Shiite fighters parade as militants take Iraq border town

BAGHDAD — Shiite fighters paraded in Baghdad Saturday in a dramatic show of force aimed at Sunni militants who seized a Syrian border crossing, widening a western front in an offensive threatening to rip Iraq apart.

Meanwhile, Washington readied a new diplomatic bid to unite Iraq’s fractious leaders and repel insurgents whose lightning offensive has displaced hundreds of thousands, alarmed the world and put Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki under growing pressure domestically and overseas.

And in a sign the broad alliance of jihadists and anti-government elements behind the assault might be fracturing, internecine clashes killed 17 fighters in northern Iraq.

Iraqi security forces on Saturday announced they were holding their own in several areas north of Baghdad.

But officials said insurgents led by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized one of three official border crossings with Syria.

Militants took control of the area a day after 34 members of the security forces were killed in the border town, giving the fighters greater cross-border mobility into conflict-hit Syria.

The takeover of Al Qaim leaves just one of three official border crossings with Syria in the hands of the central government. The third is controlled by Kurdish forces.

ISIL already hold parts of the western province of Anbar, which abuts the Syrian border, after taking all of one city and parts of another earlier in the year.

It is unclear what impact the latest move will have on the overall offensive, as militants already have free reign along most of the 600-kilometre border, neither side of which is controlled by government forces.

Internecine clashes

ISIL aims to create an Islamic state that will incorporate both Iraq and Syria, where the group has become a major force in the rebellion against President Bashar Assad.

Elsewhere, 17 fighters were killed in clashes Friday evening between ISIL and the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandiyah Order (JRTN), another Sunni insurgent group, in militant-held territory in northern Kirkuk province.

The Sunni insurgents driving the offensive are made up of a broad alliance of other groups, such as loyalists of now-executed president Saddam Hussein.

Analysts say it is unclear if that grouping can hold together given its disparate ideologies.

The battle for Tal Afar had entered its seventh day, Maliki’s security spokesman said on Saturday, with government forces holding some neighbourhoods but not all of the strategic northern town.

He also said a number of security personnel had been killed and wounded in the days of fighting with militants, but declined to specify how many.

In Baghdad, thousands of fighters loyal to powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr paraded with their weapons in the Sadr City district, vowing to fight the offensive which was launched on June 9.

Rank upon rank of fighters, dressed mostly in camouflage but some wearing black, carried Kalashnikov assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, light machineguns and rocket launchers.

Some of the unit leaders carried Iraqi flags, while others held signs with messages including “We sacrifice for you, O Iraq”, “No, no to terrorism” and “No, no to America”.

Fighters interviewed by AFP stressed they were not against any specific religious sect, and that their aim was to defend the country.

Kerry’s diplomatic push

Similar parades were held in large southern cities including Basra, Najaf and Kut, all in the Shiite heartland.

The parades in Baghdad and clashes elsewhere came as US President Barack Obama dispatched Secretary of State John Kerry to Europe and the Middle East in a new push for unity among Iraq’s fractious political leadership.

While Kerry is expected to travel to Iraq itself, it is not known when he will do so.

Obama’s refusal so far to agree to Iraq’s appeal for air strikes on the ISIL-led militants has prompted Baghdad’s powerful Shiite neighbour Iran to claim Washington lacks the will to fight terror.

Meanwhile, Washington says Iran has sent a “small number” of operatives into its neighbour.

Obama told CNN on Friday: “There’s no amount of American fire power that’s going to be able to hold the country together.”

The president, who based his political career on ending the costly eight-year US intervention in Iraq, has insisted that Washington is not slipping back into the morass, but has offered up to 300 advisers and left open the possibility of “targeted and precise military action”.

Washington already has an aircraft carrier in the Gulf and is flying manned and unmanned surveillance flights over Iraq, while senior US officials say special forces being sent to advise Iraq could call in air strikes if necessary.

The US’ push for broader leadership came as Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, a revered cleric among Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority, called on people to band together against the insurgents before it was too late.

UN aid agencies said they were rushing supplies to Iraq to help more than one million people displaced by the latest violence and unrest earlier this year.