Iraq has asked the United States for air support in countering Sunni rebels after the militants seized major cities in a lightning advance that has routed the Shi'ite-led government's army, a top U.S. general said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
However, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave no direct reply when asked at a Congressional hearing whether Washington would agree to the request, Reuters reported.
Baghdad said it wanted U.S. air strikes as the insurgents, led by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, battled their way into the biggest oil refinery in Iraq as the president of neighbouring Iran raised the prospect of intervening in a sectarian war that threatens to sweep across Middle East frontiers, according to Reuters.
"We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power," Dempsey told a Senate hearing in Washington, Reuters reported. Asked whether the United States should honour that request, he said: "It is in our national security interest to counter ISIL wherever we find them."
In the Saudi city of Jeddah, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Baghdad had asked for air strikes "to break the morale" of ISIL, according to Reuters.
While Iraq's ally, Shi'ite Muslim power Iran, had so far not intervened to help the Baghdad government, "everything is possible", he told reporters after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers, Reuters reported.
The White House has said President Barack Obama has not yet decided what action, if any, to take following the rebel onslaught, and was due to discuss the options with leaders of Congress later on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Iraqi request had included drone strikes and increased surveillance by U.S. drones, which have been flying over Iraq for some time. They added that any air targets would be hard to identify because the militants did not have traditional supply lines or major physical infrastructure and mingled with civilians, Reuters reported.
