Iraqi forces ready push after Obama offers advisers

Obama insists he will not send large force of ground troops back to country

Iraqi forces were massing north of Baghdad on Friday, aiming to strike back at Sunni Islamists whose drive toward the capital prompted the United States to send military advisers to stiffen government resistance.

President Barack Obama offered up to 300 US military advisers to help coordinate the fight. But he held off granting a request for air strikes from the Shiite-led government and renewed a call for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to do more to overcome sectarian divisions that have fuelled resentment among the Sunni minority.

In the area around Samarra, on the main highway 100 km north of Baghdad, which has become a frontline of the battle with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the provincial governor, a rare Sunni supporter of Maliki, told cheering troops they would now force ISIL and its allies back.

A source close to Malikisaid the government planned to hit back now that it had halted the advance which saw ISIL seize the main northern city of Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, 10 days ago and sweep down along the Sunni-populated Tigris valley toward Baghdad as the US-trained army crumbled.

Governor Abdullah al-Jibouri, whose provincial capital Tikrit was overrun last week, was shown on television on Friday telling soldiers in Ishaqi, just south of Samarra: "Today we are coming in the direction of Tikrit, Sharqat and Nineveh.

"These troops will not stop," he added, saying government forces around Samarra numbered more than 50,000.

This week, the militants' lightning pace has slowed in the area north of the capital, home to Sunnis but also to Shiites fearful of ISIL, which views them as heretics to be wiped out. Samarra has a major Shiite shrine. And it was for killings of Shiites in nearby Dujail that Maliki had Saddam hanged in 2006.

The participation of Shiite militias and tens of thousands of new Shiite army volunteers has allowed the Iraqi military to rebound after mass desertions by soldiers last week allowed ISIL to carve out territory where it aims to found an Islamic caliphate straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border.

"The strategy has been for the last few days to have a new defence line to stop the advance of ISIL," a close ally of Maliki said. "We succeeded in blunting the advance and now are trying to get back areas unnecessarily lost."

Pockets of fighting continue. Government forces appeared to be still holding out in the sprawling Baiji oil refinery, the country's largest, 100 km north of Samarra, residents said.

'Targeted' US action

While a new reality is emerging with the key cities of Mosul and Tikrit for now out of reach for the government, Obama has put US military power back at Baghdad's disposal, while insisting he will not send ground troops back, two and half years after he ended the occupation that began in 2003.

Announcing the despatch of advisers, the president said he was prepared to take "targeted" military action later if deemed necessary, thus delaying but still keeping open the prospect of air strikes to fend off a militant insurgency.

Obama also delivered a stern message to Maliki on the need to take urgent steps to heal Iraq's sectarian rift, something U.S. officials say the Shiite leader has failed to do and which ISIL has exploited to win broader support among the Sunnis.

"We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq," Obama told reporters. "Ultimately, this is something that is going to have to be solved by the Iraqis."

The contingent of up to 300 military advisers will be made up of special forces and will staff joint operations centres for intelligence sharing and planning, US officials said.

Reuters-AP