US orders aircraft carrier into Gulf amid Iraq crisis

The United States has ordered an aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf in response to the crisis in Iraq.

The Pentagon spokesman, Rear Admiral John Kirby, says Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gave the order that the USS George H.W. Bush move from the North Arabian Sea to the Gulf Saturday.

Kirby says the order provides President Barack Obama “additional flexibility should military options be required to protect American lives, citizens and interests in Iraq.”

A guided-missile cruiser and a guided-missile destroyer will accompany the aircraft carrier.

Meanwhile, the French news agency (AFP) reports an Iraqi air strike hit a convoy of Kurdish forces in eastern Iraq, possibly by mistake, killing six fighters. And mortar fire in central Iraq hit a recruitment center for civilians volunteering to fight the Islamist militants, killing six people. Neither report has been confirmed.

Hundreds of Iraqi young men flocked to volunteer centers across Baghdad and elsewhere starting Saturday to join the fight against Islamist militants who have advanced across the north this week.

The volunteers are responding to a call to arms from Iraq’s most revered Shi’ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

A spokesman for the ayatollah Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalaie urged Iraqis to “fight the terrorists in defense of their country, its people and its holy sites.”