Thursday, August 14, 2014

Islamic State jihadists mass near town north of Baghdad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State militants are massing near the Iraqi town of Qara Tappa, 73 miles north of Baghdad, security sources and a local official said, in an apparent bid to broaden their front with Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

The Sunni militants have made a dramatic push through the north to a position near Arbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

The movement around Qara Tappa suggests they are getting more confident and seeking to grab more territory closer to the capital after stalling in that region.

"The Islamic State is massing its militants near Qara Tappa," said one of the security sources. "It seems they are going to broaden their front with the Kurdish fighters."

Islamic State has also been using tunnels built by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s to secretly move fighters, weapons and supplies from strongholds in western Iraq to towns just south of Baghdad.

The group, made up of Iraqis, other Arabs and foreign fighters has threatened to march on Baghdad, part of its ambition to redraw the map of the Middle East and impose its radical version of Islam.

U.S. SUPPORT

The governor of Iraq's Sunni heartland Anbar Province said he has asked for and secured U.S. support in the battle against Islamic State militants because opponents of the group may not have the stamina for a long fight.

Ahmed Khalaf al-Dulaimi told Reuters his request, made in meetings with U.S. diplomats and a senior military officer, included air support against the militants who have a tight grip on large parts of Anbar and the north.

Dulaimi said the Americans had promised to help.

"Our first goal is the air support. Their technology capability will offer a lot of intelligence information and monitoring of the desert and many things which we are in need of," he said in a telephone interview.

"No date was decided but it will be very soon and there will be a presence for the Americans in the western area."

The was no immediate comment from U.S. officials.

SAS DEPLOYED

Britain has deployed SAS special forces in northern Iraq where thousands of civilians are trapped on a mountain by Sunni militant fighters, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Thursday.

Citing Britain's trade envoy to Iraq, Emma Nicholson, the paper said that officers from the Special Air Service (SAS), the army's special forces regiment, were working with U.S. troops to gather intelligence and had been in Iraq for about six weeks.

When asked about the newspaper report, a spokesman for Britain's Ministry of Defence said it did not comment on special forces operations.

Britain has sent military planes and helicopters to the region to help deliver humanitarian aid.

Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his summer holiday on Wednesday to say that Britain would be involved in any international plan to rescue refugees from the Yazidi religious minority.

The Yazidi have been forced into the Sinjar mountain range by the advance of Islamic State fighters into the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

The United States has said that a mission to rescue the refugees was far less likely than originally thought after an assessment team sent on Wednesday sound the humanitarian situation was not as grave as expected.