US may take military action before new Iraqi govt forms

BAGHDAD — The Sunni militants seizing territory in Iraq have become such a threat that the United States may not wait for Iraqi politicians to form a new government before taking military action, said US Secretary of State John Kerry.

“They do pose a threat,” he said, referring to the fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). “They cannot be given safe haven anywhere.”

“That’s why, again, I reiterate the President will not be hampered if he deems it necessary, if the formation is not complete,” he added on Monday, referring to Iraqi efforts to establish a new multi-sectarian government that bridges the deep divisions among the majority Shias and minority Sunnis, Kurds and other smaller groups.

Mr Kerry was in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region yesterday to urge its leaders not to withdraw from the political process in Baghdad after Kurdish forces took control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk and as the ISIS insurgency threatens to dismember the country.

Security forces yesterday also fought Sunni armed factions for control of the country’s biggest oil refinery at Baiji, north of Baghdad, and militants launched an attack on one of its largest air bases less than 100km from the capital.

More than 1,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in less than three weeks, the United Nations said yesterday, calling the figure very much a minimum. The figure includes unarmed government troops machine-gunned in mass graves by insurgents, as well as several reported incidents of prisoners killed in their cells by retreating government forces.

US officials, drawn increasingly back into a struggle that American President Barack Obama had sought to end, do not want to be seen as taking sides in a sectarian conflict.

They have stressed that the establishment of a cross-sectarian Iraqi government would make it easier for the US to provide military support for Iraq, including air strikes.

A day after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, Mr Kerry yesterday met Mr Ammar Hakim — a Shia cleric from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shia political party that is a rival of Mr Maliki’s State of Law political coalition — and Mr Osama Nujaifi, the Sunni Speaker of Iraq’s Parliament. He also met Mr Hoshyar Zebari, the Kurd who serves as Iraq’s Foreign Minister.

In a news conference after the meetings, Mr Kerry said he had urged Iraqi politicians to move quickly to form a new government.

Iraqi leaders, Mr Kerry noted, had affirmed the need to convene parliament by July to begin the constitutional process of forming the new government as required from the April parliamentary elections.

The process is supposed to begin with the selection of Parliament Speaker, a post that has traditionally gone to a Sunni, and will then move to picking a new President, a position that has traditionally gone to a Kurd. Then a Prime Minister will be picked: Either Mr Maliki, a Shia, or one of his Shia rivals.

While the political consultations continue behind closed doors, US officials said ISIS has set its sights on destroying the Shia shrine in Samarra, which would likely lead to an explosion of sectarian violence. An attack on the shrine in early 2006 escalated a wave of sectarian killings that was not reduced until the US troop surge in 2007 and 2008. AGENCIES