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| Iraq confirms Syrian air strikes against Isis militants | Iraq confirms Syrian air strikes against Isis militants |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The prime minister of Iraq has confirmed to BBC News that Syria carried out air strikes on militants inside Iraqi territory this week. | The prime minister of Iraq has confirmed to BBC News that Syria carried out air strikes on militants inside Iraqi territory this week. |
| Nouri Maliki said Syrian fighter jets had bombed militant positions around the border town of Qaim on Tuesday. | Nouri Maliki said Syrian fighter jets had bombed militant positions around the border town of Qaim on Tuesday. |
| While Iraq did not ask for the raid, he added, it "welcomed" any such strike against the Islamist group Isis. | While Iraq did not ask for the raid, he added, it "welcomed" any such strike against the Islamist group Isis. |
| Isis and its Sunni Muslim allies have seized large parts of Iraq this month including the second city, Mosul. | Isis and its Sunni Muslim allies have seized large parts of Iraq this month including the second city, Mosul. |
| Analysis: Jim Muir, BBC News, Irbil, northern Iraq | |
| The Syrian air strikes show how the conflicts in Syria and Iraq are merging together, with Isis as a common factor. Once-rival fighters on the Syrian side of the border at Qaim have now pledged allegiance to Isis, giving it control of both sides. | |
| If US drones are not yet involved, they soon could be, illustrating how the threat posed by Isis is creating a convergence of interests between players who so far have been adversaries. | |
| That goes for Iran, too, which is deeply concerned about the sudden upheavals in Iraq. It has reinforced its positions along its own western border, where guards have been killed in an attack. There are reports that it has been heavily shelling border areas in the Kurdish mountains, where an Iranian Kurdish opposition group called Pejak has bases. | |
| The Iraqi government has struggled to hold back the militants' advance from the north and west and has also been receiving support from Iran, with whom its Shia Muslim majority has close links. | The Iraqi government has struggled to hold back the militants' advance from the north and west and has also been receiving support from Iran, with whom its Shia Muslim majority has close links. |
| The US, which also backs the government, has stressed that the militants can only be defeated by Iraq's own forces. | |
| Mr Maliki will seek to form a new government in an effort to maintain national unity when parliament assembles again next week in Baghdad. | |
| UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has arrived in Baghdad to meet political and community leaders. | |
| "As a friend of Iraq, the UK believes the urgent priority must be to form an inclusive government that can command the support of all Iraqi people and work to stop [Isis] in its tracks," he said. | |
| 'Russian planes' | |
| Speaking to the BBC, Mr Maliki said Iraq was buying Russian warplanes, which would arrive in a few days, as the US kept delaying the sale of F16 jets. | |
| Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the crisis with Mr Maliki by phone last Friday, the Kremlin reported on its website at the time. | |
| Mr Putin confirmed his "full support" for the government's efforts to rid Iraqi territory of "terrorists", it said, without giving details. | |
| In another development, reports say that a unit of al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, pledged allegiance to Isis in the Syrian town of Albu Kamal, near the Iraqi border. | |
| Until recently, the Nusra Front had been fighting in Syria against Isis, which it sees as harming its cause with its brutality and extremism. |