Iraqi province pleads for US to send in troops to help fight Isis
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Version 0 of 1. Leaders of Iraq’s Anbar district put out an urgent plea yesterday for immediate foreign and national intervention to prevent the immediate collapse of the province, as international attention focused on the town of Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border. Iraq’s Al-Sharqiyah TV said Anbar’s council had asked the government for US ground troops to help fight Islamic State (Isis) militants. Almost 2,000 local men have been killed or injured and tribesmen are threatening to stop fighting alongside the army unless the Americans are sent in, said Anbar council’s deputy head, Falleh al-Issawi. Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister, has ruled out the deployment of foreign troops. This weekend Isis was in control of 80% of Anbar. If it overruns remaining areas, its territory would reach from Raqqa in Syria to the outskirts of Baghdad, a distance of 285 miles. Local government officials in Anbar have been calling for US troops, saying they have 10 days of fighting power left. Iraqi army forces and tribesmen have been trying to stop the advance of Isis fighters, but are “up against the wall”, said US defence secretary Chuck Hagel, who warned on Friday that Anbar was in trouble. The US has made air strikes but has not stopped the advance of Isis and some Iraqi units are in danger of being cut off by the militants, with intelligence reports suggesting Isis reinforcements are on their way from Syria. Isis forces moved into Anbar in January, seizing Falluja, and in recent weeks have invaded towns and villages, besieged army posts and police stations and attacked troops in Ramadi, capital of the majority Sunni region. Two Iraqi Apache helicopters were shot down in the area last week and there were reports of a US drone being brought down by Isis yesterday. Separately, at least four people were killed and 15 injured when a suicide bomber attacked a market in the north Baghdad neighbourhood of al-Mashahda yesterday. |