Armed U.S. drones fly over Baghdad
Move suggests Obama may be being drawn into backing PM al-Maliki
ERBIL, IRAQ — U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles into the skies above Iraq as he steps up American military involvement in the Middle East.
The first Predator flights took off Thursday, Pentagon officials said.
It isn’t clear whether their remote pilots have orders to fire on the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who control most Sunni areas of the country, although officials said they were intended to defend U.S. interests such as the embassy.
The armed aircraft, based in Kuwait, add to the reconnaissance flights, both manned and unmanned, already taking place over Iraq alongside drones from the U.S.’s once bitter regional rival, Iran.
The move suggests Obama is being drawn, however unwillingly, into military support for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The U.S. has also set up two joint operations centres for 300 troops being sent under a two-star general to the country to provide advice as well as security for the U.S. embassy. The move means American and Iranian troops are working on the same side in Baghdad.
Iraq’s own forces are attempting a counter-attack. They’re reinforcing troops holding out at the Baiji oil refinery, the biggest in Iraq, which is under ISIL siege, and staging a helicopter-borne attack on Tikrit university further south, which is also in insurgent hands.
Al-Maliki is seeking to fend off calls for him to step down and forge a new government representing Iraq’s major sects and ethnic groups.
The country’s most important Shiite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whose support for any constitutional settlement is crucial, said agreement on new leadership had to be reached in three days, in line with the constitution following elections in April.
July 1 is the cut-off date for a tripartite government including Arab Sunnis and Shiites as well as Kurds.
According to one report, Iran is examining a list of potential new Shiite prime ministers after a visit to Baghdad by its most important international emissary, Gen. Qassim al-Suleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, its key overseas military support unit.
Suleimani has directed his men in Iraq, along with allied militias, to shore up Iraq’s defences against the onslaught of the Sunni groups led by ISIL.
He met senior Shiite representatives to discuss a possible replacement for al-Maliki, The Associated Press reported.
Under Iraq’s power-sharing constitution, the prime minister has to be Shiite, the president Kurdish and the vice-president Sunni.
One underlying cause of the current crisis is that the president, Jalal Talabani, has been seriously ill and has been out of the country for treatment.
The vice-president, Tareq al-Hashimi, was accused of terrorism in late 2011, fled overseas and was sentenced to death in absentia.
In their absence, al-Maliki has taken a firmer grip on the levers of state, running the Interior Ministry directly — a particular grievance to Sunnis who say they have been singled out for aggressive policing.