Al-Qaida renegades, Kurds assert authority in key areas of Iraq

IRBIL, Iraq -- Iraq was on the brink of falling apart yesterday as al-Qaida renegades asserted their authority over Sunni areas in the north, Kurds seized control of the city of Kirkuk and the Shia-led government appealed for volunteers to help defend its shrinking domain.

The discredited Iraqi army scrambled to recover after the humiliating rout of the past three days, dispatching elite troops to confront the militants in the central town of Samarra and claiming it had recaptured Tikrit, the hometown of the late Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, whose regime was toppled by U.S. troops sweeping north from Kuwait in 2003.

But there was no sign that the militant push was being reversed. With the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) now sweeping south toward Baghdad, scattering U.S.-trained security forces in its wake, the achievements of America's eight-year war in Iraq were rapidly being undone. Iraq now seems to be breaking apart, into Shia, Sunni and Kurdish enclaves that amount to the de facto partition of the country.

As the scale of the threat to the collapsing Iraqi state became clear, Obama administration officials met to discuss options for a response, including possible airstrikes. An Iraqi official close to the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the United States had committed to carrying out airstrikes against the militants, but U.S. officials said no decision had been reached.

President Barack Obama indicated there would be some form of intervention, though he did not specify what. "It's fair to say . . . there will be some short-term, immediate things that need to be done militarily," he said.

The attempted government counteroffensive only appeared to have slowed the pace of the advance of the extremist army, which had headed south toward Baghdad after capturing the northern city of Mosul earlier this week. More than 90,000 Iraqi soldiers deserted rather than confront the militants, according to the official close to Maliki's office who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the extent of the militants' control of Tikrit had been exaggerated and that it is now back in government hands. He denied a report in The Wall Street Journal that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had helped the security forces.

But the official's claim could not be confirmed. A chilling video posted on YouTube showed hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured at the former Speicher U.S. military base being herded by the militants to an uncertain fate, amid fears that they had been executed.

Even as the security forces attempted to regroup elsewhere, the government lost control of more territory in the northeast of the country, to Kurdish forces who took advantage of the chaos to assert control, unopposed, of the city of Kirkuk.

Meanwhile in Mosul, one of Iraq's most important cities, ISIS set about asserting its control, issuing an 11-point charter spelling out the creation of an Islamic state along with new laws, punishments and incentives. Alcohol, cigarettes and drugs are outlawed, citizens will henceforth be required to pray five times a day, thieves will have their hands amputated and women must stay indoors except in cases of emergency, the charter said.

"To those of you who ask, who are you? The answer: We are the soldiers of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria . . . who took it upon ourselves to bring back the glory of the Islamic Caliphate and turn back injustice and indignity," the charter announced.