Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was battling to keep his job on Monday, deploying forces across Baghdad as some parliamentary allies sought a replacement and the United States warned him not to obstruct efforts to form a new government.
>> Major airlines avoid Iraqi skies after US airstrikesWashington seems to be losing patience with Maliki, who has placed Shi’ite political loyalists in key positions in the army and military and drawn comparisons with ousted Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, the man he plotted against from exile for years.
A State Department spokeswoman reaffirmed Washington’s support for a “process to select a prime minister who can represent the aspirations of the Iraqi people by building a national consensus and governing in an inclusive manner”.
“We reject any effort to achieve outcomes through coercion or manipulation of the constitutional or judicial process,” she said in a statement, adding that the United States “fully supports” Masoum as guarantor of Iraq’s constitution.
U.S. President Barack Obama has urged Iraqi politicians to form a more inclusive government that can counter the growing threat from the Islamic State.
But Maliki, an unknown when he first took office in 2006 with help from the U.S. occupation administration, is digging in. The Interior Ministry told police to be on high alert in connection with Maliki’s speech, a police official told Reuters.
As residents saw police with armoured vehicles block roads and set up checkpoints around Baghdad early on Monday, another police source said there was an “unprecedented deployment” of army commandos and special forces to secure the capital.
MORE U.S. AIR STRIKES
The Islamic State has capitalised on the political deadlock and sectarian tensions, making fresh gains after arriving in the north of the country in June from Syria.
The group, which sees Iraq’s majority Shi’ites as infidels who deserve to be killed, has ruthlessly moved through one town after another, using tanks and heavy weapons it seized from soldiers who have fled in their thousands.
On Monday, police said the fighters had seized the town of Jalawla, 115 km (70 miles) northeast of Baghdad, after driving out the forces of the autonomous Kurdish regional government.
On Sunday, a government minister said Islamic State militants had killed hundreds of minority Yazidis, burying some alive and taking women as slaves.
Human rights minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani accused the Sunni Muslim militants – who have ordered the community they regard as “devil worshippers” to convert to Islam or die – of celebrating what he called a “a vicious atrocity”.
No independent confirmation was available of the killings. Thousands of Yazidis have taken refuge in the past week on the arid heights of Mount Sinjar, close to the Syrian border.
The bloodshed could increase pressure on Western powers to do more to help tens of thousands of people, including many from religious and ethnic minorities, who have fled the Islamic State’s offensive. Military action and aid are on the agenda.
The U.S. Central Command said drones and jet aircraft had hit Islamic State armed trucks and mortar positions on Sunday near Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region.
That marked a third successive day of U.S. air strikes, and Central Command said they were aimed at protecting Kurdish peshmerga forces as they face off against the militants near Arbil, the site of a U.S. consulate and a U.S.-Iraqi joint military operations centre.
WOMEN HELD AS SLAVES
Consolidating a territorial grip that includes tracts of Syrian desert and stretches toward Baghdad, the Islamic State’s local and foreign fighters have swept into areas where non-Sunni groups live. While they persecute non-believers in their path, that does not seem to be the main motive for their latest push.
The group wants to establish religious rule in a caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq and has tapped into widespread anger among Iraq’s Sunnis at a democratic system dominated by the Shi’ite Muslim majority following the U.S. invasion of 2003.
Iraqis have slipped back into sectarian bloodshed not seen since 2006-2007. Nearly every day police report kidnappings, bombings and execution-style killings. The Sunni militants routed Kurds in their latest advance with tanks, artillery, mortars and vehicles seized from fleeing Iraqi troops.
The militants are now just 30 minutes’ drive from Arbil. In their latest sweep through the north, the Sunni insurgents seized a fifth oil field, several more villages and the biggest dam in Iraq – which could let them flood cities or cut off water and power supplies – hoisting their black flags along the way.
After spending more than $2 trillion on its war in Iraq and losing thousands of soldiers, the United States must now find ways to tackle a group that is even more hardline than al-Qaeda and has threatened to march on Baghdad.
Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Đăng ký: VietNam News