M A I N   N E W S

Special to The Tribune
Ashish Kumar Sen in Washington
Kerry in Baghdad as another key town falls

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Baghdad on Monday as Sunni radicals closed in on the Iraqi capital. Flying in from Jordan on a visit which the State Department had sought to keep secret amid security concerns, Kerry met Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and was to hold talks with Iraqi leaders across the political and communal spectrum.

Militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have seized large swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq, and over the weekend its fighters took control of Iraq’s western border crossings into Syria and Jordan.

The militants have captured the Shiite-majority town of Tal Afar and its airport, a local official said on Monday. "The town of Tal Afar and the airport... are completely under the control of the militants," the official said on condition of anonymity. Witnesses said security forces had departed the town after days of heavy fighting, and confirmed that militants were in control.

The latest advance came after insurgents at the weekend swept into the towns of Rawa and Ana in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, after taking the Al-Qaim border crossing with Syria.

US President Barack Obama has ordered 300 military advisers to Iraq, but says there is only so much the US can do. “Part of the task now is to see whether Iraqi leaders are prepared to rise above sectarian motivations, come together, compromise,” Obama told the CNN. “If they can’t, there’s not going to be a military solution to this problem. There’s no amount of American firepower that's going to be able to hold the country together, and I’ve made that very clear to Maliki and all the other leadership inside of Iraq,” he added.

Kerry, meanwhile, will discuss US actions underway to assist Iraq as it confronts the threat from ISIL and “urge Iraqi leaders to move forward as quickly as possible with its government formation process to forge a government that represents the interests of all Iraqis,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Iraqi security forces are struggling to hold their ground in the face of an insurgent onslaught that has seized major areas of five provinces, displaced hundreds of thousands of people and sparked fears that the country could be torn apart. Maliki's security spokesman said today that "hundreds" of Iraqi soldiers have been killed since the insurgents launched their offensive on June 9.

The announcement on television by Lieutenant General Qassem Atta is the most specific information provided so far by the government on losses sustained by the security forces. (With agency inputs)

Closing in on Capital

* Flying in from Jordan on a visit which the State Department had sought to keep secret amid security concerns, Kerry met Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and was to hold talks with Iraqi leaders across the political and communal spectrum.

* The militants have captured the Shiite-majority town of Tal Afar in the North and its airport. Witnesses said security forces had departed the town after days of heavy fighting, and confirmed that militants were in control

* The latest advance came after insurgents at the weekend swept into the towns of Rawa and Ana in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, after taking the Al-Qaim border crossing with Syria

"Part of the task now is to see whether Iraqi leaders are prepared to rise above sectarian motivations, come together, compromise. If they can’t, there’s not going to be a military solution to this problem. There’s no amount of American firepower that's going to be able to hold the country together" — Barack, Obama, us president