Fighters in Iraq, Syria declare Islamic state

An Iraqi Kurd helps block a road during a demonstration against the fuel crisis in Irbil, Iraq, Sunday, June 29, 2014. In Irbil, a city controlled by ethnic Kurds, lines stretched for miles at gas stations for weeks causing demonstrations. (AP Photo)
An Iraqi Kurd helps block a road during a demonstration against the fuel crisis in Irbil, Iraq, Sunday, June 29, 2014. In Irbil, a city controlled by ethnic Kurds, lines stretched for miles at gas stations for weeks causing demonstrations. (AP Photo)

BAGHDAD -- The militant group that has seized much of northeastern Syria and huge tracts of neighboring Iraq formally declared the establishment of a new Islamic state on Sunday and demanded allegiance from Muslims worldwide.

The spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, made the announcement in an audio statement posted online on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Muslim extremists have long dreamed of re-creating the Islamic state, or caliphate, that ruled over the Middle East, much of North Africa and beyond in various forms over the course of Islam's 1,400-year history.

Al-Adnani declared the group's chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the new leader, or caliph, and called on jihadi groups everywhere, not just those in areas under the organization's control, to swear loyalty to al-Baghdadi and support him.

"The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph's authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas," al-Adnani said. "Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day."

Al-Adnani loosely defined the Islamic State's territory as running from northern Syria to the Iraqi province of Diyala -- a vast stretch of land straddling the border that is already largely under the Islamic State's control. He also said that with the establishment of the caliphate, the group was changing its name to just the Islamic State, dropping the mention of Iraq and the Levant.

It was unclear what immediate effect the declaration would have on the ground in Syria and Iraq, though experts predicted it could herald infighting among the Sunni militants who have formed an alliance with the Islamic State in its blitz across northern and western Iraq.

"Now the insurgents in Iraq have no excuse for working with ISIS if they were hoping to share power with ISIS," said Aymenn al-Tamimi, an analyst who specializes in Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, using one of several acronyms for the Islamic State. "The prospect of infighting in Iraq is increased for sure."

The greatest effect, however, could be on the broader international jihadist movement, in particular on the future of al-Qaida.

Founded by Osama bin Laden, the group that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. has long carried the mantle of the international jihadi cause. But the Islamic State has managed to do in Syria and Iraq what al-Qaida never has -- carve out a large swath of territory in the heart of the Arab world and control it.

"This announcement poses a huge threat to al-Qaida and its long-time position of leadership of the international jihadist cause," said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, in emailed comments. "Taken globally, the younger generation of the jihadist community is becoming more and more supportive of [the Islamic State], largely out of fealty to its slick and proven capacity for attaining rapid results through brutality."

Al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi militant who has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, took the reins of the Islamic State in 2010 when it was still an al-Qaida affiliate based in Iraq. Since then, he has transformed what had been an umbrella organization focused mainly on Iraq into a transnational military force.

Al-Baghdadi has long been at odds with al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, and the two had a very public falling out after al-Baghdadi ignored al-Zawahri's demands that the Islamic State leave Syria. Fed up with al-Baghdadi and unable to control him, al-Zawahri formally disavowed the Islamic State in February.

But al-Baghdadi's stature has only grown since then, as the Islamic State's fighters have strengthened their grip on much of Syria, and now overrun large swaths of Iraq.

The Islamic State's declaration comes as the Iraqi government tries to wrest back some of the territory it has lost to the jihadi group and its Sunni militant allies in recent weeks.

On Sunday, Iraqi helicopter gunships struck suspected insurgent positions for a second consecutive day in the northern city of Tikrit, the predominantly Sunni hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi military launched its push to wrest back Tikrit, a hotbed of antipathy toward Iraq's Shiite-led government, on Saturday with a multipronged assault spearheaded by ground troops backed by tanks and helicopters.

The insurgents appeared to have repelled the military's initial push for Tikrit and remained in control of the city Sunday, but clashes were taking place in the northern neighborhood of Qadissiyah, two residents reached by telephone said.

Muhanad Saif al-Din, who lives in the city center, said he could see smoke rising from Qadissiyah, which borders the University of Tikrit, where troops carried by helicopter established a bridgehead two days ago. He said many of the militants had deployed to the city's outskirts, apparently to blunt the Iraqi military attack.

Military spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi said Sunday that government troops were in full control of the university and had raised the Iraqi flag over the campus.

"The battle has several stages. The security forces have cleared most of the areas of the first stage and we have achieved results," al-Moussawi said. "It is a matter of time before we declare the total clearing" of Tikrit.

According to a security official in Tikrit, speaking on the condition of anonymity as a matter of government policy, fighters had kidnapped six relatives of Maj. Gen. Jumaa al-Jabouri, deputy commander of Iraqi military operations in Salahuddin province.

A provincial official reached by telephone reported clashes northwest of the city around an air base that previously served as a U.S. military facility known as Camp Speicher. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Al-Mada Press reported late Sunday that government forces recaptured Ouja village, Saddam's birthplace, south of Tikrit.

Jawad al-Bolani, a security official in the provincial operation command, said the U.S. was sharing intelligence with Iraq and has played an "essential" role in the Tikrit offensive.

"The Americans are with us and they are an important part in the success we are achieving in and around Tikrit," al-Bolani said.

Washington has sent 180 of 300 American troops President Barack Obama has promised to help Iraqi forces. The U.S. is also flying manned and unmanned aircraft on reconnaissance missions over Iraq.

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, "We can help in many ways, but we are not planning or contemplating a British military intervention."

Iraqi government officials said Sunday that Russian experts had arrived in Iraq to help the army get 12 new Russian warplanes into the fight.

"In the coming three or four days the aircraft will be in service to support our forces in the fight" against the insurgents of the Islamic State, said Gen. Anwar Hama Ameen, the commander of the Iraqi air force, referring to five SU-25 aircraft that were flown into Iraq aboard Russian cargo planes Saturday night, and two more expected later Sunday.

Ameen said Russian military experts had arrived to help set up the new SU-25 warplanes, but that they would stay only a short time. The last five Russian aircraft would arrive by today, he said.

Iraq's government is eager to make progress in Tikrit after weeks of demoralizing defeats at the hands of the Islamic State and its Sunni allies. The militants' surge across the vast Sunni-dominated areas that stretch from Baghdad north and west to the Syrian and Jordanian borders has thrown Iraq into its deepest crisis since U.S. troops withdrew in December 2011.

For Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, success in Tikrit could help restore a degree of faith in his ability to stem the militant tide. Al-Maliki, a Shiite who has been widely accused of monopolizing power and alienating Iraq's Sunni and Kurdish minorities, is under growing pressure to step aside.

Critics of al-Maliki's government, including the U.S., say its sidelining of the Sunni minority fueled alienation that helped the Islamic State press its advance. They've urged Iraqi leaders to form a more inclusive government, saying military might alone won't resolve the crisis.

Elsewhere in Iraq, thousands of Christians flocked back to their homes in the north on Sunday, days after they fled villages under attack by Sunni Muslim extremists.

Hundreds of people were crossing a checkpoint on their way back after ruling Kurdish forces told them it was safe to return.

The cluster of villages is in an area known as Hamdaniya, some 45 miles inside the border of the largely autonomous Kurdish-held region. It came under attack Wednesday by Sunni insurgents near the northern city of Mosul, led by the Islamic State.

"We try to encourage them to go back, be strong and stick to their land," said Ignatius Joseph III, patriarch of the Syriac Catholic church, as displaced Iraqis prepared to leave their temporary shelters. "We think that our survival here is at stake and is very threatened."

Information for this article was contributed by Ryan Lucas, Sameer N. Yacoub, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Sinan Salaheddin and Diaa Hadid of The Associated Press; by Rod Nordland, Duraid Adnan and staff members of The New York Times; and by Khalid Al-Ansary, Glen Carey, Nicole Gaouette and Zaid Sabah of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 06/30/2014

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