U.S. SENDS MORE TROOPS TO IRAQ
The U.S. is sending an additional 300 troops to Iraq to beef up security at the U.S. Embassy and elsewhere in the Baghdad area to protect U.S. citizens and property, officials said Monday. That raises the total U.S. troop presence in Iraq to approximately 750, the Pentagon said.
The State Department, meanwhile, announced that it was temporarily moving an unspecified “small number” of embassy staff in Baghdad to U.S. consulates in the northern city of Irbil and the southern city of Basra. This is in addition to some embassy staff moved out of Baghdad earlier this month,
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the Baghdad embassy “will be fully equipped to carry out” its mission.
The White House announced that President Barack Obama had directed that 200 troops be sent to reinforce security at the embassy, its support facilities and Baghdad International Airport.
The Pentagon said the 200 arrived Sunday and Monday.
“The presence of these additional forces will help enable the embassy to continue its critical diplomatic mission and work with Iraq on challenges they are facing as they confront Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant,” the Pentagon’s press secretary, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, said in a written statement.
Obama notified House and Senate leaders in a letter on Monday of the additional forces heading to Iraq. Officials said they bring a detachment of helicopters and drone aircraft to improve airfield and travel route security in Baghdad.
A militant group’s declaration of an Islamic state in territory it controls in Syria and Iraq touched off celebrations among its followers but drew condemnation and even ridicule from rivals and officials in Baghdad and Damascus.
The declaration of a caliphate was a bold move by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, not just announcing its own state governed by Shariah law but also claiming legitimacy as a successor to the first Islamic rule created by the Prophet Muhammad in the Arabian Peninsula 14 centuries ago.
In its declaration, the group proclaimed its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to be the caliph and demanded all Muslims around the world pledge allegiance to him.
The move risks straining alliances with other Iraqi Sunnis who have helped the militants seize control of large parts of the country’s north and west this month.
Those Sunnis, including former officers in the military of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, have backed the militants in hopes of bringing down the Shiite-led government but not necessarily its ambitions of carving out a transnational caliphate.
Through brute force and meticulous planning, the Sunni extremist group — which said it was changing its name to just the Islamic State, dropping the mention of Iraq and the Levant — has carved out a large chunk of territory that has effectively erased the border between Iraq and Syria and laid the foundations of its proto-state. Along the way, it has battled Syrian rebels, Kurdish militias and the Syrian and Iraqi militaries.
Following the announcement, Islamic State fighters in their northern Syrian stronghold of Raqqa paraded through the city. Some of the revelers wore traditional robes and waved the group’s black flags in a central square, while others zoomed around in pickup trucks against a backdrop of celebratory gunfire. Video of the events was posted online, and activists in the city confirmed the details.
The Islamic State expelled rival rebel groups from Raqqa this spring, turning the city of 500,000 along the banks of the Euphrates River into an image of the state it envisions. Activists from Raqqa say music has been banned, Christians must pay an Islamic tax for protection, and violators of the strict interpretation of Islamic law are killed in the main square.
The announcement was greeted with condemnation and disdain elsewhere in Syria, including from rival rebel groups who have been fighting the Islamic State since January.
“The gangs of al-Baghdadi are living in a fantasy world. They’re delusional. They want to establish a state but they don’t have the elements for it,” said Abdel-Rahman al-Shami, a spokesman for the Army of Islam, an Islamist rebel group. “You cannot establish a state through looting, sabotage and bombing.”
In Iraq, where the government has launched a counteroffensive to try to claw back some of the territory it has lost, the declaration is viewed through the prism of the country’s rising sectarian tensions.
“This is a project that was well-planned to rupture the society and to spread chaos and damage,” said Hamid al-Mutlaq, a Sunni lawmaker. “This is not to the benefit of the Iraqi people, but instead it will increase the differences and splits.”
