for U.S. troops in Iraq.
Wolfowitz acknowledged
that "a lot of mistakes" had been made in Iraq and that it was not "set
up well for Obama when he came in," but he said Obama could have done
more after taking power to renegotiate the terms of the U.S. withdrawal
agreed on under former President George W. Bush.
"I think we could have
kept a substantial, not a huge, American presence -- not a combat
presence, but the kind of support that would've kept Maliki better under
control, that would've given the Iraqi army better ability to
function," he said.
Pillay: War crimes likely
U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon told reporters Tuesday in Geneva, Switzerland, that he was
"deeply concerned" about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq.
"I encourage all Iraqi
leaders -- political, military, religious and community -- to ensure
that their followers avoid acts of reprisal and come together in an
inclusive spirit to address this serious threat to the country."
U.N. High Commissioner
for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Monday condemned the violence, citing
reports that "hundreds of non-combatant men were summarily executed over
the past five days," including surrendered soldiers and police.
"Although the numbers
cannot be verified yet, this apparently systematic series of
cold-blooded executions, mostly conducted in various locations in the
Tikrit area, almost certainly amounts to war crimes," she said.
Significant victories
As ISIS continues its violent march, capturing cities along the way, many fear its fighters may reach Baghdad.
The group, which wants
to establish an Islamic state, or caliphate, extending from Syria to
much of Iraq, has dominated the towns of Falluja and Ramadi, in Anbar
province to the west of Baghdad, for months.
But in recent days, the
group, also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, has
racked up several more significant victories, including the northwestern
city of Tal Afar, two villages in Diyala province and Iraq's
second-largest city, Mosul.
Hundreds of thousands
have fled, prompting fears of a humanitarian crisis. Iraq's Cabinet said
Tuesday it would give more than $850,000 in aid to help those displaced
in Nineveh, Salaheddin and Diyala provinces.
Heavy clashes erupted
near an Iraqi border crossing with Syria, officials said Tuesday,
between Iraqi security forces and gunmen believed to be with the
al-Nusra Front and other Syrian rebel groups.
So far, gunmen have
taken over two small villages near al-Qaim, about 500 kilometers (311
miles) west of Baghdad, officials said.
As the violence spreads, the government has pleaded for volunteers to help fight the militants.
On Monday, a video surfaced that appeared to show a man in an Iraqi military uniform after he was shot in the face.
A militant fighter
boasted on Facebook that he was proud of killing the man and said the
video should be passed around to show what could happen to other
Shiites.
The new images follow
others apparently posted by ISIS to jihadi Internet forums appearing to
show the executions of Iraqi security forces and a tweet, on what was
claimed to be an ISIS account, saying its members had killed at least
1,700 Shiites.
end quote from:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/16/opinion/lister-isis-iraq/index.html
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