Militants seize more Iraqi towns
BAGHDAD—Sunni militants have advanced in western Iraq and killed 21 people after security forces withdrew from several towns, as US President Barack Obama warned the offensive could spill over into other regional nations.
The losses were the latest in a series of setbacks for Iraqi forces, which are struggling to hold their ground in the face of an insurgent onslaught that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and sparked fears that the country could be torn apart.
The militants, led by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), seized the towns of Rawa and Ana after taking the Al-Qaim border crossing on Saturday, residents said. They then gunned down 21 local leaders in Rawa and Ana in two days of violence, according to officers and doctors.
Tactical withdrawal
The government said its forces made a “tactical” withdrawal from the towns, control of which allows the militants to open a strategic route to neighboring Syria where they also hold swaths of countryside along the Euphrates river valley.
Isil aims to create an Islamic state incorporating both Iraq and Syria, where the group has become a major force in the rebellion against President Bashar Assad.
Washington wants Arab states to bring pressure on Iraq’s leaders to speed up government formation, which has made little headway since April elections, and has tried to convince them Isil poses as much of a threat to them as to Iraq.
Obama said Isil’s offensive could destabilize other countries in the region and “spill over into some of our allies like Jordan.”
US leaders have stopped short of calling for Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to step down, but there is little doubt that they feel he has squandered the opportunity to rebuild Iraq since US troops withdrew in 2011.
The seizure of Al-Qaim leaves just one of three official border crossings with Syria in federal government hands. The third is controlled by Kurdish forces.
Militants already hold areas of the western desert province of Anbar which abuts the Syrian border, after capturing this year all of one city and parts of another.
Near Anbar’s capital Ramadi, parts of which are held by antigovernment fighters, a suicide bombing and a car bomb killed six people and wounded eight, officials said.
Elsewhere, a government air strike on the militant-held city of Tikrit killed at least seven people, residents said, while the defense ministry announced air raids on the northern city of Mosul.
The insurgents also clashed with security forces and progovernment tribal fighters in Al-Alam east of Tikrit, with militants killing the women’s affairs adviser to the provincial governor.
Iran’s supreme leader meanwhile accused the United States on Sunday of trying to retake control of Iraq by exploiting sectarian rivalries. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may want to block any US choice of a new prime minister after grumbling in Washington about Maliki.