Washington has already deployed an aircraft carrier to the Gulf, but Obama has ruled out a return to Iraq for US soldiers, who left the country at the end of 2011 after a bloody and costly intervention launched in 2003.
While the US has ruled out co-operating militarily with Tehran, the two nations which have been bitter foes for more than 30 years held “brief discussions” on the crisis in Vienna.
It is yet to be determined “if we want to keep talking to Iran about Iraq”, State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told CNN, acknowledging that Tehran and Washington had a shared interest in ensuring militants do not get “a foothold any more in Iraq”.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki urged Iran to act “in a non sectarian way” as it engages in Iraq. Usually, Washington demands that Tehran not intervene at all.
The sweeping unrest has prompted Australia, France and the United States to pull out some diplomatic staff. The United Nations has also moved dozens of its international staff out of Baghdad.
– Government claims progress –
The Iraqi government has insisted it is making progress in retaking territory from the militants, who currently hold most or parts of four provinces north of Baghdad.
It said on Sunday that security forces had killed 279 militants and that soldiers have recaptured towns north of Baghdad.
The toll could not be independently confirmed, and Iraqi officials often tout high numbers of militant deaths while downplaying their own casualties.
As troops began to push back against militants, evidence of brutal violence against members of the security forces emerged.
The US and the UN condemned a massacre in which ISIL militants appear to have killed scores of soldiers around the city of Tikrit, executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown.
Photos posted online were said to show jihadists summarily executing dozens of captured members of the security forces in the Tikrit region, with tweets attributed to ISIL claiming they had killed 1,700 in all.
The photos and the claims could not be independently verified.
“The claim is horrifying and a true depiction of the bloodlust that these terrorists represent,” Psaki said.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said “this apparently systematic series of cold-blooded executions almost certainly amounts to war crimes.”
The international outcry came as the offensive that the militants launched in Mosul on June 9 entered its second week.
Iraqi forces performed poorly early on, abandoning vehicles and positions and discarding their uniforms, with militants reaching within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Baghdad.
The embattled security forces, who have done better in recent days, will be joined by a flood of volunteers after a call to arms from top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, but a recruitment centre came under attack on Sunday, leaving six people dead.
About The Author
