Baghdad: Iranian security officials said their forces have joined the battle on Baghdad’s side and the US is contemplating airstrikes. Meanwhile, Iraq has girded its capital from advancing insurgents.
To complicate matters for Iraq, the Kurdish forces have taken control of a provincial capital in the oil-rich north on Thursday and Sunni militants threatened to march on two cities revered by Shiite Muslims and the capital. Ethnic Kurds make up 20% of Iraq’s 32.5 million people. The deteriorating situation in Iraq—a key global oil supplier— send oil prices sharply higher.
Faced with the threat of Sunni extremists eclipsing the power of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated rulers, Shiite Iran sprang into action to aid its besieged Arab ally. It deployed Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, Iranian security officials said. At least three battalions of the Quds Forces, the overseas branch of the Guards, were dispatched, the security officials said.
They offered guerrilla-warfare advice and tactics and helped to reclaim most of the city of Tikrit on Thursday, the security officials said. Two units, dispatched from Iran’s western border provinces on Wednesday, were tasked with protecting Baghdad and the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, they said.
One thing is becoming clear that with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government proving incapable of containing the widening strife, Iraq’s mosaic of ethnic and religious groups has become combustible, as each is forced to take steps to defend its security.
US-armed and trained Iraqi security forces put up almost no fight throughout the militants’ rout as they captured major cities, witnesses said. The Sunni insurgents’ lightning offensive in the past three days has sparked the biggest crisis Iraq has faced since it plunged into sectarian violence following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
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