The Kurdish security forces, known as Peshmerga, took control of the crossing point of Rabia with Syria since Tuesday, after the Iraqi security source withdrew from many parts of Nineveh province, a Kurdish security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
However, the other side of the border crossing point, al- Yaroubiyah, has been under the control of Syrian opposition groups, the source said.
Separately, fierce battles continued since late Saturday around the city of Tal Afar in Nineveh province, some 70 km west of the provincial capital Mosul, between Iraqi security forces, backed by groups of volunteers, and militant groups who tried to seize the city, according to a local police source.
The militants fired mortar rounds, leaving at least five people killed and some 35 others wounded, the source said, without giving further details.
The Sunni-majority province of Nineveh and its capital Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, has long been a stronghold for insurgent groups, including al-Qaida militants, since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Large parts of the province are now in the hands of militant groups since last week after bloody clashes with Iraqi security forces. The militant groups later seized swathes of territory after the Iraqi security forces abolishing from their posts.
[cntv.cn]
15/6/14
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Ο Ομπάμα δεν στέλνει στρατό στο Ιράκ: «Δεν μπορούμε να το κάνουμε γι' αυτούς»
Die Kurden machen sich das Chaos im Irak zunutze...
The United Nations warned that the number of people killed after Sunni Islamist militants overran the Iraqi city of Mosul earlier this week may run into the hundreds, Reuters reported U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville as saying on Friday....
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Iraq said Sunday it had "regained the initiative" against militants who have seized vast swathes of territory, as former UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi blamed the crisis on global neglect toward Syria's civil war....
ReplyDeleteWashington responded to the sweeping unrest by deploying an aircraft carrier to the Gulf, but Iran has warned against foreign military intervention in its Shiite neighbor, voicing confidence that Baghdad is able to repel the onslaught.
The militants, spearheaded by the powerful Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have overrun all of one province and chunks of three more.
Iraqi commanders have said their forces are now starting to push the militants back, and that soldiers had recaptured two towns north of Baghdad, with a spokesman announcing that Iraqi security personnel had killed 279 "terrorists" in the past 24 hours.
Baghdad's forces will be joined by a flood of volunteers, urged on by a call to arms from top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
For 24 hours, Syria's army has been pounding major bases of the ISIS in coordination with the Baghdad government, a monitor said Sunday.
The strikes against ISIS - which has spearheaded a week-long jihadist offensive in Iraq - have been more intense than ever, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"The regime air force has been pounding ISIS's bases, including those in the northern province of Raqa and Hasakeh in the northeast," which borders Iraq, said the Britain-based group.
US President Barack Obama said he was "looking at all the options" to halt the offensive that has brought the militants within 80 kilometers of Baghdad's city limits, but ruled out any return of US troops to combat in Iraq.
Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham meanwhile warned on Sunday that "any foreign military intervention in Iraq" would only complicate the crisis.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said a day earlier that Iran had not been asked for help by its neighbor.
But in surprise comments Rouhani added that Iran may "think about" cooperating with its arch-foe the US to fight the militants in Iraq.
Iraqi troops found the burned bodies of 12 policemen as they recaptured the town of Ishaqi in Salaheddin province from the insurgents, a police colonel and a doctor said.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said US assistance to Iraq would only work if Iraqi leaders overcame deep divisions, the State Department said on Saturday.
Kerry spoke with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in a call on Saturday, the State Department said in a statement.
Kerry also urged Iraq to quickly ratify the results of its April 30 parliamentary elections and form a government without the long period of wrangling that followed the 2010 elections.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/865830.shtml
15/6/14
Former UN and Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said Sunday the unrest sweeping Iraq stemmed from the international community's negligence of the conflict in neighboring Syria....
ReplyDelete"It is a well known rule: a conflict of this kind (in Syria) cannot stay confined within the borders of one country," Brahimi told Agence France Presse.
The international community "unfortunately neglected the Syrian problem and did not help to resolve it. This is the result," said Brahimi, who resigned from his post as UN-Arab League representative to Syria in May.
He stressed that he had told the UN Security Council in November that the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' was "ten times more active in Iraq than in Syria".
Brahimi added that Iran, a key ally of the government in Baghdad, had "its place" in the region, pointing to the "de facto cooperation between the United States and Iran" on the crisis in Iraq.
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=156517&cid=56&fromval=1
15/6/14