U.S. sending armed forces into Baghdad

Troops to secure embassy, Obama notifies Congress

Iraqi federal police watch as Shiite tribal fighters deploy with their weapons in northwest Baghdad’s Shula neighborhood on Monday.

Iraqi federal police watch as Shiite tribal fighters deploy with their weapons in northwest Baghdad’s Shula neighborhood on Monday.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is urgently deploying several hundred armed troops in and around Iraq and considering sending an additional contingent of special forces soldiers as Baghdad struggles to repel a rampant insurgency, although the White House insists that America will not be dragged into another war.

President Barack Obama notified Congress on Monday that up to 275 troops could be sent to Iraq to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the American Embassy in Baghdad, where some staff members have already been evacuated. About 170 of those forces have already arrived and another 100 soldiers will be on standby in a nearby country until they are needed, a U.S. official said.

While Obama has vowed to keep U.S. forces out of combat in Iraq, he said in his notification to Congress that the personnel moving into the region are equipped for direct fighting.

Separately, three U.S. officials said the White House was considering sending a contingent of special forces soldiers to Iraq. Their limited mission -- which has not yet been approved -- would focus on training and advising Iraqi troops, many of whom have fled their posts across the nation's north and west as the al-Qaida-inspired insurgency has advanced in the worst threat to the country since American troops left in 2011.

The moves come as the White House wrestles with an array of options for helping Iraq repel a Sunni Muslim insurgency that has captured large swaths of territory collaring Baghdad, the capital of the Shiite-led government.

The White House said the forces authorized for support and security will assist with the temporary relocation of some staff members from the embassy in Baghdad. The forces are entering Iraq with the consent of that country's government, the White House said.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said the troops on standby could "provide airfield management, security and logistics support, if required." They could work with embassy security teams or operate as a standalone force as directed.

Officials would not say where the soldiers would be on standby, but it is likely they would be in Kuwait, which was a major basing ground for U.S. troops during the Iraq war.

If the U.S. were to deploy an additional team of special forces, the mission would almost certainly be small. One U.S. official said it could be up to 100 special forces soldiers. It also could be authorized only as an advising and training mission -- meaning the soldiers would work closely with Iraqi forces that are fighting the insurgency but would not officially be considered combat troops.

The White House would not confirm that special operations forces were under consideration. But spokesman Caitlin Hayden said that while Obama would not send troops back into combat, "he has asked his national security team to prepare a range of other options that could help support Iraqi security forces."

It's not clear how quickly the special forces could arrive in Iraq. It's also unknown whether they would remain in Baghdad or be sent to the nation's north.

The troops would fall under the authority of the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad and would not be authorized to engage in combat, another U.S. official said. Their mission would be "nonoperational training" of both regular and counterterrorism units, which the military has in the past interpreted to mean training on military bases, the official said.

However, all U.S. troops are allowed to defend themselves in Iraq if they are under attack.

The three U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the plans by name.

Inspecting Iraqi defenses

While the White House continues to review its options, Iran's military leaders were starting to step into the breach.

The commander of Iran's elite Quds Force, Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, was in Iraq on Monday and consulting with the government there on how to stave off insurgents' gains. Iraqi security officials said the U.S. government was notified in advance of the visit by Soleimani, whose forces are a secretive branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard that in the past has organized Shiite militias to target U.S. troops in Iraq and, more recently, was involved in helping Syria's President Bashar Assad in his fight against Sunni rebels.

Soleimani has been inspecting Iraqi defenses and reviewing plans with top commanders and Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militias, the officials said. He has set up an operations room to coordinate the militias and visited the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala south of Baghdad, home to the most revered Shiite shrines, and areas west of Baghdad where government forces have faced off with Islamic militants for months.

Soleimani's visit adds significantly to the sectarian slant of the mobilization by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Armed Shiite militiamen have been parading on the streets, and volunteers joining Iraqi security forces are chanting Shiite religious slogans.

Al-Maliki rejects charges of sectarianism and points to recruiting efforts by some Sunni clerics, but there is no evidence of Sunnis joining the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in significant numbers, if at all.

In fighting on Monday, the insurgents seized the strategic city of Tal Afar near the Syrian border, and an Iraqi army helicopter was shot down during clashes near the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad, killing the two-man crew, security officials said.

The capture of Tal Afar was a key prize for the militants because it sits on a main highway between Syria and Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, which the Islamic State seized last week.

Iraqi military officials said about 500 elite troops and volunteers were flown Monday to Tal Afar and were preparing to try to retake the city.

Tal Afar, with a population of about 200,000, is located 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. Its residents are mostly ethnic Shiite and Sunni Turkomen, raising fears of atrocities by Islamic State fighters, who brand Shiites as heretics.

Tal Afar Mayor Abdulal Abdoul said the city was taken just before dawn. One resident, Hadeer al-Abadi, said militants in pickups mounted with machine guns and flying black jihadi banners roamed the streets as gunfire rang out.

The local security force fled before dawn, and local tribesman who continued to fight later surrendered to the militants, al-Abadi said as he prepared to leave town with his family.

Another resident, Haidar al-Taie, said a warplane dropped barrels packed with explosives on militant positions inside the city Monday morning, and many Shiite families had left the town shortly after fighting broke out a day earlier.

"Residents are gripped by fear and most of them have already left the town for areas held by Kurdish security forces," al-Abadi said. The city is just south of the self-rule Kurdish region, and many residents were fleeing to the relatively safe territory, joining refugees from Mosul and other areas that have been captured by the militants.

Some 3,000 others from Tal Afar fled west to the neighboring town of Sinjar.

Farther south, the Islamic State militants battled government troops at Romanah, a village near another main border crossing to Syria in Anbar province, according to a security official in Baghdad. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The Islamic State already controls territory in Syria in several regions next to the Iraq border. Its fighters move relatively freely across the porous, unprotected desert border, along with money, weapons and equipment. Seizing an actual border crossing, however, would be a major symbolic gain for the group.

Also Monday, militants ambushed a vehicle carrying off-duty soldiers to Samarra, a city north of Baghdad that is home to a much-revered Shiite shrine. Six soldiers were killed and four wounded, a government official said.

Late Sunday, the extremists ambushed and killed more than two dozen Shiite volunteer militiamen just outside Samarra, the first such killings since Iraq's government started mobilizing thousands of untrained Shiites to stop the insurgent advance threatening the country.

Al-Maliki has publicly declared his confidence that the volunteers would supplement his military, which has been decimated by desertions. Young Shiite men have enthusiastically signed up throughout Baghdad and southern Iraq, racing to the front lines with little training or preparation, since Iraq's top Shiite cleric exhorted them Friday to take up arms and defend the country.

U.N. relocates 58 workers

In another sign of diminished confidence in al-Maliki's government, the United Nations said Monday that it had temporarily relocated 58 staff members from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan. Farhan Haq, a spokesman for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, told reporters in New York that more U.N. staff members may be extricated in coming days.

Also Monday, U.N. Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay said evidence shows that the Islamic militants who reportedly massacred scores of captured Iraqi soldiers "almost certainly" committed war crimes.

The Islamic State has posted graphic photos on a militant website that appear to show masked fighters loading the captives onto flatbed trucks before forcing them to lie face-down in a shallow ditch with their arms tied behind their backs. The final images show the bodies of the captives soaked in blood after being shot at several locations.

Iraq's chief military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, confirmed the photos' authenticity Sunday and said he was aware of cases of mass murder of captured Iraqi soldiers in areas held by the Islamic State.

Pillay condemned what she called the reported "cold-blooded executions of hundreds of Iraqi hors de combat soldiers, as well as civilians including religious leaders and people associated with the government" in recent days by forces allied with the Islamic State.

Earlier in the day, Ban called reports about the slayings "deeply disturbing" and said those responsible must be brought to justice. He warned against sectarian rhetoric in Iraq that could inflame the conflict and the entire region.

The U.N. chief said he welcomed the statement on the need for unity in Iraq made by Grand Ayatollah Sayed Ali Al-Sistani, who he said "represents a deeply influential voice of wisdom and reason."

Ban urged the international community to unite in showing solidarity with Iraq as it confronts "this serious security challenge" and urged all to respect international humanitarian and human-rights law as they try to counter terrorism and violence in Iraq.

Information for this article was contributed by Julie Pace, Lara Jakes, Matthew Lee, Lolita Baldor, Hamza Hendawi, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, George Jahn, Edith M. Lederer, Sameer N. Yacoub, John Heilprin and Ken Dilanian of The Associated Press; and by Rod Nordland, Thomas Erdbrink, Michael Gordon, Suadad al-Salhy, Aziz Alwan and Tim Arango of The New York Times.

A Section on 06/17/2014