US will not consult Iran on military action in Iraq — Pentagon

The United States has no plans to consult Iran on any potential military action in Iraq, the Pentagon said Monday, but left the door open to diplomatic discussions on the crisis, Agence France-Presse reported.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said “there is absolutely no intention, no plan to coordinate military activities between the United States and Iran”.

US and Iranian diplomats might, however, address the situation in Iraq on the margins of negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear programme, which will take place this week in Vienna, Kirby told reporters, according to AFP.

“It’s possible on the sideline of those discussions, there could be discussions surrounding the situation in Iraq,” he said.

“It’s not without precedent that we speak about security issues with Iran. There were discussions about Afghanistan with Iran in the not too distant past,” said Kirby, an apparent reference to talks with Tehran prior to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

But he added: “There are no plans to consult Iran about military activities inside Iraq.”

Kirby said the United States has encouraged Iran and other neighbouring countries to “play a constructive role” and respect Iraq’s “territorial sovereignty”.

The Pentagon’s comments came after Secretary of State John Kerry triggered speculation about potential US-Iran military cooperation in an interview with Yahoo News.

“I wouldn’t rule out anything that would be constructive,” Kerry said when asked if the United States would cooperate militarily with its traditional foe Iran.

Kerry said time would tell what Iran would be ready to do on behalf of its allies in the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

“Let’s see what Iran might or might not be willing to do before we start making any pronouncements,” Kerry said.

The lightning advance of extremists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) across Iraq, including the capture of Mosul, has alarmed both Tehran and Washington.

Both governments, for their own reasons, oppose the rise of the Sunni jihadists and have a common interest in seeing the Baghdad government fend off the onslaught.

ISIL’s offensive has raised fears of a new sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in the country from which US forces withdrew in December 2011.

Meanwhile, ISIL fighters and allied Sunni tribesmen overran yet another town on Monday, Saqlawiya, west of Baghdad, where they captured six Humvees and two tanks, adding to an arsenal of US-provided armour they have seized from the disintegrating army, Reuters reported.

Eyewitnesses said Iraqi army helicopters were hovering over the town to try to provide cover for retreating troops.

“It was a crazy battle and dozens were killed from both sides. It is impossible to reach the town and evacuate the bodies,” said a medical source at a hospital in the nearby city of Falluja, largely held by insurgents since early this year.

Overnight, the fighters captured the mainly ethnic Turkmen city of Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq after heavy fighting on Sunday, solidifying their grip on the north.

“Severe fighting took place, and many people were killed. Shiite families have fled to the west and Sunni families have fled to the east,” said a city official.

Tal Afar is a short drive west from Mosul, the north’s main city, which ISIL seized last week at the start of its push. Fighters then swept through towns and cities on the Tigris before halting about an hour’s drive north of Baghdad.

Iraq’s army is holding out in Samarra, a Tigris city that is home to a Shiite shrine. A convoy travelling to reinforce the troops there was ambushed late on Sunday by Sunni fighters near the town of Ishaqi. Fighting continued through Monday morning, according to Reuters.

An Iraqi army spokesman in Baghdad reported fighting also to the south of Baghdad. He said 56 of the enemy had been killed over the previous 24 hours in various engagements.

ISIL fighters’ sweep through the Tigris valley north of Baghdad included Saddam’s hometown Tikrit, where they captured and apparently massacred troops stationed at Speicher air base, once one of the main US troop headquarters.

A series of pictures distributed on a purported ISIL Twitter account appeared to show gunmen from the Islamist group shooting dozens of men, unarmed and lying prone. Captions said they were army deserters captured as they tried to flee fighting. They were shown being transported in the backs of trucks, led to an open field, laid down in rows and shot by several masked gunmen. In several pictures, the black ISIL flag can be seen.

“This is the fate of the Shiites which Nouri brought to fight the Sunnis,” a caption to one of the pictures reads.

ISIL said it executed 1,700 soldiers out of 2,500 it had captured in Tikrit. Although those numbers appear exaggerated, the total could still be in the hundreds. A former local official in Tikrit told Reuters ISIL had captured 450-500 troops at Speicher and another 100 elsewhere in Tikrit. Some 200 troops were still believed to be holding out in Speicher.

Washington has urged Maliki to reach out to Sunnis to create unity, but the prime minister has spoken more of retaliation than reconciliation. He was shown on television on Monday meeting military chiefs, vowing to crush the uprising and root out politicians and officers he blamed for betraying Mosul.

“We will work on purging Iraq of the traitors, politicians and those military men who were carrying out their orders,” he said. “Betrayal and treason have made us more determined and strong, and I swear a sea of men will march to put an end to this black page in Iraq’s history.”

Shiites, who form the majority in Iraq based mainly in the south, have rallied to defend the country, turning out in their thousands to join militia and the security forces after a mobilisation call by the top Shiite cleric, Ali Al Sistani.

A leading Sunni cleric, Rifa Al Rifaie, said Sistani’s call amounted to sectarianism. Sistani is known as a moderate who never called his followers to arms during the US occupation.

“Sistani, that lion, where was he when the Americans occupied Iraq?” Rifaie said. He gave a list of Sunni grievances: “We have been treated unjustly, we have been attacked, our blood had been shed and our women have been raped.”

ISIL emerged after Saddam’s fall, fought against the US occupation as Al Qaeda’s Iraq branch and broke away from Al Qaeda after joining the civil war in Syria. It says the movement founded by Osama Bin Laden is no longer radical enough.

Its cause has also been taken up by many other Sunni groups who share its view that Maliki’s government oppresses them.