Fears of imminent attack: ISIS declares state of emergency - US military official claims

ISLAMIC State (ISIS) has declared a state of emergency in its terror heartland over fears of an imminent attack, a US military official has claimed.

The jihadi group feels threatened in its self-declared capital of Raqqa in Syria and is moving troops to prepare for a possible invasion, according to Colonel Steven Warren.

The US military official said it was monitoring the terror group’s declaration to attempt to better understand what it meant.

Speaking in a Pentagon briefing over the phone from Baghdad, Iraq, Col Warren said: “We have seen this declaration of emergency in Raqqa, whatever that means.

Why Iran rejects U.S. action in Iraq as militants push east

Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
 stand guard at a checkpoint in the northern Iraq city of Mosul

(Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader accused the United States on Sunday of trying to retake control of Iraq by exploiting sectarian rivalries, as Sunni insurgents drove toward Baghdad from new strongholds along the Syrian border.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's condemnation of U.S. action in Iraq came three days after President Barack Obama offered to send 300 military advisers in response to pleas from Iraq's government. It ran counter to speculation that old enemies Washington and Tehran might cooperate to defend their mutual ally in Baghdad after two weeks of swift territorial gains by Sunni Islamists.

On Sunday, militants overran a second frontier post on the Syrian border as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) pursues the goal of its own caliphate straddling both countries.

Jordan Fears Iraq Jihadist Fight May Spill over

The Sunni militant offensive in Iraq has sparked fears in Amman that they will take the fight to Jordan, which is already struggling with its own home-grown Islamists. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a powerful jihadist group that controls key areas of Syria, has seized a swathe of Iraqi territory in a lightning offensive Baghdad's forces seem powerless to halt.

Experts fear Jordan could be one of ISIL's next targets, with YouTube videos purporting to show the group threatening to take jihad there. Already reeling under the impact of hosting more than 600,000 Syrian refugees, Jordan has long faced security challenges in dealing with its own jihadists, many of whom have joined ISIL and other Al-Qaida-linked groups in Iraq and Syria.

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.

US is ready to take "targeted" military action in Iraq, but American forces will not be returning to combat - Obama

President Obama said the United States is prepared to help Iraqi forces take back their country.

The President said it is in the best interest of the United States there not be an all out civil war in Iraq for numerous reasons, “Above all, Iraqi leaders must rise above their differences and come together around a political plan for Iraq’s future.”

“American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq,” said Obama during a news conference from the White House.

The U.S. is prepared to send 300 military ‘advisers’ into Iraq.

President Obama said we are prepared to take, “targeted and precise military action” in Iraq, if needed.

Peshmerga - Kurdish forces claim to be in full control of Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk (Reuters)

(Reuters) -

Kurdish forces are in full control of Iraq's oil-rich city of Kirkuk after the federal army abandoned its bases there, a Kurdish military spokesman said on Thursday.

Kirkuk lies at the heart of a long-running dispute between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurds, who run their own autonomous region in the north of the country and have an armed force called the Peshmerga.

"The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga," said Jabbar Yawar, referring to the Kurdish forces. "No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now".

UPDATES: Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki urges troops to fight back Islamist militants as 500,000 people fled Mosul

Islamist insurgents Attack Iraq's Tikrit after 500,000 are forced to flee Mosul

Islamist insurgents have overrun parts of the Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, after taking control of Iraq's biggest city Mosul.

The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has urged troops to fight back against the militants as up to 500,000 people fled Mosul after the al-Qa'ida splinter group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) overran the city.

Security sources said some parts of Tikrit, which is located 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, is now under the control of militants and dozens of the insurgents have reportedly been clashing with security forces near the headquarters of the government in the city centre.

More Than 400 US Mercenaries 'Deployed On Ground' In Ukraine Military Op

About 400 elite mercenaries from the notorious US private security firm Academi (formerly Blackwater) are taking part in the Ukrainian military operation against anti-government protesters in southeastern regions of the country, German media reports.

The Bild am Sonntag newspaper, citing a source in intelligence circles, wrote Sunday that Academi employees are involved in the Kiev military crackdown on pro-autonomy activists in near the town of Slavyansk, in the Donetsk region.