Volunteers, who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants from ISIL who have taken over Mosul and other northern provinces, prepare to board a bus in Baghdad. PHOTO: REUTERS
The sprawling Baiji refinery, 200 km north of the capital near Tikrit, was a battlefield as troops loyal to the Shia-led government held off insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and its allies who had stormed the perimeter a day earlier, threatening national energy supplies.
Video aired by al Arabiya television showed smoke billowing from the plant and a black flag used by ISIL flying from a building. Workers trapped inside the complex, which spreads for miles close to the Tigris river, said Sunni militants seemed to hold most of the compound and that the security forces were concentrated around the refinery's control room. Iraqi security officials have denied that the plant was close to falling.
The 250-300 remaining staff were evacuated early on Thursday, one of those workers said by telephone. Military helicopters had attacked militant positions overnight, he added.
Baiji, 40 km north of Saddam Hussein's home city of Tikrit, lies squarely in territory captured in the past week by an array of armed Sunni groups, spearheaded by ISIL, which is seeking a new Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria. On Tuesday, staff shut down the plant, which makes much of the fuel Iraqis in the north need for both transport and generating electricity.
ISIL, which considers Iraq's Shia majority as heretics in league with neighbouring, Shia Iran, has led a Sunni charge across northern Iraq after capturing the major city of Mosul last week as Maliki's US-armed forces collapsed.
The group's advance has only been slowed by a regrouped military, Shia militias and other volunteers. But on Tuesday, Sunni fighters took the small town of Mutasim, south of Samarra, giving them the prospect of encircling the city which houses a major Shia shrine. A local police source said security forces withdrew without a fight when dozens of vehicles carrying insurgents converged on Mutasim from three directions.
ISIL, whose leader broke with al Qaeda after accusing the global militant movement of being too cautious, has now secured cities and territory in Iraq and Syria, in effect putting it well on the path to establishing its own well-armed enclave that Western countries fear could become a centre for terrorism.
The Iraqi government made public on Wednesday its request for US air strikes, two and half years after US forces ended the nine-year occupation that began by toppling Saddam in 2003.
US response
Washington has given no indication it will agree to attack and some politicians have urged President Barack Obama to insist that Maliki goes as a condition for further US help.
Within hours of Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari making the request public, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, avoided a direct answer when asked by senators whether Washington would accede to the Iraq request.
"We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power," Dempsey said. Asked whether the United States should honour that request, he answered indirectly, saying: "It is in our national security interest to counter ISIL wherever we find them."
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Iraqi request had included drone strikes and increased surveillance by US drones, which have been flying over Iraq. However, targets for air strikes could be hard to identify.
Another hurdle to US military engagement could be political pressure in Washington for Maliki to quit. Several leading figures in Congress have spoken out against the premier, whom Obama has urged to do more to overcome sectarian rifts.
"The Maliki government, candidly, has got to go if you want any reconciliation," said Dianne Feinstein, one of Obama's fellow Democrats, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Republican senator John McCain backed military support but urged Obama to "make it make very clear to Maliki that his time is up".
Oil industry
If the Baiji refinery falls, ISIL and its allies will have access to a large supply of fuel to add to the weaponry and economic resources seized in Mosul and across the north.
An oil ministry official said the loss of Baiji would cause shortages in the north, including the autonomous Kurdish area, but that the impact on Baghdad would be limited - at around 20 percent of supplies - since it was served by other refineries.
Some international oil companies have pulled out foreign workers. The head of Iraq's Southern Oil Company, Dhiya Jaffar, said Exxon Mobil had conducted a major evacuation and BP had pulled out 20 percent of its staff.
He criticised the moves, as the areas where oil is produced for export are mainly in the south and far from the fighting.
Washington and other Western capitals are trying to save Iraq as a united country by leaning hard on Maliki to reach out to Sunnis, many of whom feel excluded by the Shia parties that have dominated elections since the Sunni Saddam was ousted.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Maliki appealed to tribes, a significant force in Sunni areas, to renounce "those who are killers and criminals who represent foreign agendas".
But so far Maliki's government has relied almost entirely on his fellow Shias for support, with officials denouncing Sunni political leaders as traitors. Shia militia - some of which have funding and backing from Iran - have mobilised to halt the Sunni advance, as Baghdad's million-strong army, built by the United States at a cost of $25 billion, crumbles.
This week, Maliki fired four commanders for abandoning Mosul and said dozens of officers would be court martialed.
Like the civil war in Syria next door, the new fighting threatens to draw in regional neighbours, mustering along sectarian lines in what fighters on both sides depict as an existential struggle for survival.
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