AFP
US mulls ‘all options’ as militants move nearer Baghdad
http://news.yahoo.com/iraqs-tikrit-falls-militants-police-140252771.html
Baghdad (AFP) - Jihadists moved nearer to Baghdad Thursday after capturing a town just hours to the north, as President Barack Obama said Washington was exploring all options to save Iraq’s security forces from collapse.
With the militants closing in on the capital, forces from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region took control of Kirkuk, an ethnically divided northern city they have sought to rule for decades against the objections of successive governments in Baghdad.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosyhar Zebari acknowledged the security forces which Washington invested billions in training and equipping before withdrawing its own troops in 2011, had simply melted away.
Obama said Iraq was going to need “more help from the United States and from the international community.”
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Reuters
Obama warns of U.S. action as jihadists push on Baghdad
http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-kurds-seize-kirkuk-sunni-militants-surge-toward-093536348.html
BAGHDAD/ARBIL (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday threatened U.S. military strikes in Iraq against Sunni Islamist militants who have surged out of the north to menace Baghdad and want to establish their own state in Iraq and Syria.
Iraqi Kurdish forces took advantage of the chaos to take control of the oil hub of Kirkuk as the troops of the Shi’ite-led government abandoned posts, alarming Baghdad’s allies both in the West and in neighboring Shi’ite regional power Iran.
“I don’t rule out anything because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria,” Obama said at the White House when asked whether he was contemplating air strikes. Officials later stressed that ground troops would not be sent in.
Obama was looking at “all options” to help Iraq’s leaders, who took full control when the U.S. occupation ended in 2011. “In our consultations with the Iraqis, there will be some short-term immediate things that need to be done militarily,” he said.
—snip—