Iran offers help to US
Iran offers help to US
Obama rules out troops on the ground as Baghdad fights back
Shia Iran yesterday offered to consider working with long-time foe Washington if it takes the lead in helping repel Sunni Arab militants who have seized a swathe of northern Iraq.
The offer came as Iraqi commanders said soldiers had recaptured two towns north of Baghdad as they prepared a fightback, bolstered by thousands of Shia volunteers who answered a call to arms by top cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Iran has sent 2,000 advance troops to Iraq in the past 48 hours to help tackle a jihadist insurgency, a senior Iraqi official has told the Guardian.
President Barack Obama said he was "looking at all the options" to halt the offensive that has brought jihadist-led militants within 50 miles (80 kilometres) of Baghdad city limits, but he ruled out any return of US combat troops.
"We will not be sending US troops back into combat in Iraq, but I have asked my national security team to prepare a range of other options that could help support Iraqi security forces," he said.
Obama has been under mounting fire from his Republican opponents over the swift collapse of the Iraqi security forces, which Washington spent billions of dollars training and equipping before pulling out its own troops in 2011.
Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who since taking office last August has overseen a rapprochement with a superpower Tehran long derided as the "Great Satan", said his government was prepared to consider offering help.
"If we see that the United States takes action against terrorist groups in Iraq, then one can think about it," Rohani told a news conference.
Iraq's Shia premier said the cabinet had granted him "unlimited powers" to reverse the offensive, in which militants swept down towards Baghdad after overrunning second city Mosul on Tuesday before losing some of its steam.
Troops found the burned bodies of 12 policemen as they recaptured the town of Ishaqi in Salaheddin province from Sunni Arab insurgents, police and a doctor said.
It was one of the closest points to the capital that the militants reached in the offensive that saw them overrun a large part of northern and north-central Iraq this week.
Troops also retook the nearby Muatassam area of Salaheddin, the colonel said. On Friday night, police and residents expelled militants from another town in the province, Dhuluiyah, where they had set up checkpoints, witnesses said.
In Samarra, reinforcements were awaiting orders to launch a counter-offensive against areas north of the city, including Dur and Tikrit, seized by the militants earlier this week, an army colonel said.