Special Report: How Mosul fell - An Iraqi general disputes Baghdad's story

Special Report: How Mosul fell - An Iraqi general disputes Baghdad's story Tue, Oct 14 06:35 AM EDT image 1 of 4 By Ned Parker, Isabel Coles and Raheem Salman BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Lieutenant General Mahdi Gharawi knew an attack was coming. In late May, Iraqi security forces arrested seven members of militant group Islamic State in Mosul and learned the group planned an offensive on the city in early June. Gharawi, the operational commander of Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, asked Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's most trusted commanders for reinforcements. With Iraq's military overstretched, the senior officers scoffed at the request. Diplomats in Baghdad also passed along intelligence of an attack, only to be told that Iraqi Special Forces were in Mosul and could handle any scenario. On June 4, federal police in Mosul under Gharawi's command cornered Islamic State's military leader in Iraq, who blew himself up rather than surrendering. Gharawi hoped the death might avert an attack. He was wrong. At 2:30 a.m. on June 6, Gharawi and his men returned to their operations room after an inspection of checkpoints in the city of two million. At that moment, convoys of pickup trucks were advancing from the west, driving across the desert that straddles Iraq's border with Syria. Each vehicle held up to four IS fighters. The convoys shot their way through the two-man checkpoints into the city. By 3:30 a.m., the militants were fighting inside Mosul. Within three days the Iraqi army would abandon the country's second-biggest city to its attackers. The loss triggered a series of events that continues to reshape Iraq months later. It unleashed a two-day charge by IS to within 95 miles (153 km) of Baghdad that caused the collapse of four Iraqi divisions and the capture or deaths of thousands of soldiers. It helped drive Maliki from office. And it pushed Western powers and Gulf Arab nations into launching air strikes on the Islamist militants in both Iraq and Syria. But how Mosul was lost, and who gave the order to abandon the fight, have, until now, been unclear. There has been no official version: only soldiers' stories of mass desertions and claims by infantry troops that they followed orders to flee. In June, Maliki accused unnamed regional countries, commanders and rival politicians of plotting the fall of Mosul, but has since remained quiet. Nevertheless, Baghdad has pinned the blame on Gharawi. In late August, he was charged by the defense ministry with dereliction of duty. He is now awaiting the findings of an investigative panel and then a military trial. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to death. (Four federal police officers who served under Gharawi are also in custody awaiting trial, and could not be reached.) Parliament also plans to hold hearings into the loss of Mosul. An investigation by Reuters shows that higher-level military officials and Maliki himself share at least some of the blame. Several of Iraq's senior-most commanders and officials have detailed for the first time how troop shortages and infighting among top officers and Iraqi political leaders played into Islamic State's hands and fueled panic that led to the city's abandonment. Maliki and his defense minister made an early critical mistake, they say, by turning down repeated offers of help from the Kurdish fighting force known as the peshmerga. Gharawi's role in the debacle is a matter of debate. A member of the country's dominant Shi'ite sect, he alienated Mosul's Sunni majority before the battle, according to the provincial governor and many citizens. That helped give rise to IS sleeper cells inside Mosul. One Iraqi officer under his command faulted Gharawi for not rallying the troops for a final stand. For his part, Gharawi says he stood firm, and did not give the final order to abandon the city. Others involved in the battle endorse that claim and say Gharawi fought until the city was overrun. It was only then that he fled. Gharawi says three people could have given the final order: Aboud Qanbar, at the time the defense ministry's deputy chief of staff; Ali Ghaidan, then commander of the ground forces; or Maliki himself, who personally directed his most senior officers from Baghdad. The secret of who decided to abandon Mosul, Gharawi says, lies with these three men. Gharawi says a decision by Ghaidan and Qanbar to leave Mosul's western bank sparked mass desertions as soldiers assumed their commanders had fled. A senior Iraqi military official backs that assertion. None of the three men have commented publicly on their decisions in Mosul. Maliki has declined Reuters requests for an interview for this article. Qanbar has not responded, while Ghaidan could not be reached. Lieutenant General Qassim Atta, a military spokesman with close ties to Maliki, told Reuters last week that Gharawi "above all others ... failed in his role as commander." The rest, he said, "will be revealed before the judiciary." In many ways, Gharawi's story is a window into Iraq. The Shi'ite general has been a key figure since 2003, when the Shi'ites began gaining power after the United States toppled Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-dominated Baath Party. Shi'ite leaders once saluted Gharawi as a hero, while Sunnis see him as a murderer who used Iraq's war on extremism as a cover for extorting money from businesses and menacing innocent people with arrests and killings. Gharawi rose through a military riven by sectarian splits, corruption and politics. He is now trapped by those same forces. The decision to punish him and ignore the role of higher-level figures shows not just that rebuilding the military will be difficult, but also why the country risks breakup. As Mosul proved, the Iraqi army is a failed institution at the heart of a failing state. Gharawi, in his own telling, has become a scapegoat, a victim of the deal-making and alliances that keep Iraq's political and military elite in place. Ghaidan and Qanbar, longtime confidantes of Maliki, have been dispatched to a pensioned retirement. Gharawi, who is living in his home town in the south of Iraq, says his bosses are pinning the faults of a broken system on him. "They want just to save themselves from these accusations," he told Reuters during a visit to Baghdad two weeks ago. "The investigation should include the highest commanders and leadership ... Everyone should say what they have, so the people know." ROAD TO MOSUL Gharawi expected Mosul to be hell. In the years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the city had become an epicenter for the al Qaeda and Sunni insurgency. Former Baathists and military commanders lived in the province of Nineveh. The Kurds also had a foothold in the city; after Saddam's fall they came to dominate the security forces and local government. In 2008, two years after he became prime minister, Maliki began to assert his power there. Seeing the Kurds as potentially disloyal, he began to purge Kurdish officers from Mosul's two army divisions and insert his own men to protect Baghdad's interests. He appointed a string of commanders who antagonised local Kurds and Sunnis. In 2011, he tapped Gharawi. The general was already a survivor of Iraq's political system. Despite the fact he was a Shi'ite, he had been a member of Saddam's Republican Guard. In 2004, after Saddam's fall, Washington had backed Gharawi to lead one of Iraq's new National Police Divisions. It was a brutal period. The Shi'ite-dominated security forces – including the police – were connected to a spate of extrajudicial killings. The Americans accused Gharawi of running his police brigades as a front for Shi'ite militias blamed for the murder of hundreds of people, mostly Sunnis. U.S. and Iraqi officials investigated Gharawi for his command of Site Four, a notorious Baghdad jail where prisoners were allegedly tortured or sold to one of the biggest and most brutal Shi'ite militias. In late 2006, U.S. officials moved to stop the killings, pressuring Maliki to dismiss Gharawi and try him for torture. Maliki reassigned Gharawi but would not try him. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker recalled a near shouting match with Maliki over the general. "One of my many disappointments was not getting that sorry-assed failure," Crocker said in 2010. Gharawi says he did nothing wrong during that period and has nothing to apologize for. It was civil war, he said. The Sunni insurgency was bent on demolishing the Shi'ite-led government. Gharawi's brother was killed by Sunni militants. "We worked under special circumstances. We prevented civil war. We actually stopped it. Where are our mistakes?" LEOPARD SKIN AND A WARNING After his demotion, Gharawi bided his time, a gloomy figure in his dim-lit Green Zone villa, decorated with old photos, including a few of him with U.S. senators and Donald Rumsfeld. He was given a series of minor jobs. Maliki's office regularly proposed him for higher positions only to be blocked by U.S. officials. As the U.S. military prepared to leave Iraq, Maliki appointed Gharawi the top federal police commander in Mosul. There, Gharawi recaptured his glory. State television showed him standing on Nineveh's sweeping plains in blue camouflage as he announced a successful operation against a terror plot. Maliki rewarded him with property in an affluent Baghdad neighborhood. In his house in the capital on a short leave from Mosul last December, Gharawi sat proudly on a leafy green couch, surrounded by cream-coloured walls, a faux leopard skin rug, and shiny tiled floors. An oil portrait of himself hung on the wall. He bragged about arrests and flipped through pictures of jihadists his men had captured. Despite his triumphs, he was frank about the insurgency that re-emerged last year as Sunnis grew frustrated with Maliki's sectarian rule. The war was at best a stalemate, Gharawi said. Al Qaeda – the Islamic State's parent organization at the time, before it split this year – was gaining ground. "I have to confess, al Qaeda is stronger than they have ever been. Qaeda needs Mosul. They think of Mosul as their emirate," he said. Gharawi said he lacked the troops to secure the province. He also faced growing opposition from Sunnis in Mosul, who accused him and his men of extra-judicial killings, allegations Gharawi rejected. In March, Maliki appointed him Nineveh's operational commander. Security in Iraq was deteriorating. In Anbar province, to Nineveh's southwest, violence had drawn in three military divisions against IS militants and angry Sunni tribes. The government had lost control of the highways from Baghdad to the north. IS militants regularly set up fake checkpoints and ambushed vehicles. THE FALL As IS fighters raced towards Mosul before dawn on June 6, the jihadists hoped only to take a neighborhood for several hours, one of them later told a friend in Baghdad. They did not expect state control to crumble. They hurtled into five districts in their hundreds, and would, over the next few days, reach over 2,000 fighters, welcomed by the city's angry Sunni residents. The first line of Mosul's defense was the sixth brigade of the Third Iraqi army division. On paper, the brigade had 2,500 men. The reality was closer to 500. The brigade was also short of weapons and ammunition, according to one non-commissioned officer. Infantry, armor and tanks had been shifted to Anbar, where more than 6,000 soldiers had been killed and another 12,000 had deserted. It left Mosul with virtually no tanks and a shortage of artillery, according to Gharawi. There was also a problem with ghost soldiers – men on the books who paid their officers half their salaries and in return did not show up for duty. Investigators from the defense ministry had sent a report on the phenomenon to superiors in 2013. Nothing was heard back, a sergeant who was based in Mosul told Reuters. In all, there were supposed to be close to 25,000 soldiers and police in the city; the reality, several local officials and security officers say, was at best 10,000. In the district of Musherfa, one of the city's main entry points, there were just 40 soldiers on duty the night of June 6. As the militants infiltrated the city, they seized military vehicles and weapons. The sergeant based there said they also hanged soldiers and lit them ablaze, crucified them, and torched them on the hoods of Humvees. On the western edge of Tamoz 17 neighborhood, police from the fourth battalion saw two Humvees and 15 pickup trucks approach, spraying machine gun fire. "In my entire battalion we have one machine gun. In each pickup they had one," said head of the battalion, Colonel Dhiyab Ahmed al-Assi al-Obeidi. Gharawi ordered his forces to form a defensive line to cordon off the besieged western Mosul neighbourhoods from the Tigris River. Gharawi said he received a call from Maliki to hold things until the arrival of Qanbar, the deputy chief of staff at the defense ministry, and Ghaidan, who commanded Iraqi ground forces. Qanbar is a member of Maliki's tribe, while Ghaidan had long assisted Maliki in security operations, according to senior officers and Iraqi officials. The two men outranked Gharawi and automatically took formal charge of the Mosul command on June 7. On the morning of June 8, Gharawi met Nineveh governor Atheel Nujaifi. The governor was no friend – he had previously accused Gharawi of corruption, an allegation the general rejected. Now the city's fate hinged on Gharawi. One of Nujaifi's advisers asked the general why he had not counter-attacked. "There are not enough forces," Gharawi told them. General Babakir Zebari was Gharawi's superior and chief of staff for Iraq's armed forces back in Baghdad. He agrees there were not enough men to defeat the jihadists. And Maliki had already rejected a chance to change that. On June 7, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani had offered to send Kurdish peshmerga fighters to help. The offer went all the way up to Maliki, who rejected it twice through his defense minister, according to Zebari. United Nations and U.S. diplomats also attempted to broker an arrangement acceptable to Maliki, who remained suspicious of the Kurds' intent. Maliki insisted there were more than enough Iraqi forces. Barzani's office confirmed Kurdish offers of help were rejected. On the afternoon of June 8, the Islamic State surged. More than 100 vehicles, carrying at least 400 men, had crossed to Mosul from Syria since the start of the battle. Sleeper cells hiding in the city had been activated and neighbourhoods rallied to them, according to police and military. The insurgents bombed a police station in the al-Uraybi neighborhood and charged into the area around the Mosul Hotel, an abandoned building on the western bank of the Tigris transformed into a battle post for 30 men from SWAT, an emergency police unit. Gharawi and his federal police pounded Islamic State-controlled areas with artillery. For a moment, "the morale of Mosul got higher," Gharawi said. Within hours, though, Gharawi's command was thrown into disarray. Multiple military sources say Ghaidan and Qanbar sacked a divisional commander after he refused to send men to defend the Mosul Hotel. The sacked general, who reported to Gharawi, theoretically commanded 6,000 men, though many were AWOL. General Zebari calls the order another huge mistake: "In crisis, you can't replace the commander." TURNING POINT By June 9, the fourth battalion's Colonel Obeidi and 40 of his men were among the very last local police fighting to hold back the jihadists in western Mosul. The rest had either joined the jihadists or run away. Just before 4:30 p.m., a military water tanker raced towards the Mosul Hotel where Obeidi and his men were stationed. The police fired at the tanker, which detonated, setting off a massive fireball and hurtling shrapnel. "I didn't feel anything," said Obeidi, whose leg was ripped open by the blast. "The sound shook the whole of Mosul but I didn't hear a thing." Clutching his handgun, Obeidi vowed to fight on. Police carried him to a boat to cross the Tigris to safety. Military officers, local officials, and even U.S. officials later testifying to Congress said the hotel attack was what broke the army and police in Mosul. After that, the defensive line in the west of the city melted away. Barely three hours later, as reports spread of federal police burning their camps and discarding their uniforms, the Nineveh governor and his adviser met with Qanbar and Ghaidan in the Operation Command near the airport. The adviser, Khaled al-Obeidi, was himself a retired general and a newly elected lawmaker. (He is unrelated to police Colonel Obeidi). He urged the commanders to go on the offensive with the Second Division, which sat relatively untouched across the river in eastern Mosul. Qanbar said that they had a plan. Nujaifi's adviser then urged Gharawi to attack. Gharawi said he could not risk moving the soldiers and federal police he had left. "We can get you the force," the adviser said. Qanbar interrupted. The governor and adviser should do their work, he said. "We will do ours." The governor and his adviser left the base at 8:25 p.m., unsure of what the military's plan was. Shortly before 9:30 p.m., Qanbar and Ghaidan told Gharawi they were withdrawing across the river. "They said goodbye and that's it. They didn't give me any information or any reason," Gharawi said. They stripped Gharawi of 46 men and 14 pickup trucks and Humvees – the bulk of his security detail – say Gharawi and other officers. The two senior generals moved the city's command to a base on the city's eastern edge, according to multiple accounts. Ghaidan and Qanbar's retreating convoy created the impression that Iraq's security forces were deserting, Gharawi said. "This is the straw that broke the camel's back. This was the biggest mistake." Soldiers assumed their leaders had fled and within a couple of hours most of the Second Division had deserted the city's east, Nujaifi, the governor, told Reuters. Gharawi and 26 of his men stayed hidden in their operations base in the west, which swarmed with insurgents. That night, Gharawi said, Ghaidan phoned him and assured him the army was holding eastern Mosul. Ghaidan and Qanbar both left Mosul overnight, arriving in Kurdistan on June 10, according to Zebari, the chief of staff back in Baghdad. "Of course once the commander leaves the soldier behind, why would you want to fight?" asked Zebari. "The senior commander is the brains of operation. Once he runs, the whole body is paralysed." Zebari says he doesn't know who gave the order to leave. Qanbar and Ghaidan were bypassing the defense ministry and reporting directly to Maliki, Zebari told Reuters. Early the next morning, Zebari rang Gharawi and urged him to leave the operation command center. "You are going to get killed. Please withdraw," both men remember Zebari saying. Gharawi refused and insisted he needed approval from Maliki's military office to leave. Soon after, Gharawi decided to fight his way across a bridge to eastern Mosul. He rang Ghaidan to tell him. "I am going to be killed. I am surrounded by all directions. Send the prime minister my greetings. Tell the prime minister I have done everything possible that I can do." He and his men crammed into five vehicles and headed across the river. On the east bank, their five vehicles were set ablaze. They dodged bullets and stones. Three of the men were shot dead. It was every man for himself, Gharawi said. In the east, Gharawi and three of his men commandeered an armoured vehicle with flat tires and headed north to safety. AFTERMATH By August, Gharawi was back in his ancestral home in southern Iraq, looking after his children, unsure what to do next. One day he received a call from a friend in the defense ministry: He was under investigation for dereliction of duty in Mosul. At the same time, Maliki promoted Qanbar and moved to protect Ghaidan. After the prime minister resigned on Aug. 15, though, the two men were also forced into retirement. It marked an effort by Haider al-Abadi, the new prime minister, to start to clean and rebuild the Iraqi forces. Abadi has closed the office Maliki used to direct commanders and has quietly retired officers seen as loyal to his predecessor. Purging the security institutions of their sectarianism, money-making schemes and political manoeuvrings will take years. And for now, Gharawi must take the blame for Mosul. Zebari believes that's unfair. "Gharawi was an officer doing a job, but his luck ran out just like many other officers," he said. "All of us have to shoulder some of the responsibility. Every one of us." Two weeks ago in Baghdad, face unshaven, voice hoarse, Gharawi indicated a begrudging acceptance of his fate, whatever it might be. "Maybe I'll be pardoned, maybe I'll be imprisoned, maybe I'll be hanged," he said. (Parker reported from Baghdad and Arbil, Salman from Baghdad, and Coles from Arbil; With additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Saif Hameed in Baghdad; Edited by Simon Robinson)

Riyadh fears Islamic State wants sectarian war in Saudi Arabia

Riyadh fears Islamic State wants sectarian war in Saudi Arabia . Reuters By Angus McDowall By Angus McDowall RIYADH (Reuters) - Tighter security in Saudi Arabia has made it hard for Islamic State to target the government so the militants are instead trying to incite a sectarian conflict via attacks on the Shi'ite Muslim minority, the Saudi Interior Ministry said. Last week the Sunni group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called for attacks against the Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia, which has declared Islamic State a terrorist organization, joined international air strikes against it, and mobilized top clergy to denounce it. He spoke after an attack on Shi'ite civilians, the first since 2006 by militant Saudis based inside the kingdom. Islamic State has not claimed the shooting and the Saudis have not held the group responsible but they arrested more than 50 people including some who fought with Sunni jihadis in Syria or had been previously jailed for fighting with al Qaeda. As the world's top oil exporter, birthplace of Islam and a champion of conservative Sunni doctrine, Saudi Arabia represents an important ally for Western countries battling Islamic State and a symbolic target for the militant group itself. "Islamic State and al Qaeda are doing their best to carry out terrorist acts or crimes inside Saudi Arabia," Major General Mansour Turki, security spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told Reuters. "They are trying to target the social fabric and trying to create a sectarian conflict inside the country." The attack by gunmen in the Eastern Province district of al-Ahsa on November 3 killed eight members of the kingdom's Shi'ite minority who were marking their holy day of Ashoura. Turki said he was not aware of any evidence that it was coordinated with Islamic State operatives outside Saudi Arabia. He said improved government security, such as guards at possible targets, increased border defenses and surveillance, have made it much harder for militants elsewhere to organize violence inside Saudi Arabia such as al Qaeda's 2003-06 uprising which killed hundreds and led to the detention of more than 11,000 people. Although Saudi citizens have played important leadership roles in various al Qaeda organizations, Riyadh has not yet identified any in senior positions in Islamic State, Turki said. However, the group tends to use Saudi members of Islamic State in its propaganda because of the kingdom's role as the leading Sunni state, he said. "THEY WANT OUR PERSONALITY" Riyadh is worried that the rise of militant Sunni groups, including al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front and Islamic State, as participants in the Syrian war would radicalize Saudis who might then carry out a new wave of strikes inside the kingdom. Although it has backed rebel groups fighting alongside jihadis against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia has also taken steps to stop its people joining militants in Syria or Iraq or giving them money. Turki said a royal decree in February imposing long prison terms for people who went abroad to fight or helped others to do so, and for people who gave moral or material support to militant groups had reduced the number of Saudi jihadis. "One of the people we arrested (since the decree) was used by them (Islamic State) to write Friday sermons. Does this mean they do not have anybody capable of doing that? Of course not, but they want our language, our personality, to be reflected in their speeches," he said. Since the decree was issued, the rate of Saudis traveling to Syria or Iraq for jihad had slowed sharply, while the rate of Saudis returning to the kingdom from those countries had accelerated, he said. The authorities have identified between 2,000-2,100 Saudi citizens who have fought in Syria since its crisis began in 2011, of whom around 600 have returned, he said. Of those numbers, only about 200 had left Saudi Arabia since the February decree while around 170 had come back. SECTARIAN ATTACK The difficulty of getting its fighters past security and into Saudi Arabia has pushed Islamic State to try to incite sympathizers inside the kingdom to carry out their own attacks, Turki said. Unlike the al Qaeda campaign last decade, the attack in al-Ahsa was not aimed at government, infrastructure or foreign targets, which are now better protected by security forces, but struck at unarmed Shi'ite villagers. That showed the increasingly sectarian nature of jihadi ideology but also that tighter security had reduced the number of straightforward targets for militant attacks, Turki said. The authorities detained 10 more people on Sunday for the attack, taking to 54 the total number of suspects arrested in 11 different Saudi cities. "The situation is unlike 10 years ago when we had the first al Qaeda attacks. We were not ready at that time. Our public was not informed, our policemen were not trained or equipped for such a danger," he said. (Editing by Anna Willard) =========================================================== Islamic State kills at least 25 Iraqi tribesmen near Ramadi: officials Sat, Nov 22 19:54 PM EST By Raheem Salman BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State militants have killed at least 25 members of a Sunni Muslim tribe in a village on the eastern edge of the provincial capital Ramadi, local officials said on Saturday, in apparent revenge for tribal opposition to the radical Islamists. They said the bodies of the men from the Albu Fahd tribe were discovered by the Iraqi army when it launched a counter-offensive on Saturday against Islamic State near Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. "While they were combing the territories they are liberating, security forces found 25 corpses in the Shujariya area," Hathal Al-Fahdawi, a member of the Anbar Provincial Council, told Reuters. Albu Fahd tribal leader Sheikh Rafie al-Fahdawi said at least 25 bodies had been found and said he expected the total to be significantly higher. He said the bodies were found scattered around with no signs of weapons next to them, suggesting they were not killed during fighting. Last month Islamic State fighters killed hundreds of members of the Albu Nimr tribe in Anbar in an attempt to break local resistance to their advances in the Sunni Muslim province they have largely controlled for nearly a year. Islamic State, which has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq, continues to gain territory in Anbar despite three months of U.S.-led air strikes launched against the group. On Friday it launched coordinated attacks in central and outlying areas of Ramadi in an attempt to take full control over a city which is already mostly in its hands. The road from Ramadi to the military air base of Habbaniya, about 25 km (15 miles) to the east, remained under Islamic State control on Saturday, Hathal Fahdawi said, preventing the army from reinforcing security forces in the city. He said tribal fighters backed by army tanks were trying to secure the road to allow forces through from Habbaniya. Islamic State's lightning offensive through northern Iraq in June plunged the country into its gravest security crisis since the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, and raised concerns that its radical ideology will spread. In northern Iraq, a farmer near the city of Mosul discovered around 60 bodies believed to be those of prisoners killed by Islamic State fighters when they overran the city's Badush prison on June 10, witnesses said on Saturday. The bodies were found after heavy rain disturbed their mass grave. The United Nations said up to 670 prisoners from Badush were killed by Islamic state five months ago. (Reporting by Raheem Salman; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Michael Georgy and Raissa Kasolowsky) ========================

Iran supreme leader spurns U.S. overture to fight Islamic State

Islamic State campaign tests Obama's commitment to Mideast allies Wed, Sep 17 09:45 AM EDT image By Jason Szep WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After about 15 hours of flying and five hours of meetings, sleep finally caught up with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Baghdad. It was 6:04 p.m. After sinking into his seat at the center of the cavernous interior of a C-17 military transport plane, he cradled his head in his palm, put his feet on a desk and shut his eyes. Visibly tired, too, were his retinue of aides as they took their seats, some clutching briefing papers with notes scribbled in the margin from meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the government he had formed a day earlier on Sept. 9. Kerry’s exhaustion was understandable after nearly 24 hours of non-stop travel and meetings. America’s fatigue in the Middle East could be a different story: the Iraqis who met Kerry may wonder if his boss, President Barack Obama, has the energy or stomach for what lies ahead in a country he has spent most of his nearly six years in office trying to leave behind. The challenge is highlighted by a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Friday showing that while Americans support Obama's campaign of airstrikes against Islamic State militants, they have a low appetite for a long campaign against the group. Several important tests loom for the U.S. administration's nascent coalition to “degrade and defeat” the ultra-hardline Islamic State whose militants have seized a third of both Iraq and Syria, declared war on the West and beheaded two American journalists and one British aid worker. The complexity of eliminating Islamic State, which requires stabilizing Iraq, building up its armed forces and creating a western-backed rebel force in Syria, could take years, testing Obama's commitment and that of whoever succeeds him in 2017. "There’s a real general distrust among our regional allies about our commitment to this because we've been missing in action for the last three years," said David Schenker, a specialist on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former Pentagon adviser on Syria during President George W. Bush’s administration. In Baghdad, Amman, Jeddah, Ankara, Cairo and Paris in the last week, Kerry laid plans for a U.S.-led coalition of regional and outside powers. It would hammer the black-clad fighters of Islamic State militarily, dry up its funding, eliminate its safe havens in Syria, block its ability to recruit fighters and try to extinguish its extremist ideology. Kerry, who will report on his trip to Obama and Congress this week, insists this is different from past U.S. operations in the region. "This is not the Gulf War of 1991," he told reporters in Paris on Monday. "And it's not the Iraq War of 2003 ... We're not building a military coalition for an invasion. We're building a military coalition together with all the other pieces for a transformation, as well as for the elimination of ISIL itself," he said, invoking an acronym for the Islamic State group. QUESTION OF COMMITMENT World powers meeting in Paris on Monday gave a symbolic boost to that effort, publicly backing military action to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq. France sent jets on a reconnaissance mission to Iraq, a step towards becoming the first ally to join the U.S.-led air campaign there and a senior U.S. official said some Arab countries had promised to take part. On Friday, Kerry will chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York, which will provide countries which quietly backed the U.S. coalition an opportunity to do so publicly. But questions remain over how far each will commit to a fight that U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Tuesday "will not be an easy or brief effort." A 45-page State Department document detailed offers of assistance from about 40 countries, but these are mostly humanitarian. Military commitments are rare and small. Albania, for instance, plans to provide 22 million rounds of AK-47 bullets, 15,000 hand grenades and 32,000 artillery shells to Kurdish forces in Iraq. U.S. fighter jets have conducted over 160 airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Iraq, resuming military action Obama and many Americans hoped were part of history when U.S. combat forces pulled out of the country in 2011. The most senior U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, raised the possibility on Tuesday that American troops might need to take on a larger role in Iraq's ground war, though Obama also ruled out a combat mission. U.S. officials play down the prospect of imminent air attacks on the Islamist group's heartland in Syria and it remains unclear who, if anyone, would join them. The United States will present a legal case before going into Syria, U.S. officials say, justifying strikes largely on the basis of defending Iraq from militants who threaten its sovereignty and have taken shelter in neighboring Syria during its three-year-old civil war. "OVERALL COORDINATOR" Entering Syrian airspace would deepen a conflict that already cuts across sectarian lines. Islamic State is made up of Sunni militants fighting a Shi'ite-led government in Iraq and a government in Syria led by members of a Shi'ite offshoot sect. Briefing U.S. reporters in Paris, Kerry said there were "several discussions with foreign ministers" on how to defeat Islamic State inside Syria. He did not go into specifics, but he emphasized that it was not just about the airstrikes. Kerry and his advisers often describe the anti-Islamic State campaign as "holistic". The approach was set out in a six-paragraph communique issued on Sept. 11 and signed by 10 Arab countries - Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and six Gulf states including rich rivals Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Arab states agreed to eight main tasks: stopping the flow of foreign fighters, countering Islamic State financing, repudiating their ideology, ending impunity, providing humanitarian relief, reconstruction of Islamic State-hit areas, supporting states that face "acute" Islamic State threats, and, "as appropriate, joining in the many aspects of a coordinated military campaign." The United States specifically wanted the words "as appropriate," one senior State Department official said. "We wanted to be an overall coordinator of this effort," the official said. "So, ‘as appropriate’ means as part of an overall campaign plan, and as this continues to move forward." (This story adds dropped word "State" in 25th paragraph) (Reporting by Jason Szep; Editing by David Storey and Howard Goller) ======== U.S. general says cannot rule out larger ground role in Iraq Tue, Sep 16 19:00 PM EDT image 1 of 5 By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The most senior U.S. military officer raised the possibility on Tuesday that American troops might need to take on a larger role in Iraq's ground war against Islamic State militants, but the White House stressed they would not deploy on a combat mission. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was no intention now to place American military advisers on the ground in direct combat. U.S. assistance is taking other forms, including air strikes. Still, Dempsey outlined scenarios in which he might recommend having U.S. troops do more, potentially accompanying Iraqis during complicated offensives, such as a battle to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State fighters. "It could very well be part of that particular mission - to provide close combat advising or accompanying for that mission," Dempsey said. Dempsey acknowledged that Obama's "stated policy is that we will not have U.S. ground forces in direct combat." "But he has told me as well to come back to him on a case-by-case basis," he said. Obama said last week he would lead an alliance to defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, plunging the United States into a conflict in which nearly every country in the Middle East has a stake. But Obama also ruled out a combat mission, saying "we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq." How exactly America's role might evolve in the open-ended conflict remains unclear, however. Responding to Dempsey's comments, the White House said Obama’s military advisers had to plan for many possibilities and that overall policy had not changed - that Obama would not deploy U.S. troops in a combat role in Iraq or Syria. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that Dempsey was "referring to a hypothetical scenario in which there might be a future situation where he might make a tactical recommendation to the president as it relates to ground troops." Dempsey's spokesman also issued a statement stressing that the four-star general's exchange in the Senate was not about "employing U.S. ground combat units in Iraq." Dempsey was testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, as the Obama administration makes its case to Congress for broadening operations against the Sunni militants, which would include U.S. air strikes in Syria for the first time. NO "SHOCK AND AWE' IN SYRIA The U.S. military's Central Command is due to brief Obama on its plans on Wednesday. Hagel said those plans envision striking the militant group's safe havens in Syria to knock out infrastructure, logistics and command capabilities. Dempsey said the strikes would degrade the group's capabilities as broader efforts get under way, including training of more than 5,000 Syrian rebels. "This won't look like a 'shock and awe' campaign because that's simply not how (the Islamic State militants' group) is organized. But it will be a persistent and sustainable campaign," Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Shock and awe" was a term popularly used to describe the initial air assault on Baghdad in the U.S. campaign to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003, and refers to use of overwhelming force to undermine an enemy's will to fight. Congress is expected to approve this week a request from Obama for authorization to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels, one part of his program. Still, Hagel acknowledged the number of Syrian fighters that could be trained over the course of the year would only put the opposition on a path to roll back Islamic State fighters. "Five thousand alone is not going to be able to turn the tide. We recognize that," Hagel said. The Senate hearing was repeatedly interrupted by anti-war protesters, shouting slogans such as, "There is no military solution." One protester was escorted out of the room while holding a sign that read: "More war = More extremism." Senator Angus King of Maine, expressing concern that the United States would be drawn into interminable fights against extremist groups around the world from Iraq to Syria to Africa, said: "This is geopolitical Wack-a-mole." (Additional reporting by Missy Ryan and Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott, Susan Heavey, Bernadette Baum and Ken Wills) ================ Satan and a Jewish Woman Give Birth to ISIS in an Iraqi TV Satire, http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/4491.htm #IRGC commander: #US base in Northern #Iraq no threat to #Iran #ISIL #ISIS http://bit.ly/1qTNyQL IRGC commander: US base in Northern Iraq no threat to Iran September 16, 2014 3:02 pm Iraq Crisis, News, Politics, Regional Affairs no comments Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari TEHRAN (FNA)- Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari downplayed enemies’ war rhetoric against Tehran, and said the US military base in Northern Iraq is not considered a threat to Iran. “The US base (in Iraq’s Kurdistan region) is not a threat to us and we believe that we have left behind (the era of) the superpowers’ direct threats and no matter how thoughtless the enemies can be in foreseeing the future, we believe the issue with direct threat is over now,” Jafari said in a press conference in Tehran on Tuesday. He said that the US military base in Northern Iraq is meant to support the Iraqi Kurds who have been deployed in Erbil region. Also asked about Iran’s position on the United States’ possible airstrikes on ISIL or even government positions on Syrian soil and Damascus’s possible response, Jafari said, “We will certainly show political reaction, but we will not show any direct military action.” “The Islamic Republic of Iran’s policy is supporting Syria, and this action of the United States is bullying and is condemned,” he said, but he meantime underlined, “They will regret if they take such an action.” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei also warned on Monday that the US strike on Syria would be reciprocated by repenting response, although he said Iran would not be involved in such reciprocity. Also on Monday, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces General Hassan Firouzabadi warned the US and its allies to avoid exercising new plots in the region, saying that fighting and bombing the positions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group could not be a pretext for violating the sovereignty of Syria and Iraq. “Military experts know that aerial bombardment is not the solution in the fight against terrorism and it can only be one in the chain of the military actions needed for a comprehensive fight against terrorism,” Firouzabadi said on Monday, implying the United States’ theatrical moves against terrorism. He said the experience gained in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq in the last few months showed that effective fight against terrorism should include a simultaneous use of a wide range of tactics and methods, and said, “The experienced Syrian army forces and the country’s popular forces as well as the Iraqi army and popular forces should have the main role in this campaign.” “Bombing the ISIL terrorists can no way be a permission for violating the sovereignty of the Syrian and Iraqi states,” Firouzabadi added. He stressed the necessity for the regional countries’ vigilance against the US plots, and expressed the hope that “those Muslim regional states that helped to the creation of the ISIL at the beginning of this game would relinquish this plot”. His comments came after NATO heads of state convened in the Welsh city of Newport on 4-5 September. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told foreign and defense ministers participating in the NATO summit that the US was forming a broad international coalition against ISIL. Ministers from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark met in Wales to hammer out a strategy for battling ISIL, but the policy was questioned by many regional officials and political leaders. Islamic State supporter warns of attacks against U.S.: SITE Tue, Sep 16 06:19 AM EDT image BEIRUT (Reuters) - A supporter of Islamic State militants has warned of attacks on the United States and its allies if they continue to carry out military action against the group that has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria, the SITE monitoring service said. The message on a well-known militant Islamist online forum is one of the few responses from supporters of Islamic State to Washington's announcement last week that it was prepared to extend airstrikes against the group into Syria. The posting on the Minbar Jihadi Media website condemned "intervention in the affairs of other peoples" and said it would trigger an equal response, SITE said late on Monday. "It will lead to an equal reaction of the same strength in targeting the American depth and also the nations allied to it and in all aspects," the message said in a translation from Arabic, according to SITE, which tracks militant forums. The United States has stepped up its military response to the hardline group, which has beheaded several Western hostages. On Sunday Islamic State released a video that it said showed the beheading of a British aid worker. U.S. President Barack Obama is calling for a coalition of Western and Middle Eastern countries to fight Islamic State. "I direct a sternly worded warning to each of those nations involved with America, or that are allied with it in their war against the Islamic Caliphate, that their local and international interests will be legitimate targets," the posting by a supporter referred to as "Amir al-Thul" said. The posting used religious language and said the author was speaking from a "blessed pulpit" but it was not clear what influence he had on the actions of Islamic State. The message called on the public in the United States and its allies to oppose government actions against the group. (Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Louise Ireland) ============ U.S. to Assad: Beware of interfering with U.S. air power in Syria Mon, Sep 15 19:02 PM EDT image By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Syrian military's air defenses would face retaliation if Syria attempted to respond to U.S. air strikes that are expected against Islamic State targets in Syria, senior U.S. officials said on Monday. President Barack Obama's authorization of the use of American air power against Islamic State's strongholds in Syria has raised the question of whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would respond in some way. Senior U.S. officials who briefed reporters said Assad should not interfere, that the United States has a good sense of where Syrian air defenses and command-and-control facilities are located. One official said if the Assad military were to demonstrate that it was a threat to the U.S. ability to operate in the area, it would put Syrian air defenses in the region at risk. The United States has stressed it will not coordinate with the Assad government in any way in its fight against Islamic State. Obama's position has long been that he would like to see Assad leave power, particularly after using chemical weapons against his own people last year. But air strikes against Islamic State in Syria could have the indirect effect of benefiting Assad because the extremists have been fighting the Syrian government during what is now a three-year civil war. Washington wants to train and equip Syrian rebels who are deemed to be moderate to hold territory cleared by U.S. air strikes. The U.S. military has conducted dozens of air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq, but has yet to launch any in Syria as Obama works to solidify an anti-Islamic State coalition . The president will meet on Tuesday at the White House with retired Marine General John Allen, who is in charge of coordinating the activities of a coalition expected to include some Western allies and a number of Arab states. A senior U.S. official said some Arab states have agreed to join the United States in launching air strikes, but declined to identify them. (Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bernard Orr) ========= Mon, Sep 15 19:43 PM EDT image 1 of 5 By Jason Szep and Mehrdad Balali PARIS/DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader said on Monday he had personally rejected an offer from the United States for talks to fight Islamic State, an apparent blow to Washington's efforts to build a military coalition to fight militants in both Iraq and Syria. World powers meeting in Paris on Monday gave public backing to military action to fight Islamic State fighters in Iraq. France sent jets on a reconnaissance mission to Iraq, a step toward becoming the first ally to join the U.S.-led air campaign there. But Iran, the principal ally of Islamic State's main foes in both Iraq and Syria, was not invited to the Paris meeting. The countries that did attend - while supporting action in Iraq - made no mention at all of Syria, where U.S. diplomats face a far tougher task building an alliance for action. Washington has been trying to build a coalition to fight Islamic State since last week when President Barack Obama pledged to destroy the militant group on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border. That means plunging into two civil wars in which nearly every country in the Middle East already has a stake. And it also puts Washington on the same side as Tehran, its bitter enemy since the Islamic revolution of 1979. In a rare direct intervention into diplomacy, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Washington had reached out through the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, requesting a meeting to discuss cooperation against Islamic State. "I saw no point in cooperating with a country whose hands are dirty and intentions murky," the Iranian leader said in quotes carried on state news agency IRNA. He accused Washington of "lying" by saying it had excluded Iran from its coalition, saying it was Iran that had refused to participate. Khamenei said that some Iranian officials had welcomed the contacts, but he had personally vetoed them. Khamenei's intervention, including his statement that some Iranian officials welcomed the U.S. overture, was a rare public acknowledgment of division but also a reminder that powerful interests in Iran oppose a wider thaw. "HANDS ARE DIRTY" U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was "not cooperating with Iran", but declined to be drawn on whether it had reached out through the embassy in Baghdad for talks. "I am not going to get into a back and forth," he said. "I don't think that's constructive, frankly." Islamic State fighters set off alarms across the Middle East since June when they swept across northern Iraq, seizing cities, slaughtering prisoners, proclaiming a caliphate to rule over all Muslims and ordering non-Sunnis to convert or die. IS fighters, known for beheading their enemies or captives, raised the stakes for the West by cutting off the heads of two Americans and a Briton in videos posted on the Internet which showed the prisoners bound in orange jumpsuits. French officials said they had hoped to invite Iran to Monday's conference but Arab countries had blocked the move. "We wanted a consensus among countries over Iran's attendance, but in the end it was more important to have certain Arab states than Iran," a French diplomat said. "This conference was like a mass. A big gathering where we listen to each other, but it's not where miracles happen," said another French diplomat. "It was a strong political message of support for Iraq and now we prepare to fight." Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said French aircraft would begin reconnaissance flights over Iraq. A French official said two Rafale fighters and a refueling aircraft had set off. "The throat-slitters of Daesh - that's what I'm calling them - tell the whole world 'Either you're with us or we kill you'. When one is faced with such a group there is no other attitude than to defend yourself," Fabius said at the end of the talks. Calling the decision regrettable, Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Baghdad had wanted Iran to attend. Iran sponsors the governments of both Iraq and Syria and has been at the center of defenses against Islamic State in both countries. The United States reached out to Iran last year when secret talks led to a preliminary deal on nuclear issues. Iran has occasionally played down its conflicts with the West since President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, was elected last year. "THROAT-SLITTERS" At Monday's international conference in Paris, the five U.N. Security Council permanent members, Turkey, European and Arab states and representatives of the EU, Arab League and United Nations all pledged to help Baghdad fight Islamic State. "All participants underscored the urgent need to remove Daesh from the regions in which it has established itself in Iraq," said a statement after the talks. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the group which now calls itself Islamic State. "To that end, they committed to supporting the new Iraqi Government in its fight against Daesh, by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance...." it said. Several Western and Arab officials said no concrete commitments were made and that talks on the different roles of those in the coalition would take place bilaterally and over the next 10 days at the United Nations General Assembly. Iraqi President Fouad Massoum told Monday's conference he hoped the Paris meeting would bring a "quick response". "Islamic State's doctrine is either you support us or kill us‎. It has committed massacres and genocidal crimes and ethnic purification," he told delegates. VOTE OF CONFIDENCE Monday's conference was an important vote of confidence for the new Iraqi government formed last week, led by a member of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and also including minority Sunnis and Kurds in important jobs. Iraq's allies hope Abadi will prove a more consensual leader than his predecessor Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite whose policies alienated many Sunnis, and that the new government will win back support from Sunnis who had backed the Islamic State's revolt. The broad international goodwill toward Abadi shown at Monday's conference means Washington will probably face little diplomatic push back over plans for air strikes in Iraq. Syria, however, is a much trickier case. In a three-year civil war, Islamic State has emerged as one of the most powerful Sunni groups battling against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, a member of a Shi'ite-derived sect. Washington and its allies remain hostile to Assad, which means any bombing is likely to take place without permission of the Damascus government. Russia, which backs Assad, says bombing would be illegal without a resolution at the U.N. Security Council, where it has a veto. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Paris that Moscow was already providing military assistance to both Iraq and Syria, suggesting Western countries were guilty of a double standard by helping Assad's foes. "Terrorists can't be good or bad. We must be consistent and not involve our personal political projects, not prioritize them over the general goal of fighting terrorism." The United States resumed air strikes in Iraq in August for the first time since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops. Obama's plans, announced last week, involve stronger military action in Iraq and extending the campaign to Syria. U.S. officials said several Arab countries had offered to join air strikes against Islamic State, but declined to name them. Ten Arab states committed last week to a military coalition without specifying what action they would take. Britain, Washington's main ally when it invaded Iraq in 2003, has yet to confirm it will take part in air strikes, despite the killing of British aid worker David Haines by Islamic State fighters this past week. France has said it is ready to take part in bombing missions in Iraq but is so far wary of action in Syria. (Additional reporting by John Irish, Marine Pennetier, Alexandria Sage and Nicholas Vinocur,; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Peter Millership) ========== Shiite Militias Pose Challenge for U.S. in Iraq By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICKSEPT. 16, 2014 Photo Fighters with Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a Shiite militia, and Kurdish pesh merga forces on patrol earlier this month in Tikrit, Iraq. Credit Youssef Boudlal/Reuters BAGHDAD — Militia justice is simple, the fighters explained. “We break into an area and kill the ones who are threatening people,” said one 18-year-old fighter with Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a Shiite militia that operates as a vigilante force around Baghdad. Another 18-year-old fighter agreed. “We receive orders and carry out attacks immediately,” he said, insisting that their militia commanders had been given authority by Iraqi security officials. That free hand has helped make Asaib Ahl al-Haq the largest and most formidable of the Iranian-backed Shiite militias that now dominate Baghdad. Once a leading killer of American troops, the militia is spearheading the fight against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL. That means Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the United States military are now fighting on the same side, though each insists they will not work together. U.S. General Open to Ground Forces in Fight Against ISIS in Iraq SEPT. 16, 2014 Syrian Plane Shot Down as Attacks by Groups Intensify SEPT. 16, 2014 Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, chairman of a United Nations panel investigating human rights abuses in Syria. U.N. Investigators Cite Atrocities in SyriaSEPT. 16, 2014 But the power and autonomy of Asaib Ahl al-Haq and other Shiite militias also pose a central challenge to the creation of a more just and less sectarian Iraqi government. President Obama has said that the new American military offensive depends on such an inclusive Iraqi government, to undercut the appeal of the Sunni extremists and avoid American entanglement in a sectarian war. How ISIS Works With oil revenues, arms and organization, the jihadist group controls vast stretches of Syria and Iraq and aspires to statehood. Even while many Iraqi Shiites view the militias as their protectors, many in the Sunni minority say they fear the groups as agents of Iran, empowered by the Baghdad government to kill with impunity. After a decade of support from Iran and a new flood of recruits amid the Islamic State crisis, the Shiite militias are also now arguably more powerful than the Iraqi security forces, many here say, limiting the ability of any new government to rein them in.

“The militias have even bigger role now that they are said to be fighting ISIS” said Alla Maki, a Sunni lawmaker. “Who will control them? We have no real Iraqi Army. Under former Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Asaib Ahl al-Haq was “encouraged to do dirty jobs like killing Sunnis, and they were allowed to operate freely,” Mr. Maki said. “Now the international community are all being inspired by the removal of Maliki personally, but the policy is still going on.”

The Asaib Ahl al-Haq fighters and the group’s official spokesman insisted that their vigilante attacks protect all Iraqis, Sunnis as well as Shiites. “We have been able to track the sleeper cells of ISIS and secure almost all of Baghdad — about 80 percent,” said Naeem al-Aboudi, a spokesman for Asaib Ahl al-Haq, in a gleaming, leather-paneled conference room at its heavily fortified headquarters in an elite neighborhood of the capital. In the current fight, he added, “the most dangerous areas in Iraq were assigned to Asaib Ahl al-Haq to lead the battle, because of the capability and professionalism of our fighters.” Asaib Ahl al-Haq was closely linked with Mr. Maliki, but Mr. Aboudi said it now sees itself as a “loyal opposition” to the new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, charged with assembling that more inclusive government. For starters, Mr. Aboudi said, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the other large Shiite militias are negotiating with Mr. Abadi over the choices for defense and interior ministers. On Tuesday, the opposition of the Shiite militias helped block a parliamentary vote on those nominees. Asked about complaints of discrimination and police abuse against Sunnis under the previous government, Mr. Aboudi said the whole question was backward: “I think Shiites are the real marginalized and persecuted community in Iraq. We have more problems as Shiites than the Sunnis, even though the election showed we are the majority.” So far, though, there is no sign of any official attempts to investigate even the most publicized allegations of extrajudicial killings of Sunnis by Asaib Ahl al-Haq. At the end of July, a report from the research and advocacy group Human Rights Watch said it had documented the killings of 109 Sunni men — 48 in March and April, and 61 between June 1 and July 9 — in the villages and towns around Baghdad. Witnesses, medical personnel and government officials blamed Shiite militias for all of them, and “in many cases witnesses identified the militia as Asaib Ahl al-Haq,” the report said. In one case, Human Rights Watch wrote, a man kidnapped by fighters who identified themselves as members of Asaib Ahl al-Haq was later released because he convinced them that he was a Shiite, not a Sunni. Photo Members of the Iraqi Shiite militia Kata’ib Hezbollah patrolling at the outskirts of Hibhib in northern Iraq last month. The militia is one of several supported by the Iranian government. Credit European Pressphoto Agency Human Rights Watch quoted a doctor in the Health Ministry: “Sunnis are a minority in Baghdad, but they’re the majority in our morgue.” But victims and witnesses said the security forces “seemed too scared of the militias” to act or investigate, said Erin Evers, the group’s researcher in Baghdad. A spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry said it saw no pattern of sectarian killings, suggesting that ordinary crime was wrongly attributed to sectarianism when the victims were Sunnis. The spokesman, Saad Maan, denied that Asaib Ahl al-Haq or other militias were formally allowed to operate freely in Baghdad, although he acknowledged that to defend against the Islamic State the government had called on the Shiite militias to form a new volunteer force. “

There are bad people in each group,” including Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Mr. Maan said. But he vowed that the situation would improve as Iraq strengthened its own police forces, especially with the new international support for the new prime minister, Mr. Abadi. “I think this is a turning point for Iraq,” Mr. Maan said.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, usually translated as League of the Righteous, is considered the most formidable of Iraq’s three large Iranian-backed militias. The second is Kata’ib Hezbollah, which shares the Iranian patronage and ideology of the Lebanese group of the same name, but has no other known links to it. The third is the Badr Corps, led by Hadi al-Ameri, a lawmaker in the governing coalition who served as minister of transportation in Mr. Maliki’s government. Asaib Ahl al-Haq was created about 10 years ago, in the years after the American invasion, when its leader, Sheikh Qais al-Khazali, broke away from the forces loyal to the prominent Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. United States officials blame Asaib Ahl al-Haq for a long series of deadly attacks on American forces during their occupation of Iraq. In 2007, Sheikh Khazali led an attack in Falluja that killed five United States Marines, American officials say. He was captured and held for three years by American forces, then released in 2010. He was ultimately transferred to the Iraqi government and then released at the same time as his group released a British computer expert it had held hostage. But Iraqi and American officials denied any prisoner exchange. The group’s attacks continued even as the occupation was ending: In June 2011, for instance, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and other Iranian-backed militias killed 13 American soldiers in rocket attacks on their bases, and that November an Asaib Ahl al-Haq roadside bomb killed the last American to die before the withdrawal. But by January 2012, virtually as soon as the Americans were gone, Mr. Maliki had invited the group back into Iraqi politics as a counterbalance to the influence of other powerful Shiite militias. Many of the group’s leaders were soon reported to be returning from exile in Iran. Asaib Ahl al-Haq came to be known as the armed support for Mr. Maliki’s Shiite political faction. The group’s spokesman declined to disclose its size, but Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s numbers swelled vastly earlier this year when a prominent cleric urged Shiites to take up arms against the invading Sunni fighters. The group has been the leading force in critical fights like the recent battle for the town of Amerli, raising eyebrows among some American military personnel about the prospect of partnering with such enemies to fight the Islamic State. Underscoring the tensions in the de facto alliance, the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia said Monday that it would leave the battlefield if American troops join in the ground fight — an action that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday was a remote but real possibility as more American advisers became involved in Iraq. Continue reading the main story 3 Comments “We will not fight alongside the American troops under any kind of conditions whatsoever,” the militia said in a statement on its website, adding that its only contact with the Americans would be “if we fight each other.” Mr. Aboudi of Asaib Ahl al-Haq said his militia could accept American airstrikes or military attacks against specific targets, “under the supervision of the Iraqis.” But he does not trust the Americans either, he said, arguing that Washington’s ultimate goal was to divide Iraq and thus increase Israel’s relative strength. “America has been intervening in most of the Arab countries of the region,” he said, “and it never brings stability.”

Saudi king warns of terrorism threat to U.S., Europe

Suicide attack kills 9 in Iraq . Associated Press By SAMEER N. YACOUB Bombings kill 42 in Iraq after Sunni mosque attack Associated Press Car bombing kills at least 11 people in Baghdad Associated Press Officials: 2 car bombs in Baghdad kill 15 people Associated Press Bombs kill at least 35 across Iraq a day after mosque shooting Reuters Six dead as suicide bomber hits Iraq intelligence HQ AFP BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi officials say a suicide car bomb attack on an army checkpoint has killed nine people, including four soldiers, south of Baghdad. Police officials say a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into the checkpoint in the town of Youssifiyah on Saturday. At least 20 people were wounded and several cars were burnt in the attack. Youssifiyah is 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Baghdad. Iraq has faced an onslaught by Sunni insurgents since early this year as the extremist Islamic State group and allied militants have taken over large areas in the country's west and north. ======================= Saudi king warns of terrorism threat to U.S., Europe . Reuters Britain raises its terrorism threat level over Syria, Iraq Reuters Egypt, Saudis seek united front against militant Islam Reuters U.S. says no precise threat to homeland from Islamic State Reuters Saudi Arabia jails 17 people for militant Islamist offences Reuters Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti denounces Iraq's Islamic State group Reuters DOHA (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah said terrorism would soon spread to Europe and the United States unless it is quickly dealt with in the Middle East, the Saudi state news agency reported late on Friday. The king made the statement during a reception for foreign ambassadors held in Jeddah. "I ask you to convey this message to your leaders... Terrorism at this time is an evil force that must be fought with wisdom and speed," said King Abdullah. "And if neglected I'm sure after a month it will arrive in Europe and a month after that in America." The world's top oil exporter shares an 800-km (500-mile) border with Iraq, where Islamic State militants and other Sunni Islamist groups have seized towns and cities. Riyadh has long expressed fears of being targeted by jihadists, including some of its own citizens, who have taken part in conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Earlier this year, it decreed long jail terms for those who travel abroad to fight. Britain raised its terrorism alert on Friday and Prime Minister David Cameron said Islamic State posed the greatest ever security risk to the country. (Reporting by Amena Bakr; editing by Tom Pfeiffer) ================================================= Intelligence nightmare: Extremists returning home . Associated Press By KEN DILANIAN and BRADLEY KLAPPER 20 minutes ago . . .. . This March 23, 2008 photo provided by the Hennepin County, Minn. Sheriff's Office shows Douglas McAuthur McCain. The Obama administration has offered a wide range of assessments of the threat to U.S. national security posed by Islamic State extremists in an area straddling eastern Syrian and northern and western Iraq, and whose actions include last week’s beheading of American journalist James Foley. Some officials say the group is more dangerous than al-Qaida. Yet intelligence assessments say it currently couldn’t pull off a complex, 9-11-style attack on the U.S. or Europe. (AP Photo/Hennepin County, Minn. Sheriff's Office) . View photo This March 23, 2008 photo provided by the Hennepin County, Minn. Sheriff's Office shows Douglas McAuthur McCain. The Obama administration has offered a wide range of assessments of the threat to U.S. national security posed by Islamic State extremists in an area straddling eastern Syrian and northern and western Iraq, and whose actions include last week’s beheading of American journalist James Foley. Some officials say the group is more dangerous than al-Qaida. Yet intelligence assessments say it currently couldn’t pull off a complex, 9-11-style attack on the U.S. or Europe. (AP Photo/Hennepin County, Minn. Sheriff's Office) . WASHINGTON (AP) — The case of Mehdi Nemmouche haunts U.S. intelligence officials. Cameron promises tough action to fight militants Associated Press Obama weighs strategy against Islamic State Associated Press UN approves measure to combat al-Qaida fighters Associated Press U.S. says no precise threat to homeland from Islamic State Reuters Islamic authority: Extremists no 'Islamic State' Associated Press Nemmouche is a Frenchman who authorities say spent 11 months fighting with the Islamic State group in Syria before returning to Europe to act out his rage. On May 24, prosecutors say, he methodically shot four people at the Jewish Museum in central Brussels. Three died instantly, one afterward. Nemmouche was arrested later, apparently by chance. For U.S. and European counterterrorism officials, that 90-second spasm of violence is the kind of attack they fear from thousands of Europeans and up to 100 Americans who have gone to fight for extremist armies in Syria and now Iraq. The Obama administration has offered a wide range of assessments of the threat to U.S. national security posed by the extremists who say they've established a caliphate, or Islamic state, in an area straddling eastern Syrian and northern and western Iraq, and whose actions include last week's beheading of American journalist James Foley. Some officials say the group is more dangerous than al-Qaida. Yet intelligence assessments say it currently couldn't pull off a complex, 9-11-style attack on the U.S. or Europe. However, there is broad agreement across intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the immediate threat from radicalized Europeans and Americans who could come home to conduct lone-wolf operations. Such plots are difficult to detect because they don't require large conspiracies of people whose emails or phone calls can be intercepted. The 2013 Boston Marathon bombings were like that, carried out by radicalized American brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev acting on their own. So was the 2010 attempt to bomb New York's Times Square by Faisal Shahzad, who received training and direction in Pakistan but operated alone in the United States. On Friday, Britain raised its terror threat from "substantial" to "severe," its second highest level, citing a foreign fighter danger that made a terrorist attack "highly likely." The U.S. didn't elevate its national terrorist threat level, though White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the administration was closely monitoring the situation. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Friday that U.S. authorities aren't aware of any "specific, credible" threats to the U.S. homeland from the group. So far, Nemmouche is the only foreign fighter affiliated with the Islamic State group who authorities say returned from the battlefield to carry out violence, and some scholars argue the danger is overstated. But nearly every senior national security official in the U.S. government — including the attorney general, FBI director, homeland security secretary and leaders of key intelligence and military agencies — has called foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq their top terrorism worry. "While we have worked hard over the last year and a half to detect Westerners who have gone to Syria, no one knows for sure whether there are those who have gone there undetected," said John Cohen, a Rutgers University professor who stepped down in July as the Homeland Security Department's counterterrorism coordinator. "And that's why those of us who look at this every day are so concerned that somebody is going to slip through the cracks," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the House Intelligence Committee chairman, said Thursday on CNN. "They're either going to get into Europe or they're going to get into the United States." Unlike al-Qaida militants in Pakistan and Yemen, American and European passport holders who have secretly gone to fight in Syria can travel freely if they have not been identified as terrorists. U.S. authorities are sifting through travel records and trying to identify the foreign fighters, but they won't see all of them. An American from San Diego, Douglas McAuthur McCain, was killed this week in Syria, where, officials say, he was fighting with the Islamic State. The U.S. is investigating whether a second American also was killed. McCain is one of several Western Muslims over the last two years who proved themselves willing to kill or die for extremist groups or help them win new recruits. The names of many more remain secret in the files of U.S. intelligence agencies, but here are others that are public: —Moner Mohammad Abusalha, an American who grew up a basketball fan in Vero Beach, Florida, killed 16 people and himself in a suicide bombing attack against Syrian government forces in May. U.S. officials say he was on their radar screen but acknowledge he traveled from Syria to the United States before the attack without detection. Had he attacked in the U.S. instead of Syria, it's unclear whether he would have been stopped. —Two brothers from East London, Hamza Nawaz, 23, and Mohommod Nawaz, 30, pleaded guilty in May to attending a terrorist training camp in Syria. They were caught on the return trip home with ammunition. In an unrelated case, Mashudur Choudhury, 31, was also convicted in London of traveling to a terrorist camp in Syria. —Three Norwegian residents were arrested in May and accused of having fought with the Islamic State group. —Eight men, including a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, were arrested in June by Spanish authorities and charged with recruiting for the Islamic State group. Of the thousands of foreign fighters who've flocked to Syria, many have fought with the al Nusra front, an al-Qaida affiliate and rival to the Islamic State. The group poses its own threat, American officials say, but poses less of a threat than does the Islamic State, whose battlefield successes have made it a stronger draw for foreign fighters than any Jihadist group in recent history. It has seized advanced military equipment and has millions of dollars in cash. Intelligence officials estimate that about a dozen Americans are fighting with the Islamic State group. Nemmouche, who has a long criminal record, allegedly killed two Israeli tourists outside the Brussels museum entrance with a .357 Magnum revolver. Then he walked inside, removed an assault rifle from a gym bag and shot two museum employees in the face and throat, prosecutors say. He was caught six days later during a random customs inspection of a bus from Amsterdam. With him were the murder weapons, authorities say, and a sheet scrawled with the name of the Islamic State. He had intended to film the attack with a wearable video camera, authorities say, though it wasn't working that day. Abusalha, the 22-year-old Vero Beach suicide bomber, was recorded in a series of videos before his attack. In one of them, he addresses the U.S. public in American-accented English. "You think you are safe? You are not safe," he said. "We are coming for you, mark my words." ===========================

Iran supplied weapons to Iraqi Kurds; Baghdad bomb kills 12

Iran supplied weapons to Iraqi Kurds; Baghdad bomb kills 12 Tue, Aug 26 18:07 PM EDT image 1 of 2 By Isabel Coles ARBIL (Reuters) - Iran has supplied weapons and ammunition to Iraqi Kurdish forces, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani said Tuesday at a joint press conference with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Arbil, capital of Iraq's Kurdish region. The direct arming of Kurdish forces is a contentious issue, because some Iraqi politicians suspect Kurdish leaders have aspirations to break away from the central government completely. The move could also be seen by some as a prelude to Iran's taking a more direct role in broader Iraqi conflict. "We asked for weapons and Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition," Barzani said. Militants from the Islamic State have clashed with Kurdish peshmerga fighters in recent weeks and taken control of some areas on the periphery of Iraqi Kurdistan. Earlier in the day, a car bomb was detonated in a mainly Shi'ite district of eastern Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 28, police and medical sources said. The bombing in the New Baghdad neighborhood followed a series of blasts in the Iraqi capital on Monday which killed more than 20 people. The Islamic State, which controls large swathes of northern and western Iraq, claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in the New Baghdad neighborhood on Monday. It said in a statement the attack was carried out as revenge for an attack against a Sunni mosque in Diyala on Friday which killed 68 and wounded dozens. The U.N. Human Rights Council will hold an emergency session in Geneva on Monday concerning abuses being committed by Islamic State and other militant groups in Iraq, the United Nations said on Tuesday. The 47 member states of the forum have moral authority to condemn abuses or set up international investigations into war crimes or crimes against humanity, but they cannot impose binding resolutions The Iranian foreign minister held talks with Barzani on Tuesday, one day after visiting senior Shi’ite clerics in southern Iraq. Zarif acknowledged giving military assistance to Iraqi security forces but said the cooperation did not include deploying ground troops in the country. "We have no military presence in Iraq," Zarif said. "We do have military cooperation with both the central government and the Kurds in different arenas.” Neither Zarif nor Barzani gave any details on whether weapons supplied to Kurdish peshmerga forces had been routed through the central government or given directly to Kurdish forces. Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi said Monday that arms given to the peshmerga had been routed through the central government. Britain, France, Germany and Italy have also promised to send military assistance to Kurdish security forces to fight the Islamic State. The United States has carried out a series of air strikes against the Islamic State fighters in northern Iraq in the past two weeks, partly to protect the Kurdish region from being overrun. Zarif denied that Iran and the United States were discussing Iraq as part of talks between Iran and Western powers about Iran’s nuclear program. (Additional reporting by Kareem Raheem in Baghdad; Writing by Babak Dehghanpisheh; editing by Ralph Boulton, Larry King)

Islamists sought to turn Lebanon into Iraq: army chief

Arabs vow to confront Islamic State, cooperate with international efforts Sun, Sep 07 14:58 PM EDT image 1 of 6 By Lin Noueihed and Omar Fahmy CAIRO (Reuters) - Arab League foreign ministers agreed on Sunday to take all necessary measures to confront Islamic State and cooperate with international, regional and national efforts to combat militants who have overrun swathes of Iraq and Syria. The Arab League also endorsed in the closing statement of its meeting in Cairo a UN Security Council resolution passed last month calling on member states to "act to suppress the flow of foreign fighters, financing and other support to Islamist extremist groups in Iraq and Syria". Baghdad had earlier submitted a draft resolution endorsing its own efforts to confront militants who have seized large areas for a cross-border caliphate and to condemn Islamic State's actions as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Diplomatic sources said before the meeting that Arab foreign ministers were set to endorse a U.S. aerial campaign against the group and Egypt's official Mena news agency said the ministers would agree to coordinate with the United States. The final text did not directly endorse either the Iraqi or U.S. campaign against Islamic State, but diplomatic sources said the wording clearly offered Arab cooperation to U.S. and Iraqi efforts and could be read as a tacit agreement to back Washington's campaign against the group. At the opening session, several foreign ministers spoke of the gravity of the challenge posed by Islamic State in Iraq as well as the violence that has engulfed Libya and other regions. Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi told the session that the rise of the group in Iraq challenged not merely the authority of the state but "its very existence and the existence of other states" and called for a decisive resolution to confront terrorism militarily, politically, economically and culturally. Arabi suggested that military action could take place under the umbrella of an Arab League joint defense pact. It was not clear whether the Arab commitment to take all necessary action against Islamic State and other militant groups would include direct military involvement in Iraq or Syria. President Barack Obama declared last week that the United States was ready to "take out" leaders of Islamic State, and said NATO allies were prepared to join military action against a movement that he labeled a major threat to the West. U.S. warplanes carried out four strikes against Islamic State militants threatening western Iraq's Haditha Dam early on Sunday, witnesses and senior officials said, broadening Washington's campaign against the fighters. Obama would like Gulf Arab states to consider military action, but also to support Sunni Muslim moderates in Iraq and Syria who could undermine the appeal of Islamic State. He also wants Islamic State's sources of funding cut off, a point on which the closing statement touched. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is to travel to Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the coming week for talks with Gulf leaders to determine whether they are prepared to back up their anti-jihadist rhetoric with action. In a change of position, the Arab League statement also called for Syrian opposition groups to hold talks with the state aimed at creating a reconciliation government. As the Syrian conflict has dragged on and Islamic militants have taken the upper hand, early Arab League support for opponents of Bashar al-Assad has given way to a more cautious tone. (Editing by Rosalind Russell) ======================== Islamists sought to turn Lebanon into Iraq: army chief Tue, Aug 12 03:33 AM EDT image By Samia Nakhoul and Laila Bassam BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State insurgents who seized a Lebanese border town this month planned to turn Lebanon into another Iraq by unleashing sectarian war between Sunnis and Shi'ites that would have endangered the nation's very existence, the army commander said. General Jean Kahwaji told Reuters that radical Islamists on the march in Iraq and Syria still posed a "great threat" to Lebanon, which was torn apart by a 1975-90 civil war and has been badly buffeted by the Syrian conflict. "The army hit them and continues to, smashing their plan," said Kahwaji, 37 of whose soldiers were either killed or captured in the battle for the border town of Arsal. "But this does not mean that the story is over," he said. "They might think of another plan and try another time to cause Sunni-Shi'ite strife," said Kahwaji, 60. The Aug. 2 attack marked the most serious spillover to date of Syria's three-year-old civil war into Lebanon and the first time a foreign invader has taken Lebanese territory since Israel entered the south during its 2006 war with Hezbollah. Battle-hardened in Syria, the insurgents were members of radical Sunni groups including the Islamic State, which has redrawn the borders of the Middle East by seizing territory in Syria and Iraq. The group's advance has accelerated since it seized the Iraqi city of Mosul in June. Dozens of the militants were killed in Arsal during a five-day battle with the Lebanese army, according to army estimates. The militants withdrew into the mountainous border zone last Thursday, taking with them 19 captive soldiers. Kahwaji, dressed in military fatigues, said the Islamists' aim had been to turn the Sunni Muslim town of Arsal into a bridgehead from which to advance on surrounding Shi'ite villages, igniting a sectarian fire storm he said would have destroyed Lebanon. "The strife in Iraq would have moved to Lebanon - 100 percent," said Kahwaji, a Maronite Christian. He said he was basing his assessment on the confessions of an Islamist commander whose detention on Aug. 2 was the immediate trigger for the battle. The commander, Emad Gomaa, had been "fine tuning" the plan at the time of his arrest, Kahwaji said. Gomaa, 30, was a member of the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's affiliate in the conflict, but had recently switched allegiance to the Islamic State. He had previously worked as a purveyor of dairy products, Kahwaji said. His confessions had led to the arrest of a number of militant cells in different parts of Lebanon, he added. "Would there have remained a state? It is a battle for the survival of the Lebanese entity," Kahwaji said. Tensions between Lebanese Shi'ites and Sunnis are already running high, exacerbated by the role played by the powerful Shi'ite group Hezbollah fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria. Lebanese Sunnis have broadly been supportive of the uprising against Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, which is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Lebanon is also now home to an estimated 1.6 million Syrian refugees, most of them Sunnis. Though its arsenal is more powerful than the Lebanese army's, Hezbollah stayed out of the Arsal battle, wary of wider sectarian strife in a country already hit by suicide bombings, gun battles and rocket attacks linked to the Syrian war. The arrival of Islamic State fighters waving the group's black flag on the northeastern border triggered panic in a country that is home to many religious groups at risk from a movement that has beheaded and crucified its opponents. Kahwaji said: "If the world and the people give up, then the black flag will arrive in Lebanon. But the people are with the army and they won't let them arrive." DISMISSES SPECULATION ON PRESIDENCY The army has been crucial to holding the Lebanese state together since the civil war. It recruits from across the religious spectrum and is more widely trusted than other security agencies that have a more sectarian character. Outside Kahwaji's office at the Ministry of Defense in the hills outside Beirut, where he spoke to Reuters this week, a cartoon shows a soldier carrying a map of Lebanon on his back. The Arsal crisis rallied all of Lebanon's main leaders, including Sunni politician Saad al-Hariri, around the army. Kahwaji described Hariri's backing as crucial. He "sensed the degree of danger to Lebanon", he said. Hariri returned to Lebanon on Friday for the first time since 2011, ending his self-imposed exile following the downfall of his government in order to buttress the moderate Sunni camp against radicals who have gained ground during his absence. He brought with him a $1 billion grant from his regional patron Saudi Arabia - aid designed to help the Lebanese security forces fight Sunni extremists. "He was obliged to return to fill the (Sunni leadership) vacuum," Kahwaji said. The Saudi aid comes on top of a previous pledge of $3 billion in military aid from Riyadh. The Beirut government has asked France to accelerate the delivery of weapons due to be procured with that grant. Kahwaji said his priority was to secure warplanes - both fixed wing and helicopters - to support his land forces. Many Lebanese believe Kahwaji is now more likely than ever to fill the post of the presidency, vacant since Michel Suleiman's term expired in May. The presidency is reserved for a Maronite according to Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system. Suleiman and his predecessor, Emile Lahoud, were both former army commanders. Kahwaji declined to answer questions on Lebanon's political outlook, and dismissed speculation that his chances of becoming head of state had now increased. "What is happening is more important than the subject of the presidency," he said. "If they had succeeded in what they were planning ... the very foundations of Lebanon would have changed." (Writing and additional reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Will Waterman) Saudi jolts wife by taking 10 and 11-year-old boys to fight in Syria Tue, Aug 12 06:42 AM EDT DUBAI (Reuters) - A Saudi father gave his ex-wife the shock of her life when he informed her he was taking their 10 and 11 year-old-sons to join Islamist militants in Syria, telling her to count them as "birds in heaven", Saudi-owned media reported. The pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper said on Tuesday that the unsuspecting mother had been told that her sons, Abdullah and Ahmed, were going on holiday with their father, identified as Nasser al-Shayeq, in a neighboring Gulf Arab country when she saw an Instagram photo of them in Turkey. Al-Hayat said she telephoned her son to ask about the photo, only to receive a message from her ex-husband, a former Saudi civil servant, to say that he was taking the boys to Syria to join Islamic State, one of the most militant groups fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. "Count your children as birds in heaven," Shayeq said in his message, according to al-Hayat, suggesting that they may be killed and become young "martyrs". Fellow Islamic State militants later posted a photo of the father and his two sons crouching in front of Islamic State's black flag, with each boy brandishing an AK-47 rifle in one hand. The father was smiling as one of the boys also held a grenade in his other hand. Many Saudis have joined foreign Islamist militant groups but another Saudi newspaper, al-Riyadh, said the involvement of children in this case had jolted the Saudi government into action, setting up a hotline with the Turkish government to try to bring the two boys home. Saudis are among the hundreds of foreign fighters who have joined Islamist militant groups such as Islamic State and al-Nusrah Front in Syria. Islamic State renamed itself last month after it captured swathes of territory in western Iraq and unified them with territories it holds in eastern Syria. (Reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Susan Fenton)