Kerry in Iraq as Sunni militants seize strategic town, crossing

BAGHDAD - US Secretary of State John Kerry was in Baghdad Monday to push for stability, as Sunni militants seized a strategic town and a border crossing, tightening their grip on north and west Iraq.

Flying in from Jordan, Kerry met with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders to urge a speeding up of the government formation process in order to face down the insurgents.

During their talks, Maliki told Washington's top diplomat that the crisis "represents a threat not only to Iraq but to regional and international peace," his office said.

Iraqi security forces are struggling to hold their ground in the face of an insurgent onslaught that has seized major areas of five provinces, displaced hundreds of thousands of people and sparked fears that the country could be torn apart.

Maliki's security spokesman said Monday that "hundreds" of Iraqi soldiers have been killed since the insurgents, led by the powerful jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), launched their offensive on June 9.

The announcement on television by Lieutenant General Qassem Atta is the most specific information provided so far by the government on losses sustained by the security forces.

Last Syria crossing falls

The militants continued their charge on Monday, overrunning the Al-Waleed border crossing with Syria, officers said.

The capture of the post means that official crossings with Iraq's neighbour to the west are outside government control.

The seizure of Al-Waleed also increases the militants' ability to bring men and materiel across the border from Syria.

Insurgents also overran the strategic Shiite-majority northern town of Tal Afar and its airport, a local official and witnesses said Monday.

"The town of Tal Afar and the airport... are completely under the control of the militants," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses said security forces had departed the town after days of heavy fighting, and confirmed that militants were in control.

Atta said that security forces were still fighting in the Tal Afar area, but added that: "Even if we withdrew from Tal Afar or any other area, this does not mean that it is a defeat." The town, which is located along a strategic corridor to Syria, had been the largest in the northern province of Nineveh not to fall to militants.

The latest advances came after insurgents at the weekend swept into the towns of Rawa and Ana in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, after taking the Al-Qaim border crossing with Syria.

The government said its forces made a "tactical" withdrawal from the towns, control of which allows the militants to widen a strategic route to neighbouring Syria where they also hold swathes of countryside along the Euphrates river valley.

As Kerry began his visit, 69 detainees were killed in an attack by militants on a convoy carrying them in Babil province.

One policeman and eight gunmen were also killed in clashes that erupted during the attack in the Hashimiyah area, according to a police captain and a doctor. It was not immediately clear how the detainees died.

ISIL aims to create an Islamic state incorporating both Iraq and Syria, where the group has become a major force in the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.

'Rise above sectarian motivations'

Washington wants Arab states to bring pressure on Iraq's leaders to speed up government formation, which has made little headway since April elections, and has tried to convince them ISIL poses as much of a threat to them as to Iraq.

Kerry warned all countries, particularly in the Gulf, that "there is no safety margin whatsoever in funding a group like ISIL." The group has commandeered an enormous quantity of cash and resources as a result of the advance, bolstering coffers that were already the envy of militant groups around the world.

US leaders have stopped short of calling for Maliki to step down, but there is little doubt that they feel he has squandered the opportunity to rebuild Iraq since US troops withdrew in 2011.

"The United States would like to see the Iraqi people find leadership that is prepared to represent all of the people of Iraq," Kerry told reporters in Cairo on Sunday.

A top US official who has been on the ground in Iraq told reporters that there was "a lot of anxiety and a lot of looking to the US for help".

Obama has offered to send up to 300 military advisers to Iraq, but has so far not backed air strikes as requested by Baghdad.