BAGHDAD: Militants attacked one of Iraq’s largest air bases and seized control of several small oilfields yesterday as US special forces troops and intelligence analysts arrived to help Iraqi security forces counter a mounting Sunni insurgency.
Militants including ISIL and allied Sunni tribes battled Iraqi forces in the town of Yathrib, 90km north of Baghdad, into the early hours, witnesses and the deputy head of the municipality said. Four militants were killed, they said. Insurgents have surrounded a massive air base nearby, which was known as “Camp Anaconda” under US occupation, and struck it with mortars. Witnesses said the air base had been surrounded on three sides.
Baghdad is racing against time as the insurgents consolidate their grip on Sunni provinces. Yesterday, militants overran the Ajeel oil site, 30km east of Tikrit, which contains at least three small oilfields that produce 28,000 barrels per day. An engineer working at the field said local tribes had taken responsibility for protecting the fields after police withdrew but that they also left after the nearby town of Al Alam was seized by militants. Ajeel is connected to two pipelines, one running to Turkey’s Ceyhan port and the other to the Baiji oil refinery. State TV showed troop reinforcements flying into the compound by helicopter to fend off the assault on Baiji, a strategic industrial complex 200km north of Baghdad.
Iraq’s Defence Ministry said it had destroyed four fuel tankers and three vehicles loaded with ammunition used by militants, south of the town of Seniya, which is west of the town of Baiji near the refinery.
In recent days, Baghdad’s grip on the Western frontier with Syria and Jordan has also been challenged. One post on the Syrian border has fallen to Sunni militants and another has been taken over by Kurds. A third crossing with Syria and the only crossing with Jordan are contested, with anti-government fighters and Baghdad both claiming control.
For ISIS, capturing the frontier is a step towards the goal of erasing the modern border altogether and building a caliphate across swathes of Iraq and Syria. The group gained another boost in that direction when members of Syria’s Al Qaeda wing, the Nusra Front, pledged allegiance to it in the border town of Albu Kamal, strengthening its control of the frontier. ISIS supporters posted images online of what they said were Nusra fighters taking an oath of loyalty to ISIS in the town.
The fighting has knocked towns and cities across the north and west from the central government’s control. In Mosul, which has been under the control of ISIS and other insurgents for over two weeks, militants bombed a Shia mosque in the Sharekhan neighbourhood in the city’s northern outskirts, residents said. Violence also flared in Kirkuk yesterday when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of a crowded market, killing six people and wounding 23, police and medics said.
The United Nations says more than 1,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed during the Sunni insurgents’ advance in Iraq. In addition to the bloodshed, close to a million people have been displaced in Iraq this year. Amin Awad, Director of Middle East and North Africa bureau for the UN refugee agency, called Iraq yesterday “a land of displacement”.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, who is fighting for his job and is under international pressure to create a more inclusive government, said he supported starting the process of forming a new cabinet within a week.
In northern Iraq the Sunni militants extended a two-week advance that has been led by the hardline Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) but also includes an amalgam of other Sunni groups angered by Maliki’s rule. They blame Maliki for marginalising their sect during eight years in power. The fighting threatens to rupture the country two-and-a-half years after the end of US occupation.
US Secretary of State John Kerry pressed Iraqi officials to form an “inclusive” government during a visit this week and urged leaders of the autonomous Kurdish region to stand with Baghdad against the onslaught.
Reuters
