Reuters, Iraq :
Iran’s supreme leader condemned US intervention in Iraq on Sunday, accusing Washington of seeking control as Sunni insurgents drove toward Baghdad from the Syrian border and consolidated positions in the north and west.
The statement by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was the clearest statement of opposition to a US plan to dispatch of up to 300 military advisers in response to pleas from the Iraqi government and runs counter to speculation that old enemies Washington and Tehran might cooperate to defend their mutual ally in Baghdad.
“We are strongly opposed to US and other intervention in Iraq,” IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei as saying. “We don’t approve of it as we believe the Iraqi government, nation and religious authorities are capable of ending the sedition.”
The Iranian and the US governments had seemed open to collaboration against al Qaeda offshoot the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is fighting both the US-backed, Shi’ite-led government of Iraq and the Iranian-backed president of Syria, whom Washington wants to see overthrown.
“American authorities are trying to portray this as a sectarian war, but what is happening in Iraq is not a war between Shi’ites and Sunnis,” said Khamenei, who has the last word in the Islamic Republic’s Shi’ite clerical administration.
Accusing Washington of using Sunni Islamists and followers of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, he added: “The US is seeking an Iraq under its hegemony and ruled by its stooges.”
Tehran and Washington have been shocked by the lightning quick offensive, spearheaded by ISIL, that has seen large swathes of northern and western Iraq fall to the hardline extremist group and other Sunni fighters since June 10, including the north’s biggest city Mosul.
The Sunnis are united in opposition to what they see as Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s divisive sectarian rule.
ISIL thrust east from a newly captured Iraqi-Syrian border post on Sunday, taking three towns in Iraq’s western Anbar province after seizing the frontier crossing near the town of Qaim on Saturday, witnesses and security sources said.
The gains have helped ISIL secure supply lines to Syria, where it has exploited the chaos of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad to seize territory. The group aims to create an Islamic caliphate straddling the desert border and has held Falluja, just west of Baghdad, since the start of the year.
The fall of Qaim represented another step towards the realization of ISIL’s military goals, erasing a frontier drawn by British and French colonial map-makers a century ago.
ISIL’s gains on Sunday included the towns of Rawa and Ana along the Euphrates river east of Qaim, as well as the town of Rutba further south on the main highway from Jordan to Baghdad.
A military intelligence official said Iraqi troops had withdrawn from Rawa and Ana after ISIL militants attacked the settlements late on Saturday: “Troops withdrew from Rawa, Ana and Rutba this morning and ISIL moved quickly to completely control these towns,” the official said.
“They took Ana and Rawa this morning without a fight.”
Military spokesman Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi said the withdrawal from the towns was intended to ensure “command and control” and to allow troops to regroup and retake the areas.
“The withdrawal of the units was for the purpose of reopening the areas,” he told reporters in Baghdad.
The towns are on a strategic supply route between ISIL’s positions in Iraq and in eastern Syria, where the group has taken a string of towns and strategic positions from rival Sunni forces fighting Assad over the past few days.
The last major Syrian town not in ISIL’s hands in the region, the border town of Albukamal, is controlled by the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s branch in Syria which has clashed with ISIL but also agreed to local truces at times.
ISIL, which began as the Islamic State of Iraq and was disowned by al Qaeda’s central organization in February after pursuing its own goals in Syria and clashing with the Nusra Front, has pushed south down the Tigris valley since capturing Mosul with barely a fight two weeks ago, seizing towns and taking large amounts of weaponry from the fleeing Iraqi army.
Iran’s supreme leader condemned US intervention in Iraq on Sunday, accusing Washington of seeking control as Sunni insurgents drove toward Baghdad from the Syrian border and consolidated positions in the north and west.
The statement by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was the clearest statement of opposition to a US plan to dispatch of up to 300 military advisers in response to pleas from the Iraqi government and runs counter to speculation that old enemies Washington and Tehran might cooperate to defend their mutual ally in Baghdad.
“We are strongly opposed to US and other intervention in Iraq,” IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei as saying. “We don’t approve of it as we believe the Iraqi government, nation and religious authorities are capable of ending the sedition.”
The Iranian and the US governments had seemed open to collaboration against al Qaeda offshoot the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is fighting both the US-backed, Shi’ite-led government of Iraq and the Iranian-backed president of Syria, whom Washington wants to see overthrown.
“American authorities are trying to portray this as a sectarian war, but what is happening in Iraq is not a war between Shi’ites and Sunnis,” said Khamenei, who has the last word in the Islamic Republic’s Shi’ite clerical administration.
Accusing Washington of using Sunni Islamists and followers of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, he added: “The US is seeking an Iraq under its hegemony and ruled by its stooges.”
Tehran and Washington have been shocked by the lightning quick offensive, spearheaded by ISIL, that has seen large swathes of northern and western Iraq fall to the hardline extremist group and other Sunni fighters since June 10, including the north’s biggest city Mosul.
The Sunnis are united in opposition to what they see as Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s divisive sectarian rule.
ISIL thrust east from a newly captured Iraqi-Syrian border post on Sunday, taking three towns in Iraq’s western Anbar province after seizing the frontier crossing near the town of Qaim on Saturday, witnesses and security sources said.
The gains have helped ISIL secure supply lines to Syria, where it has exploited the chaos of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad to seize territory. The group aims to create an Islamic caliphate straddling the desert border and has held Falluja, just west of Baghdad, since the start of the year.
The fall of Qaim represented another step towards the realization of ISIL’s military goals, erasing a frontier drawn by British and French colonial map-makers a century ago.
ISIL’s gains on Sunday included the towns of Rawa and Ana along the Euphrates river east of Qaim, as well as the town of Rutba further south on the main highway from Jordan to Baghdad.
A military intelligence official said Iraqi troops had withdrawn from Rawa and Ana after ISIL militants attacked the settlements late on Saturday: “Troops withdrew from Rawa, Ana and Rutba this morning and ISIL moved quickly to completely control these towns,” the official said.
“They took Ana and Rawa this morning without a fight.”
Military spokesman Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi said the withdrawal from the towns was intended to ensure “command and control” and to allow troops to regroup and retake the areas.
“The withdrawal of the units was for the purpose of reopening the areas,” he told reporters in Baghdad.
The towns are on a strategic supply route between ISIL’s positions in Iraq and in eastern Syria, where the group has taken a string of towns and strategic positions from rival Sunni forces fighting Assad over the past few days.
The last major Syrian town not in ISIL’s hands in the region, the border town of Albukamal, is controlled by the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s branch in Syria which has clashed with ISIL but also agreed to local truces at times.
ISIL, which began as the Islamic State of Iraq and was disowned by al Qaeda’s central organization in February after pursuing its own goals in Syria and clashing with the Nusra Front, has pushed south down the Tigris valley since capturing Mosul with barely a fight two weeks ago, seizing towns and taking large amounts of weaponry from the fleeing Iraqi army.
