Gauthier
06-12-2014, 05:57 PM
By ALI A. NABHAN in Baghdad and MATT BRADLEY in Cairo CONNECT
June 11, 2014
Islamist militants swept out of northern Iraq Wednesday to seize their second city in two days, threatening Baghdad and pushing the country's besieged government to signal it would allow U.S. airstrikes to beat back the advance.
An alarmed Iraqi government also asked the U.S. to accelerate delivery of pledged military support, particularly Apache helicopters, F-16 fighters and surveillance equipment, to help push back fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an al Qaeda offshoot known as ISIS. The U.S. said it has been expediting shipments of military hardware to the Iraqis all year.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said his country faces a "mortal threat" from the ISIS insurgents.
Officials declined to say whether the U.S. would consider conducting airstrikes with drones or manned aircraft. The Obama administration is considering a number of options, according to a senior U.S. official who added that no decisions have been made.
Bernadette Meehan, a White House National Security Council spokeswoman, said the current focus of discussions with Iraq "is to build the capacity of the Iraqis to successfully confront and deal with the threat posed by [ISIS]."
ISIS overran Tikrit, the birthplace of former dictator Saddam Hussein, on Wednesday after capturing Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, a day earlier. The takeover of the city of 250,000 about 85 miles north of Baghdad was confirmed by Ali Al Hamdani, a senior official in Salah Al Din province, where the city is located. The insurgents freed hundreds of prisoners from the city's jails.
By Wednesday evening, there were reports of fighting between Iraqi security forces and Islamists on the outskirts of Samarra, a city further south and less than 80 miles north of the capital.
The conquests over the past two days were by far the most significant by the Sunni group, which has also taken control of parts of neighboring Syria during the civil war there.
ISIS aims to set up a state in a continuous stretch of territory from Sunni-dominated Anbar province in Iraq westward to Raqqa province in northeast Syria.
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/4430/6h1l1.jpg (http://img842.imageshack.us/i/6h1l1.jpg/)
Full article: http://online.wsj.com/articles/iraqi-leaders-urged-to-unite-to-push-insurgents-out-of-mosul-1402488724?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303642704579617882507905194.html
June 11, 2014
Islamist militants swept out of northern Iraq Wednesday to seize their second city in two days, threatening Baghdad and pushing the country's besieged government to signal it would allow U.S. airstrikes to beat back the advance.
An alarmed Iraqi government also asked the U.S. to accelerate delivery of pledged military support, particularly Apache helicopters, F-16 fighters and surveillance equipment, to help push back fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an al Qaeda offshoot known as ISIS. The U.S. said it has been expediting shipments of military hardware to the Iraqis all year.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said his country faces a "mortal threat" from the ISIS insurgents.
Officials declined to say whether the U.S. would consider conducting airstrikes with drones or manned aircraft. The Obama administration is considering a number of options, according to a senior U.S. official who added that no decisions have been made.
Bernadette Meehan, a White House National Security Council spokeswoman, said the current focus of discussions with Iraq "is to build the capacity of the Iraqis to successfully confront and deal with the threat posed by [ISIS]."
ISIS overran Tikrit, the birthplace of former dictator Saddam Hussein, on Wednesday after capturing Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, a day earlier. The takeover of the city of 250,000 about 85 miles north of Baghdad was confirmed by Ali Al Hamdani, a senior official in Salah Al Din province, where the city is located. The insurgents freed hundreds of prisoners from the city's jails.
By Wednesday evening, there were reports of fighting between Iraqi security forces and Islamists on the outskirts of Samarra, a city further south and less than 80 miles north of the capital.
The conquests over the past two days were by far the most significant by the Sunni group, which has also taken control of parts of neighboring Syria during the civil war there.
ISIS aims to set up a state in a continuous stretch of territory from Sunni-dominated Anbar province in Iraq westward to Raqqa province in northeast Syria.
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/4430/6h1l1.jpg (http://img842.imageshack.us/i/6h1l1.jpg/)
Full article: http://online.wsj.com/articles/iraqi-leaders-urged-to-unite-to-push-insurgents-out-of-mosul-1402488724?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303642704579617882507905194.html