Now Tikrit falls to Islamist terrorists

Daily Mail – by JILL REILLY and KIERAN CORCORAN

The Iraq government teeters on the brink of collapse this evening as Islamic jihadists led by a warlord considered ‘more virulent and violent than Osama bin Laden’ took control of a second city in as many days.

In a spectacular blow to the Shiite-led government, the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as Isis) and their allies seized oil-rich Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province followed by Tikrit where they freed hundreds of prisoners. There is now growing panic that Isis will move to take Baghdad, just 80 miles to the south.

The offensive sparked a massive exodus of soldiers and civilians, with as many as half a million Iraqis fleeing their homes and entering in neighbouring Kurdish-controlled zones sparking a major refugee crisis.

Behind the attacks is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, 43, also known as Abu Dua, who has emerged as one of the world’s most lethal terrorist leaders in the space of a year – the U.S. has a $10million bounty on his head.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked parliament to declare a state of emergency to give him more powers as he called on the international community for help.

The sense of unravelling chaos in the country, from which American troops pulled in 2011, was compounded this evening by a suicide bomber killing 16 in a Shi’te slum in the country’s capital Baghdad.

As night fell, several hundred gunmen were in Tikrit, with clashes still taking place between the insurgents and military units on its outskirts, said Mizhar Fleih, the deputy head of the municipal council of nearby Samarra.

Two Iraqi security officials confirmed that Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin province, was under the control of Isis, and said the provincial governor was missing. Tikrit is 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad.

The major oil refinery in Beiji, located between Mosul and Tikrit, remained in government control, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

While the West has so far refused to assist with military support, the US has said it will come to the aid of the 500,000 people who have fled fierce fighting in Iraq.

Denouncing ISIS as ‘one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world, Stuart Jones, the nominee to be the next US envoy to Baghdad, told US politicians the United States ‘will continue to monitor the situation closely, and will work with our international partners to try to meet the needs of those who have been displaced’.

Today UK Foreign Secretary William Hague played down any suggestion of sending troops to support the Iraqi military and the White House National Security Council said: ‘President Obama promised to responsibly end the war in Iraq and he did’.

A country into which America poured so much blood and money faces the prospect of dealing with this major new military threat by itself in light of Western governments’ insistence that the matter is not their concern.

However, international momentum appeared to

Militants seized 48 Turks from the Turkish consulate Mosul today including the consul-general, three children and several members of Turkey’s special forces.

Tonight Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned it will retaliate if any of its citizens and diplomats are harmed.

‘Right now we are engaged in calm crisis management, considering our citizens’ security. This should not be misunderstood. Any harm to our citizens and staff would be met with the harshest retaliation,’ he said.

It comes a day after 28 Turkish truck drivers were abducted by Isis militants while they were delivering diesel to a power plant in the city.

The rampage through Mosul – which is near the Turkish and Syrian border – by the black banner-waving insurgents was a heavy defeat for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as he tries to hold onto power, and highlighted the growing strength of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The group has been advancing in both Iraq and neighboring Syria, capturing territory in a campaign to set up a militant enclave straddling the border.

This afternoon the Al Qaeda-inspired militants have seized control of Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit.

Iraqi security officials confirmed Tikrit was under the control of Isis and said the provincial governor was missing.

Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin province, is 80 miles north of Baghdad.

The insurgents expanded their offensive closer to the Iraqi capital as soldiers and security forces abandoned their posts following clashes.

A woman in Baghdad said: ‘People are buying up food and may not come to work tomorrow because they think the situation is getting to get worse.’

A Mosul businessman who has fled the city of Mosul told the Guardian: ‘The city fell like a plane without an engine.’

Another resident explained that after government forces began to desert the city they felt compelled to leave in case the government started to bomb the city to force out the militants.

Today the governor of an Iraqi province says authorities are determined to recapture the northern city.

The Ninevah province governor, Atheel al-Nujaifi, said authorities have a plan to restore security and defeat the militants raiding government buildings, pushing out security forces and capturing military vehicles as thousands of residents fled.

Al-Nujaifi also accused senior commanders of the security forces of providing Baghdad with false information about the situation in Mosul and demanding that they should stand trial.

He also says smaller armed groups joined the al Qaeda breakaway group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant during the fight for control the city.

This morning Iraq’s foreign minister said Baghdad will cooperate with Kurdish forces to flush out militants from Mosul.

‘There will be closer cooperation between Baghdad and the regional Kurdistan government to work together and flush out these foreign fighters,’ Hoshyar Zebari said on the sidelines of a EU-Arab League meeting in Athens.

He called on all Iraqi leaders to come together to face the ‘serious, mortal’ threat to the country.

‘The response has to be soon. There has to be a quick response to what has happened,’ he said.

Militants have seized the Turkish consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and efforts are under way to ensure the safety of diplomatic staff, according to two Turkish government sources.

‘Certain militant groups in Mosul have been directly contacted to ensure the safety of diplomatic staff,’ a Turkish government source said, adding there was no immediate information on the status of the diplomats.

Last night militants advanced into the oil refinery town of Baiji, setting the court house and police station on fire and today they are unconfirmed reports that the town ‘in flames’.

They said around 250 guards at the refinery had agreed to withdraw to another town after the militants sent a delegation of local tribal chiefs to persuade them to pull out.

Baiji resident Jasim al-Qaisi, said the militants also warned local police and soldiers not to challenge them.

‘Yesterday at sunset some gunmen contacted the most prominent tribal sheikhs in Baiji via cellphone and told them: ‘We are coming to die or control Baiji, so we advise you to ask your sons in the police and army to lay down their weapons and withdraw before (Tuesday) evening prayer’.’

Militants entered Baiji late on Tuesday evening in around 60 vehicles, releasing prisoners in the town.

Baiji refinery is Iraq’s biggest, supplying oil products to most of the country’s provinces. A worker there said the morning shift had not been allowed to take over and the night shift was still working.

The United States condemned the siege ‘in the strongest possible terms.’

White House spokesman Josh Earnest deplored ‘despicable’ acts of violence targeting civilians in Mosul.

Mr Earnest said the group has gained strength from the situation in neighbouring Syria.

But the White House is not saying what additional military assistance the US might provide Iraq in response to the siege.

Mr Earnest said the US is committed to its partnership with Baghdad but is urging Iraq’s government to take steps to be more inclusive of all Iraqis.

There were no immediate estimates on how many people were killed in the four-day assault, a stark reminder of the reversals in Iraq since U.S. forces left in late 2011.

Earlier this year, Islamic State fighters took control of Fallujah, and government forces have been unable to take it back.

Mosul is a much bigger, more strategic prize. The city and surrounding Ninevah province, which is on the doorstep of Iraq’s relatively prosperous Kurdish region, are a major export route for Iraqi oil and a gateway to Syria.

‘This isn’t Fallujah. This isn’t a place you can just cordon off and forget about,’ said Michael Knights, a regional security analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ‘It’s essential to Iraq.’

Al-Maliki pressed parliament to declare a state of emergency that would grant him greater powers, saying the public and government must unite ‘to confront this vicious attack, which will spare no Iraqi.’

Legal experts said these powers could include imposing curfews, restricting public movements and censoring the media.

State TV said lawmakers would convene Thursday.

Parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni from Mosul, called the rout ‘a disaster by any standard.’

Regaining Mosul poses a daunting challenge for the Shiite prime minister.

The city of about 1.4 milliion has a Sunni Muslim majority and many in the community are already deeply embittered against his Shiite-led government.

During the nearly nine-year American presence in the country, Mosul was a major stronghold for al-Qaeda. U.S. and Iraqi forces carried out repeated offensives there, regaining a semblance of control but never routing the insurgents entirely.

‘It’s going to be difficult to reconstitute the forces to clear and hold the city,’ Knights said. ‘There aren’t a lot of spare forces around Iraq.’

Today UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told ITV News the civilian population of Mosul must be protected.

He added: ‘We left Iraq in the hands of elected Iraqi leaders with armed forces, with their own security forces, so it is primarily for them to deal with.’

‘It’s very important that Iraqis take the leadership and responsibility of dealing with this, working with neighbouring countries.

National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the U.S. would continue to help the Iraqi government fight ISIS.

‘President Obama promised to responsibly end the war in Iraq and he did,’ she said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest deplored what he called the ‘despicable’ acts of violence against civilians in Mosul.

He said Washington is committed to its partnership with Baghdad but is urging the government to take steps to be more inclusive of all Iraqis.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks across Iraq in recent days ‘that have killed and wounded scores of civilians.’

He urged all political leaders ‘to show national unity against the threats facing Iraq, which can only be addressed on the basis of the constitution and within the democratic political process,’ according to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Insurgents and Iraqi troops have been fighting for days in Mosul, but the security forces’ hold appeared to collapse late Monday night and early Tuesday.

Gunmen overran the Ninevah provincial government building – a key symbol of state control – Monday evening, and the governor fled the city.

The fighters stormed police stations, bases and prisons, capturing weapons and freeing inmates. Security forces melted away, abandoning many of their posts, and militants seized large caches of weapons.

They took control of the city’s airport and captured helicopters, as well as an airbase 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of the city, the parliament speaker said.

Later Tuesday, Islamic State fighters took over the large town of Hawija, 125 kilometers (75 miles) south of Mosul, according to officials there.

On Tuesday, the militants appeared to hold much of the eastern half of Mosul, which is bisected by the Tigris River. Residents said fighters were raising the black banners that are the emblem of the Islamic State.

Video taken from a car driving through the streets of Mosul and posted online showed burning vehicles in the streets, black-masked gunmen in pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, and residents walking with suitcases.
ISIL supporters posted photos on social media showing fighters next to Humvees and other U.S.-made military vehicles captured from Iraqi forces.

The video and photos appeared authentic and matched Associated Press reporting of the events.

A government employee who lives about a mile from the provincial headquarters, Umm Karam, said she left with her family Tuesday morning.

‘The situation is chaotic inside the city and there is nobody to help us,’ she said ‘We are afraid. … There is no police or army in Mosul.’ She spoke on condition she be identified only by her nickname for fear of her safety.

An estimated 500,000 people have fled Mosul, according to a U.N. spokesman in New York, citing the International Organization for Migration.

The spokesman said aid organizations hope to reach those in need with food, water, sanitation and other essential supplies as soon as the volatile security situation permits.

The Islamic State has ramped up its insurgency over the past two years, presenting itself as the Sunni community’s champion against al-Maliki’s government

The group was once al-Qaida’s branch in Iraq, but under its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi it has escalated its ambitions, sending fighters into Syria to join the rebellion against President Bashar Assad. Its jihadists became notorious as some of the most ruthless fighters in the rebellion – and other rebels turned against it, accusing it of trying to hijack the movement. Al-Qaida’s central command, angered over its intervention in Syria, threw the group out of the terrorist network.

But it has been making gains on both sides of the border. In Syria, it took control of an eastern provincial capital of Raqqa, and in the past month it has launched an offensive working its way toward the Iraqi border.

Islamic State fighters in eastern Syria crossed into Iraq to help their brethren in the Mosul area, activists on the Syrian side said.

They tried to take the border crossing itself, but Kurdish fighters on either side fended them off. The militants were able to seize the nearest Iraqi town to the border, Rabeea, the activists said.

The group earlier this year took over Fallujah and parts of Sunni-dominated Anbar province, and has stepped up its long-running campaign of bombings and other violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.

The Mosul crisis comes as al-Maliki is working to assemble a coalition after elections in late April, relying even more on Shiite parties. Sunnis and Kurds have grown increasingly disillusioned with al-Maliki, accusing him of dominating power.

The autonomous Kurdish region in the north has its own armed forces – the peshmerga – and on Tuesday, the region’s prime minister suggested his willingness to intervene beyond the formal borders of the self-ruled enclave.

That could be politically explosive, since the Mosul region lies on Kurdistan’s doorstep, has a significant Kurdish population, and the Kurds claim parts of the area.

Militant gains in territories the Kurds consider theirs could push them ‘to send in their own troops to protect communities they consider as part of their jurisdiction,’ said Jordan Perry, an analyst at risk analysis firm Maplecroft.

Kurdistan’s prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, sharply criticized Baghdad’s handling of the Mosul crisis, saying the Kurds had tried unsuccessfully to work with Iraqi security forces to protect the city.

‘Tragically, Baghdad adopted a position which has prevented the establishment of this cooperation,’ he said in a statement.

Barzani urged the Kurds to aid those displaced from Mosul and called on the U.N. refugee agency to help with the relief effort.

He said the peshmerga are prepared to handle security in areas outside the regional government’s jurisdiction – presumably referring to parts around Mosul inhabited by Kurds that are disputed with the central government.

Kurdish official Razgar Khoushnaw said about 10,000 Mosul residents took refuge Tuesday in the Kurdish province of Irbil, while security officials in neighboring Dahuk province said 5,000 displaced people were let in there.

Far larger numbers of people are believed to have fled Mosul for other communities in the Ninevah countryside.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2654861/Escape-Mosul-150-000-Iraqis-overnight-refugees-flee-terror-al-Qaeda-splinter-group-taken-countrys-second-biggest-city.html#ixzz34Mabnl6r
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook