国产热热热精品,亚洲视频久久】日韩,三级婷婷在线久久,99人妻精品视频,精品九热人人肉肉在线,AV东京热一区二区,91po在线视频观看,久久激情宗合,青青草黄色手机视频

USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
China
Home / China / World

Iraq asks for airstrikes as US considers options

By Associated Press in Baghdad | China Daily | Updated: 2014-06-20 07:22

Al-Maliki appeals for national unity, with focus on defeating insurgents

Iraq has asked the United States to launch airstrikes to beat back militants holding vast territories across its north, a decision Washington mulled over on Wednesday as insurgents pressed an assault on the country's largest oil refinery.

US President Barack Obama briefed leaders of Congress on options for quelling the insurgency by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which launched an offensive across Iraq more than a week ago. While Obama has not fully ruled out the possibility of launching airstrikes, such action is not imminent, officials said, in part because intelligence agencies have been unable to identify clear targets on the ground.

Instead, the US pushed Iraq to unite against the militants, with Vice-President Joe Biden offering praise to the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders as a means to temper the sectarian anger roiling the country.

It's unclear whether that will work, as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government has faced wide-spread dissatisfaction from its people despite coming out ahead in recent parliamentary elections.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Wednesday that his country had formally asked the US to launch airstrikes against against positions of the Islamic State.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the US had received a request for air power to stop the militants, but highlighted the uncertain political situation in Iraq.

"The entire enterprise is at risk as long as this political situation is in flux," he told a Senate panel on Wednesday. He added that some Iraqi security forces had backed down when confronted by the militants because they had "simply lost faith" in the central government in Baghdad.

Reconciliation attempt

Al-Maliki, a Shiite, has rejected charges of sectarian bias and instead said the crisis has led Iraqis to rediscover "national unity".

He appeared on television late on Tuesday with Sunni and Kurdish leaders. They issued a joint statement about the need to close ranks and stick to "national priorities" in the face of the threat posed by the militants.

On Wednesday, al-Maliki spoke in a televised address, saying he was optimistic over what he called the rise by all political groups to the challenge of defending the nation against the militant threat.

"I tell all the brothers there have been negative practices by members of the military, civilians and militiamen, but that is not what we should be discussing," al-Maliki said. "Our effort should not be focused here and leave the larger objective of defeating" the militants.

Still, al-Maliki has yet to demonstrate concrete action to bridge differences with Sunnis and Kurds, who have been at loggerheads with the prime minister over their right to independently export oil and over territorial claims.

The discussions over tactics came as Iraq's military said government forces had repelled repeated attacks by the militants on the country's largest oil refinery and retaken parts of the strategic city of Tal Afar, near the Syrian border.

The chief military spokes-man, Lt. Gen. Qassimal-Moussawi, said Iraqi troops had defended the refinery at Beiji, some 250 km north of Baghdad, and 40 attackers were killed in fighting there over-night and early on Wednesday.

 Iraq asks for airstrikes as US considers options

Newly-recruited Iraqi volunteers in police uniforms attend a training session at the Ibrahimiya police camp outside the central Iraqi Shiite city of Karbala on Thursday, as thousands of Shiite volunteers join Iraqi security forces in the fight against Jihadist militants who have taken over several northern Iraqi cities this week. Mohammed Sawaf / Agence France-Presse

 

Editor's picks
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
南充市| 鹤庆县| 焉耆| 肇庆市| 迭部县| 阿瓦提县| 河北区| 屯门区| 安康市| 罗甸县| 阳信县| 安平县| 黄陵县| 万载县| 宁河县| 陆河县| 乌拉特后旗| 哈巴河县| 习水县| 姜堰市| 阿拉尔市| 华坪县| 双辽市| 华蓥市| 集安市| 博白县| 海淀区| 原阳县| 略阳县| 密山市| 英德市| 和硕县| 梨树县| 枣阳市| 安塞县| 河北省| 肥西县| 惠州市| 定日县| 抚宁县| 尚志市|