By Loveday
Morris August 10 at 9:55 PM / Washington Post / http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-air-support-helps-kurdish-forces-expel-islamic-state-fighters-from-two-iraqi-towns/2014/08/10/6c737b50-2094-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html
In actions
that had all the markings of a political coup, Maliki gave a defiant late-night
speech in Baghdad
saying he would lodge a legal case against the country’s president, who has
resisted naming him as the candidate for another term as prime minister.
Tanks
rumbled onto major bridges and roads in the capital as security forces were put
on high alert, with militiamen also patrolling Shiite neighborhoods. The
special forces teams surrounding the Green Zone were taking orders directly
from the prime minister, security officials said.
Maliki’s
critics blame him for overseeing the de facto fragmentation of the country,
with extremists from the Sunni-dominated Islamic State marauding through
territory in the north and west and threatening Baghdad . They say Maliki, a Shiite, has
persecuted and alienated members of the Sunni minority, driving them into the
arms of radical groups.
The United States began airstrikes in northern Iraq
on Friday as the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State threatened previously stable
Kurdish territory, sending thousands of minority Christians and Yazidis fleeing
for their lives.
But
President Obama has established limited goals in the air operation, linking
further assistance to the formation of a new government in Baghdad that is more inclusive of the
country’s Sunnis.
The U.S.
government indicated Sunday evening that it had broken with Maliki. State
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement that “the United States
fully supports President Fuad Masum in his role as guarantor of the Iraqi
Constitution. We reaffirm our support for a process to select a Prime Minister
who can represent the aspirations of the Iraqi people by building a national
consensus and governing in an inclusive manner. We reject any effort to achieve
outcomes through coercion or manipulation of the constitutional or judicial
process.”
The latest
crisis came on a day when Kurdish forces expelled Islamic State extremists from
two northern Iraqi towns, in the first signs of a turnaround for the embattled
Kurds after a week of stunning losses to the militants. Their success came in
the wake of U.S.
airstrikes on the towns.
But the
political standoff raised the prospect of deeper turmoil and potentially new
violence in Iraq , where
Shiite militias that had battled U.S. troops during the war have
reestablished themselves in recent months.
Maliki’s
political rivals, the country’s religious authorities and even parts of his
political bloc have tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to step aside. But
over his eight years in office, the prime minister has consolidated enormous
power in his hands. He is commander in chief of the armed forces, and he holds
the Defense and Interior ministry portfolios.
The prime
minister’s political bloc won the largest share of seats in April’s
parliamentary elections, but not a majority. In his speech, he charged that Iraq ’s
president, Fouad Massoum, had violated the constitution by not asking Maliki’s
political bloc to put forward its candidate before a deadline last week.
“This act
represented a coup against the constitution and the constitutional process,”
Maliki said. Violation of the constitution could have serious and dangerous
consequences, he said, taking the political process into a “dark tunnel.”
Special
forces also surrounded the presidential palace Sunday, in what appeared to be
an act of intimidation.
A boost for the Kurds
Maliki’s
surprise move came at the end of a day that had offered some hope for parts of
the country besieged by Islamic State warriors.
For the
third day, U.S. jets and
drones swooped over the militants, launching five strikes near Irbil ,
the Kurdish capital, that damaged and destroyed the group’s vehicles and a
mortar position, according to the U.S. military.
The
airstrikes have given a morale boost to beleaguered Kurdish forces in the
semi-autonomous north. They have been battling Islamic State militants for two
months with outdated weapons, limited ammunition and no salaries. The Kurds’
losses in recent days have included the strategically important Mosul Dam and
ancient settlements inhabited by Christians and other minorities.
Still, the
region’s president, Massoud Barzani, warned Sunday that the militants’
firepower and determination should not be underestimated.
“We are not
only fighting a terrorist group, we are fighting a terrorist state,” he said.
“We would never ask our friends to send their sons to fight on our behalf; this
is our war. What we are asking our friends to do is to provide support and to
cooperate with us in providing the necessary weapons.”
The U.S. government relocated a “limited number” of
staff members from its consulate in Irbil to the
southern Iraqi city of Basra and to the
Jordanian capital, Amman ,
the State Department said Sunday.
The move
underscored the deterioration in the security situation in Irbil
since two months ago, when the United States
relocated staffers from its embassy in Baghdad
to the north.
The Obama
administration has said the airstrikes have a limited mission: to protect U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in Irbil , to prevent the
massacre of religious minorities, and to safeguard critical infrastructure. On
Sunday, thousands of Yazidis, members of a tiny religious sect, fled a barren
mountain where they had been trapped for a week, surrounded by the extremist
fighters. Some Yazidis said the American airstrikes had helped their escape.
The Kurds’
reconquest of the two northern towns, Makhmour and Gweir, about 30 miles southwest of Irbil , came two days
after the towns were targeted by American airstrikes.
Rudaw, a
Kurdish television channel, showed live footage Sunday of security forces
advancing in Makhmour, where the Kurds had exchanged fire with the extremists a
day earlier. The Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, crowded around a
government building in the town, where the region’s flag was raised once more.
The
oil-rich district of Makhmour was a valuable target for the militants, who have
been pressing to seize resources to fund their self-proclaimed Islamist state.
“It’s
thanks to the [American] strikes that we have been able to move forward,” said
Mahmood Haji, an official in the Kurdish Interior Ministry. The Kurdish
advances help shore up the first lines of defense for Irbil , he said.
Help for stranded sect
An
international effort to aid the Yazidis stranded on Mount Sinjar
in the country’s northwest picked up steam Sunday. French Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius visited Baghdad and Irbil to oversee the
delivery of aid. Britain ’s
air force dropped tents and water filters overnight Saturday, joining the United States
in parachuting in supplies.
The U.S. military
conducted a fourth airdrop of food and water for thousands of Iraqis on Sunday
night, U.S. Central Command said in a news release.
Followers
of a secretive sect with roots in Zoroastrianism, the minority is particularly
vulnerable to the Sunni extremists, who have forced Yazidis to convert or have
executed them.
Thousands
fled Sinjar when the Islamic State swept into the town a week ago, and many
have had little food or water since then.
Also
Sunday, several prominent Republican lawmakers called for an escalation in U.S. involvement in Iraq .
“We need to
go on offense,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“There is no force within the Mideast that can neutralize or contain or destroy
ISIS without at least American air power.” The
Islamic State was formerly called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria , or ISIS .
But
Maliki’s latest moves made it seem unlikely that the Obama administration would
change course anytime soon.
Maliki has
made enemies across the political spectrum — even Iraq ’s Shiite leaders have turned
against him. The country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has
also repeatedly called for a new, inclusive government, hinting that
politicians should not “cling to their positions.”
“Sistani is
deeply concerned about the situation,” said Sheik Haider al Taie, one of the
cleric’s representatives.
“There are
self-serving people who are trying to get rid of him,” said Kadhim al-Sayadi, a
parliamentarian close to the president. He said security forces had been called
out to prevent people from “taking advantage” of the situation.
Mustafa
Salim in Baghdad; Liz Sly in Fishkhabour, Iraq; Anne Gearan in Sydney; and
Hunter Schwarz in Washington contributed to this report.
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