[Iraq Sun] Iraq plunged deeper into crisis as Syrian army aircraft bombed Sunni Death Eater targets inside Iraq even as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Maliki imposed order on Basra wen the Shiites were going nuts, but has proven incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda's Sunni insurgency. Reelected to his third term in 2014...
rejected calls for forming an emergency government to help the country counter a surge by Sunni Islamist Death Eaters.
The sectarian conflict in Iraq threatened to spill beyond its borders as warplanes of the Syrian Army bombed Sunni strongholds in western Iraq and Iran has reportedly begun to send in military equipment and is flying unarmed surveillance drones over the country.
The developments led U.S. Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
, who is on a tour of the Middle East, to warn Mideast nations against taking new military action in Iraq that might heighten sectarian divisions.
The Pentagon said that 90 additional U.S. troops arrived in Iraq, which are part of the 300 military advisers that President Barack Obama
I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go...
said he would deploy in Iraq to help with the situation. A statement said that U.S. aircraft are now flying 30 to 35 manned and unmanned daily surveillance flights over Iraq.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the initial group sent to establish an operations center included intelligence analysts and logistics experts as well as special operations troops.
Another 50 U.S. military personnel working in the region are expected to arrive within the next few days to create four additional assessment teams, he said. The US military advisers met Storied Baghdad's operations commander and agreed to set up a joint operation command, reports said.
In a televised address, the Iraqi prime minister said: "The call to form a national emergency government is a coup against the constitution and the political process."
"It is an attempt by those who are against the constitution to eliminate the young democratic process and steal the votes of the voters," he said, referring to the April 30 parliament election results.