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Isis capture two border crossings in Iraq Isis capture more Iraqi towns and border crossings
(35 minutes later)
Sunni militants in Iraq have captured two border crossings, one along the frontier with Jordan and the other with Syria, security and military officials said on Sunday. The fall dealt Iraq's embattled prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, a further blow and brought the war to the doorstep of Jordan, a key ally of the United States that borders Syria to its north. Jihadist fighters in Iraq seized three border crossings into Syria and Jordan and four nearby towns over the weekend, giving the Islamic state of Iraq in Syria (Isis) control over much of the country's western frontier and directly threatening the country's main power supply.
The blitz by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) in Iraq's vast western desert take the al-Qaida-breakaway group closer to its dream of carving out a purist Islamic state straddling both Syria and Iraq. Controlling the borders with Syria will also help it supply fellow fighters in Syria with weaponry looted from Iraqi warehouses, significantly reinforcing its ability to battle beleaguered Syrian government forces. Isis can now add large swathes of the Iraqi border to a 300km stretch of land it already controls along the Euphrates river, from Mosul in the north to Saddam Hussein's home town, Tikrit, which now gives the group a launching pad for potential attacks on strategic sites, including the lifeblood of Iraq's electricity generation, the Haditha dam. The gains also bring the crisis in Iraq to the doorstep of Jordan, a key ally of the United States.
If they succeed in their quest, they could further unsettle the already volatile Middle East and serve as a magnet for jihadists from across the world, much as al-Qaida attracted extremists in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The latest Isis offensive comes as Iraq's polarised political blocs face a week of intense lobbying to form an inclusive government that could unite the fracturing country.
The Iraqi officials said the Isis militants took over the Turaibil crossing with Jordan and the al-Walid crossing with Syria after government forces there pulled out. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, is due in Baghdad on Monday to meet with Iraqi lawmakers who had been bitterly divided before the jihadist surge, but have recently been reaching out to the US and Iran with increasing desperation.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media. The latest Isis offensive in western Anbar province has seen the group take four towns in recent days. Iraqi officials said the militants took over the Turaibil crossing with Jordan and the al-Walid crossing with Syria after government forces there pulled out. Al-Qaim, a restive town on the Syrian border, fell a day earlier.
The capture of the two crossings follows the fall on Friday and Saturday of the towns of Qaim, Rawah, Anah and Rutba. They are all in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, where the militants have since January controlled the city of Fallujah and parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi. The capture of the crossings follows the fall on Friday and Saturday of the towns of Rawah, Anah and Rutba. They are all in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, where the militants have since January controlled the city of Fallujah and parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi.
Rutba is on the main highway from Baghdad to the two border crossings and the capture has effectively cut the Iraqi capital's main land route to Jordan. It is a key artery for passengers and goods, but has been infrequently used in recent months because of deteriorating security. Rutba is on the main highway from Baghdad to the two border crossings and its capture has effectively cut the Iraqi capital's main land route to Jordan. It is a key artery for passengers and goods, although it has been infrequently used in recent months because of deteriorating security.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said he was opposed to any US intervention in the Iraqi crisis, accusing Washington of fomenting the unrest. His comments appeared to quash recent speculation that the two rivals might cooperate in addressing the shared threat posed by the Islamic extremists. Iraq's armed forces are outgunned and ill-prepared to deal with Isis, which has rapidly gathered momentum as it has surged across eastern Syria and back into Iraq, where the earliest incarnation of the group was born a decade ago.
The two crossings and the four towns are the first seized in Anbar since Isis and its allies overran the city of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi. Government troops have not been able to dislodge them in months of fighting. In Baghdad, the enmity between the political factions before the Isis attack meant that no consensus about a new government was likely to emerge for some time. However, Iraqi leaders now increasingly believe that Barack Obama is making US help conditional on them first finding a political solution that empowers disenfranchised groups, especially the country's Sunnis.
The capture of Rawah on the Euphrates river and the nearby town of Anah appeared to be part of a march toward a key dam in the city of Haditha, the destruction of which would damage the country's electrical grid and cause major flooding. The dam was built in 1986. Iran, which had eclipsed the US as Iraq's main power broker in recent years, on Sunday warned Washington against sending fighter jets into the region. The country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iraq needed no foreign intervention. Iran is heavily invested in the defence of Baghdad, with a prominent Iranian general, Qassem Suleimani, in the captial to coordinate the city's defences.
Iraqi military officials said more than 2,000 troops were quickly dispatched to the site of the Haditha dam to protect it. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media. Barack Obama warned in an interview on Sunday that Isis could spread conflict to neighbouring states and pose a "medium- and long-term threat" to the US. "We're going to have to be vigilant generally," he said. "Right now the problem with Isis is the fact that they're destabilising the country. That could spill over into some of our allies like Jordan.
Iraq's chief military spokesman, Lt Gen Qassim al-Moussawi, acknowledged the fall of the Anbar towns, saying government forces had made a tactical retreat and planned to retake them. He provided no further details. There has been no official comment on the capture of the Walid and Turaibil crossings. "But I think it's important for us to recognize that Isis is just one of a number of organisations that we have to stay focused on," he said, highlighting al-Qaida in Yemen and Boko Haram in north Africa among others.
Isis and allied militants have carved out a large fiefdom along the Iraqi-Syrian border. Al-Maliki's Shia-dominated government has struggled to push back against the militants, who have seized large swaths of the north since taking control of the second largest city of Mosul on 10 June. The president rebutted accusations that US inaction in Syria and Iraq had allowed the crisis to escalate. "What we can't do is think that we're just going to play whack-a-mole and send US troops occupying various countries wherever these organisations pop up. We're going to have to have a more focused, more targeted strategy and we're going to have to partner and train local law enforcement and military to do their jobs as well."
Iraq has requested US air strikes to help halt the advance, but President Barack Obama has yet to order any. He has instead called on Iraqi leaders to form a more representative government in a thinly veiled criticism of al-Maliki. Last week Obama said he would dispatch 300 special forces to help train Iraq's beleaguered army, but said they would not have a direct combat role.
Khamenei on Sunday said he was opposed to any US intervention in the country. The increasingly grim news from Iraq fuelled fresh recriminations in Washington on Sunday, with Republicans turning on the White House and each other.
"We strongly oppose the intervention of the US and others in the domestic affairs of Iraq," Khamenei, who has the final say over state policy, was quoted as saying by the IRNA state news agency, in his first reaction to the crisis. "The main dispute in Iraq is between those who want Iraq to join the US camp and those who seek an independent Iraq," said Khamenei. "The US aims to bring its own blind followers to power." Senator Rand Paul, who has resisted GOP calls for more intervention, said the US should steer clear of Syria and Iraq. "It's now a jihadist wonderland in Iraq precisely because we got overinvolved not because we had too little involvement," he told CNN. Why should Americans fight in Iraq if the Iraqi army was unwilling to do so, he said?
The US has long accused Iran of meddling in Iraq, including organising and backing Shia militias following the 2003 invasion. Paul, who may seek the party's presidential nomination in 2016, did not rule out helping Shia forces, but said the Sunni extremists advancing on Baghdad posed no immediate threat to the US. "I don't believe Isis is in the middle of a fight right now, thinking, 'Hmm, we should send intercontinental missiles to America?'"
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat chairwoman of the senate intelligence committee, defended Obama's "thoughtful" handling of the crisis, but admitted that the intelligence community failed to anticipate the Islamic extremists' breakthroughs.
"You either have to have the technical means up in the sky or in other places, or you have to have assets – people who will give you human intelligence," she told CNN. "This is a different culture. It's very difficult to pierce. The piercing intelligence-wise in terms of humans has been very difficult all along."
Iraq's existence as a state was imperilled, Feinstein went on. "Candidly, I don't know what the US contingency plan is for a complete takeover of Syria and Iraq," she said. "I do know what we're on the foot of is a major Sunni-Shiite war."