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Iraq insurgent advance slows, U.S. sends carrier to Gulf

14 June 2014 19:56 (UTC +04:00)

As Iraqi officials spoke of wresting back the initiative against Sunni militants, neighbouring Shi'ite Iran held out the prospect of working with its longtime U.S. arch-enemy to help restore security in Iraq.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday he was reviewing military options, short of sending combat troops, to combat the insurgency. The United States ordered an aircraft carrier moved into the Gulf on Saturday, readying it in case Washington decides to pursue a military option after insurgents overran towns and territories in the north and advanced on Baghdad.

Thousands of people responded to a call by Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric to take up arms and defend the country against the insurgency, led by the Sunni militant Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

In a visit to the city of Samarra, 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.

The militant gains have alarmed both Maliki's Shi'ite supporters in Iran and the United States, which helped bring him to power after invading the country and toppling former Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Oil prices have jumped over fears of ISIL disrupting exports from OPEC member Iraq.

But 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 Shi'ite militia.

"We have regained the initiative and will not stop at liberating Mosul from ISIL terrorists, but all other parts," said Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the Iraqi military's commander-in-chief, pointing out areas the army had retaken on a map with a laser pen.

Militants in control of Tikrit, 45km (27 miles) north of Samarra, planted landmines and roadside bombs at the city's entrances, apparently anticipating a counter-attack 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.