ERBIL, Iraq - Iraq’s fracturing deepened Thursday as Kurdish forces poured into the strategic northern oil city of Kirkuk after government troops fled, while emboldened Sunni militants who seized two other important northern cities this week moved closer to Baghdad and issued threats about advancing into the heavily Shiite south and destroying the shrines there, the holiest in Shiism.
The rapidly unfolding developments came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s entreaties for emergency powers stalled because of inaction by parliament, which seemed paralyzed over the worst crisis to confront the country since it was convulsed by sectarian mayhem at the height of the U.S.-led invasion nearly a decade ago. The inability or unwillingness of al-Maliki’s armed forces to hold their ground only compounded the crisis.
The U.S. government’s apparent rejection of al-Maliki’s requests for airstrikes on the Sunni militants reflected a deep reluctance by the Obama administration to re-entangle the U.S. militarily in Iraq, where the last U.S. forces withdrew more than two years ago.
But President Barack Obama, offering his first detailed comments on the Iraq crisis, told reporters at the White House on Thursday that his national security advisers were examining “all options” on how to stop the Sunni militant advances in Iraq and that the Iraqi government would need help. “I don’t rule out anything,” he said during an appearance with the visiting Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott.
There were unconfirmed reports that Iran, an ally of al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government, had sent Revolutionary Guards into Iraq to help him fight the Sunni militants. The Times of London, in its account, said the Iranians included a 150-member unit of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force.
Iraqi Shiite militia leaders contacted in Baghdad said they knew of no such assistance from Iran and already had plenty of Iraqi volunteer fighters.
Kurdish officials said Thursday that their forces had taken full control of Kirkuk in northern Iraq as government troops abandoned their posts there and vanished.
“The army disappeared,” said Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk.
Militants aligned with the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant swept across the porous border from Syria on Tuesday to overrun Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. They have been driving toward the capital Baghdad since then, capturing the town of Tikrit, seizing parts of the oil refinery city of Baiji and threatening Samarra.
