Sunni Militants seize more Iraq towns

 

Sunni militants have reportedly captured two more key border crossings, to Jordan and Syria, in western Iraq.
The rebels, who include Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) fighters, now control three border crossings in Anbar province, Iraq’s largest.
Meanwhile, in the north, reports say the airport in the town of Tal Afar has also fallen to the rebels.
The militants’ gains in large parts of western and northern Iraq have alarmed the international community.
They have taken four strategically important towns in the predominantly Sunni Anbar province – Qaim, on the Syrian border, and Rutba, Rawa and Anah – in the last two days.
Gunmen reportedly captured the border posts of al-Waleed, on the Syrian frontier, and Turaibil, on the Jordanian border, on Sunday after government forces pulled out.
The capture of Anbar’s three border crossings means the government has lost control of all its Western borders, the BBC’s Jim Muir reports from Irbil.
One tribal leader in Anbar told the BBC that the rebel fighters were now in control of 90% of the province.
He also said that Isis made up only part of the Sunni rebel force fighting government troops. Others include tribesmen and experienced former army and security personnel from the era of former President Saddam Hussein.
Earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in Cairo, singled out Isis whose “ideology of violence and repression”, he said, “is a threat not only to Iraq but to the entire region”.
Calling it a “critical moment”, he urged Iraq’s leaders “to rise above sectarian motivations and form a government that is united in its determination to meet the needs and speak to the demands of all of their people”.
Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has condemned the prospect of US intervention in Iraq, saying Washington’s main intention was to keep Iraq within its own sphere of power.
Dismissing talk of sectarianism, he said: “The main dispute in Iraq is between those who want Iraq to join the US camp and those who seek an independent Iraq.