ISIS Militants Seize Iraq-Syria Border Post, Kill 30 Troops

AP reports that thousands of Shiite militiamen have paraded in Baghdad and several other cities in southern Iraq with heavy weaponry, signaling their readiness to take on Sunni militants who seized much of the country's north.

In Baghdad, about 20,000 men, many in combat gear, marched through the Sadr City district on Saturday with assault rifles, machine-guns, multiple rocket launchers and missiles. Similar parades were held in the southern cities of Amarah and Basra, with the militants in Basra displaying field artillery pieces hauled by heavy trucks.

The parades were staged by followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and came after the al-Qaida breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and allied Sunni militants, captured a crossing on the Syria-Iraq border the day before. Sunni militants have seized an Iraqi crossing on the border with Syria after a daylong battle in which they killed some 30 Iraqi troops, security officials said Saturday.



The capture of the Qaim border crossing deals a further blow to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, which has struggled to push back against Islamic extremists and allied militants who have seized large swaths of the country, including the second largest city Mosul, and who have vowed to march on Baghdad.

Police and army officials said the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and allied militants seized the crossing near the border town of Qaim, about 200 miles west of Baghdad, after battling Iraqi troops all day Friday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media, said people were now crossing back and forth freely.

Sunni militants have carved out a large fiefdom astride the Iraqi-Syrian border and have long traveled back and forth with ease, but the control of crossings allows them to more easily move weapons and heavy equipment to different battlefields.

The fall of the border crossing came as al-Maliki faces mounting pressure to form an inclusive government or step aside, with both a top Shiite cleric and the White House strongly hinting he is in part to blame for the worst crisis since U.S. troops withdrew from the country at the end of 2011.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most respected voice for Iraq's Shiite majority, on Friday joined calls for al-Maliki to reach out to the Kurdish and Sunni minorities a day after President Barack Obama challenged him to create a leadership representative of all Iraqis.

Obama stopped short of calling for al-Maliki to resign, but his carefully worded comments did all but that. "Only leaders that can govern with an inclusive agenda are going to be able to truly bring the Iraqi people together and help them through this crisis," Obama said.

Source