Kerry offers support for Iraq, but no troops

Gunmen patrol during clashes with Iraqi security forces in Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2014. Lt. Gen. Rasheed Fleih, who leads the Anbar Military Command, told the state television Sunday that "two to three days" are needed to push the militants out of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi. (AP Photo)
Gunmen patrol during clashes with Iraqi security forces in Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2014. Lt. Gen. Rasheed Fleih, who leads the Anbar Military Command, told the state television Sunday that "two to three days" are needed to push the militants out of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi. (AP Photo)

JERUSALEM - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that the United States will support Iraq’s fight against al-Qaida-linked militants who have overrun two cities, but won’t send in American troops.

Kerry said the militants are trying to destabilize the region and undermine a democratic process in Iraq, and that the U.S. is in contact with tribal leaders in Anbar province who are standing up to the terrorists.

But, he said, “This is a fight that belongs to the Iraqis. That is exactly what the president and the world decided some time ago when we left Iraq, so we are not obviously contemplating returning. We are not contemplating putting boots on the ground. This is their fight. … We will help them in their fight, but this fight, in the end, they will have to win and I am confident they can.”

Al-Qaida-linked gunmen have largely taken over the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in an uprising that has been a blow to the Shiite-led government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Bombings in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killed at least 20 people Sunday.

Anbar, a vast desert area on the borders with Syria and Jordan, was the heartland of the Sunni insurgency that rose up against American troops and the Iraqi government after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

In 2004, insurgents in Fallujah killed four American security contractors, hanging their burned bodies from a bridge. Ramadi and other cities have remained battlegrounds as sectarian bloodshed has mounted, with Shiite militias killing Sunnis.

“We are very, very concerned about the efforts of al-Qaida and the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant, which is affiliated with al-Qaida, who are trying to assert their authority not just in Iraq, but in Syria,” Kerry said.

“These are the most dangerous players in that region. Their barbarism against the civilians in Ramadi and Fallujah and against Iraqi security forces is on display for everyone in the world to see.”

Meanwhile, the Iraqi military tried to dislodge al-Qaida militants in Anbar province Sunday, unleashing airstrikes and besieging the regional capital in fighting that killed at least 34 people, officials said.

A government statement said the air force struck a militants’ hideout overnight, identifying them as belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The army and allied tribesmen also fought al-Qaida militants around the provincial capital of Ramadi on Sunday, two Anbar government officials said by telephone. They said 22 soldiers and 12 civilians were killed, along with an unknown number of militants, and 58 people were wounded. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Clans inside Fallujah have started to form brigades, they said, and some of the factions that fought the Americans after the U.S.-led invasion a decade ago say they do not want the Iraqi army to enter the city. There was no fighting inside the city on Sunday.

Government troops, backed by Sunni tribesmen who oppose al-Qaida, have encircled Fallujah for several days and have entered parts of Ramadi. On Friday, troops bombarded militant positions outside Fallujah with artillery, a military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

The deadliest attack Sunday in Baghdad took place in the northern Shiite Shaab neighborhood, where two car bombs exploded simultaneously near a restaurant and a teahouse. Officials said those blasts killed 10 people and wounded 26.

Authorities said a car bomb ripped through the capital’s eastern Shiite district of Sadr City, killing five and wounding 10. Another bombing killed three civilians and wounded six in a commercial area in the central Bab al-Muadham neighborhood, officials said. Two other bombings killed two civilians and wounded 13, police said.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information.

Clashes have been taking place since last Monday in Ramadi and nearby Fallujah, and the Baghdad bombings could be seen as an attempt by militants to distract security forces.

Iraqi security forces, militias or tribesmen may soon start an attack to retake the Fallujah from al-Qaida-linked militants, a government official said.

“I believe that a final combat will take place soon,” Faleh al-Issawi, deputy head of the provincial council of Anbar, said by phone from Ramadi. “Fallujah city is totally controlled by militias and this extends to Garma,” a town about 9 miles away.

The army will allow residents to flee the city before it begins its operations, an unidentified Iraqi official told Agence France-Presse.

Earlier on Sunday, a senior Iraqi military commander said that it will take a few days to fully dislodge al-Qaida-linked fighters in the two cities.

The U.S. is following the events in Iraq closely and is concerned by efforts of the “terrorist Al Qaida/Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to assert its authority in Syria as well as Iraq,” State Department Deputy spokesman Marie Harf said in a statement Saturday.

The White House on Sunday said in a statement that U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken spoke with Iraqi National Security Adviser Faleh al-Fayyad to express support for security operations against insurgents.

Senior officials from the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad “remain in regular communication with a wide range of Iraqi officials to support ongoing efforts” to quell the violence, the White House said in the statement.

Information for this article was contributed by Deb Riechmann, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sinan Salaheddin of The Associated Press, and by Dana El Baltaji, Khalid Al-Ansary, Glen Carey, Donna Abu-Nasr, Ladane Nasseri, Nayla Razzouk, Tony Capaccio, Gopal Ratnam, Terry Atlas and Kadhim Ajrash of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/06/2014

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