Iraq crisis: 279 Islamic militants killed in 24 hours, John Kerry says US help will only work if Iraqi leaders unite

Updated

Iraqi forces have killed 279 militants in 24 hours, as they push back against a major militant offensive, a security spokesman has said.

Prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's security spokesman, Lieutenant General Qassem Atta, made the announcement during a televised news conference.

The defensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) comes after US secretary of state John Kerry said US assistance to repel the militant advance, would only work if Iraqi leaders overcame deep divisions.

Mr Kerry spoke with Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari about providing assistance in fighting the ISIS jihadists, who have gained control of several cities in the past week, the state department said in a statement.

"He emphasised to the foreign minister that assistance from the United States would only be successful if Iraqi leaders were willing to put aside differences and implement a coordinated and effective approach to forge the national unity necessary to move the country forward and confront the threat of [ISIS]," the statement said.

Mr Kerry also urged Iraq to quickly ratify the results of recent elections and to form a new government.

In the crucial belt of territory north and north-east of Baghdad where the predominantly Sunni militants have penetrated within striking distance of the capital, government forces are pushing back.

With Shiite militias fighting alongside security forces against the militants, the struggle has taken on a strong sectarian dimension.

Last week, the Iraqi parliament failed to convene for a vote on declaring a state of emergency due to a boycott by most Sunni and Kurdish politicians.

The Iraqi foreign ministry said in a statement that Mr Kerry pledged $12 million in assistance and stressed that Baghdad should assure its neighbours the war is not sectarian, but against the insurgents.

US president Barack Obama said on Friday he was reviewing military options, short of sending troops, to combat the insurgency.

The US moved an aircraft carrier into the Gulf on Saturday, readying it in case Washington decides to pursue a military option after insurgents overran areas in the north and advanced on Baghdad.

Nine killed in Baghdad suicide blast

Concerns were heightened after a bombing in central Baghdad killed nine people and wounded 23 on Sunday, security and medical officials said.

An interior ministry official said the attack was a roadside bomb, while a police colonel said the initial blast was followed by a suicide bombing.

Medical staff waited near stretchers on the sidewalk in front of one hospital in central Baghdad, on which casualties from the blast were placed and wheeled inside, an AFP journalist said.

The street was closed to all traffic but ambulances.

The attack comes after the offensive by ISIS seemed to slow on Saturday following days of lightning advances as government forces regained some territory in counterattacks, easing pressure on the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

Thousands of people responded to a call by Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric to take up arms and defend the country against the insurgency.

Map: Iraqi and Syrian Towns and Cities seized by ISIS: The Long War Journal

Iraq's army defends areas surrounding capital

On Sunday, mortar rounds smashed into a central Iraq recruitment centre for civilians volunteering to fight against ISIS, killing six people, police and a doctor said.

Three soldiers were among the dead in the attack in the town of Khales, north of the Diyala provincial capital Baquba, the sources said.

Earlier, militants in control of Tikrit, 45 kilometres north of Samarra, planted landmines and roadside bombs at the city's entrances, apparently anticipating a counterattack by government forces.

Residents said the militants deployed across the city and moved anti-aircraft guns and heavy artillery into position.

Families began to flee north in the direction of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city which Kurdish forces occupied on Thursday after the Iraqi army fled.

In the north-eastern province of Diyala, at least seven members of the Kurdish security forces were killed in an airstrike, police said.

The secretary general of the Kurdish security forces said, however, that only two people had died near the town of Jalawla in what he described as shelling, and that it was not yet clear whether Iraqi forces or militants were responsible.

The incident and divergent accounts show the potential for security in Iraq to deteriorate further, given the deployment of several heavily armed factions and shifting areas of control.

Militants also attacked the convoy of the custodian of the holy shrine in Samarra, while he was en route to Baghdad.

Sheikh Haider al-Yaqoobi was not harmed, but 10 of his guards were killed, a source in Samarra hospital said.

In a visit to Samarra on Friday, prime minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to rout the insurgents, whose onslaught has put the future of Iraq as a unitary state in question and raised the spectre of sectarian conflict.

"Samarra will not be the last line of defence, but a gathering point and launchpad," Mr Maliki said.

Defences in the city were boosted in anticipation of militants closing in on the nearby capital of Baghdad.

Having encountered little resistance in majority Sunni areas, the militants have now come up against the army, which clawed back some towns and territory around Samarra on Saturday with the help of Shiite militia.

"We have regained the initiative and will not stop at liberating Mosul from [ISIS] terrorists, but all other parts [of Iraq]," Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the Iraqi military's commander-in-chief, said.

Security sources said Iraqi troops attacked an ISIS formation in the town of al-Mutasim, 22 kilometres south-east of Samarra, driving militants out into the surrounding desert on Saturday.

The army also reasserted control over the small town of Ishaqi, south-east of Samarra, to secure a road that links the city to Baghdad and the cities of Tikrit and Mosul further north.

Troops backed by the Shiite Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia helped retake the town of Muqdadiya north-east of Baghdad, and ISIS was dislodged from Dhuluiya after three hours of fighting with tribesmen, local police and residents, a tribal leader said.

In Udhaim, 90 kilometres north of Baghdad, the Asaib militia and police fought militants who earlier occupied the local municipal building, an official said, and they directed mortar fire at the government protection force of the Baiji oil refinery, Iraq's largest.

ISIS jihadists aim to revive a caliphate that would span a fragmenting Iraq and Syria, redrawing borders set by European colonial powers a century ago and menacing neighbours like Iran and Turkey.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has urged any Australians in Iraq to leave the country immediately while the airport in Baghdad remains open.

ABC/wires

Topics: terrorism, world-politics, government-and-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, iraq, united-states

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