US defense secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered an aircraft carrier moved into the Gulf today, readying it in case Washington decides to pursue a military option after insurgents overwhelmed a string of Iraqi cities this week and threatened Baghdad.
"The order will provide the commander-in-chief additional flexibility should military options be required to protect American lives, citizens and interests in Iraq, " the Pentagon said in a statement.
The carrier USS George H.W. Bush, moving from the North Arabian Sea, will be accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun, the statement said. It added the ships were expected to complete their transit into the Gulf later on Saturday.
In Washington yesterday, US president Barack Obama said he was reviewing military options, short of sending combat troops, to help Iraq repel the insurgency but warned any US action must be accompanied by an Iraqi government effort to bridge divisions between Shia and Sunni communities.
Volunteers
Hundreds of young Iraqi men have streamed into volunteer centres across Baghdad, answering a call by the country’s senior Shia cleric to join the fight against Sunni militants advancing in the north.
They were responding to a call by grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for Iraqis to defend their country against theIslamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis), which made rapid advances this week.
Volunteers from across Baghdad were ferried in buses to a base in the eastern part of the capital for training. In some centres, dozens of them climbed on to the back of army trucks, chanting Shia slogans and hoisting assault rifles.
The massive response to the call to arms comes as sectarian tensions threaten to push the country back towards civil war in the worst crisis since US forces withdrew at the end of 2011.
Fighters from Isis — an al-Qaeda splinter group, drawing support from former Saddam Hussein-era figures and other disaffected Sunnis — have made dramatic gains in the Sunni heartland north of Baghdad after overrunning Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul on Tuesday.
Soldiers and policemen have melted away in the face of the lightning advance, and thousands have fled to the self-ruled Kurdish region in northern Iraq.
Today, insurgents seized the small town of Adeim in Diyala province, 100 km north of Baghdad, after Iraqi security forces pulled out, said the head of the municipal council, Mohammed Dhifan.
Jawad al-Bolani, a former cabinet minister close to prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, said a military offensive was under way to drive the insurgents from Tikrit, Saddam’s home town north of Baghdad, although fighting in the area could not be confirmed.
Cooperation
Iran could contemplate cooperating with its old adversary the United States on restoring security to Iraq if it saw Washington confronting "terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere", Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said today.
Mr Rouhani, a pragmatist who has presided over a thaw in Iran’s relations with the West, also said Tehran was unlikely to send forces to Iraq but stood ready to provide help within the framework of international law. Baghdad has not requested such assistance, he added.
Shia Muslim Iran has been alarmed by the seizure this week of several major northern Iraqi towns by Sunni Islamist insurgent forces and their sweep southward to within an hour’s drive of Baghdad, and not far from the Iranian border.
“We all should practically and verbally confront terrorist groups,” Mr Rouhani told a news conference broadcast live on state television.
Asked if Tehran would work with Washington in tackling the advances by Sunni insurgents in Iraq, he replied: “We can think about it if we see America starts confronting the terrorist groups in Iraq or elsewhere.”
Fighters of Isis are bent on recreating a mediaeval caliphate spanning territory they have carved out in fragmenting Iraq and Syria, where it has exploited a power vacuum in the midst of civil war.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters earlier this week that Tehran, which has strong leverage in Shia-majority Iraq, may be ready to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back against the jihadist Isis rebels.
The official said the idea of cooperating with the Americans was being discussed within the Tehran leadership. For now, according to Iranian media, Iran will send advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to boost Baghdad.
Not sending troops
“Iran has never dispatched any forces to Iraq and it is very unlikely it will ever happen,” Mr Rouhani told today’s news conference.
Western diplomats suspect Iran has in the past sent some of its Revolutionary Guards, a hardline force that works in parallel with the army, to train and advise the Iraqi army or its militia allies.
Interior minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, quoted by Fars news agency, said: “Supporting the Iraqi government and nation doe not mean sending troops to Iraq. It means condemning terrorist acts and closing and safeguarding our joint borders.”
US officials said there were no contacts going on with Iran over the crisis in Iraq.
Mr Rouhani said he was not aware of any American plans for Iraq or whether Washington wanted to help Baghdad.
“If the Iraqi government and nation ask for our help, we will review it. So far there has not been such a request,” he added. “We are ready to help in the framework of international regulations and laws.”
Mr Rouhani said “terrorist groups” were getting financial and political backing and weaponry from some regional countries and some powerful Western states.
He named no countries, but was alluding in part to Sunni Gulf Arabs who Iran suspects has funnelled support to Isis.
“Where did Isis come from? Who is funding this terrorist group? We had warned everyone, including the West, about the danger of backing such a terrorist and reckless group.”
Gulf Arab governments deny any role in backing Isis, noting that the group has long battled Saudi Arabia’s allies among other Sunni rebel factions in Syria.
Saudi Arabia last month designated Isis a terrorist organisation, conveying its concern that young Saudis hardened by battle could come home to target the ruling Al Saud royal family - as happened after earlier wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Agencies