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CAIRO
-- The head of the Arab League appealed Sunday to its member states to
confront "militarily and politically" Islamic State insurgents, an
apparent call to arms as the U.S. launched new airstrikes against the
group's fighters in Iraq.
Nabil Elaraby's
comments come ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's planned address
Wednesday to the American people on his plans to confront the Islamic
State group, which now controls a wide swath of territory in Syria and
Iraq.
Washington is looking for wide support
for its call to take on the Islamic State group, following domestic
criticism it was too overly cautious in dealing with the militant group.
Already, NATO forces have agreed to take on Islamic State militants and
support from the Arab League could provide Obama the international
coalition he hoped to create to challenge the group.
It wasn't immediately clear what steps the Arab League would take in supporting action against the Islamic State group.
Elaraby
himself noted that the Arab League's 22 members have failed to help
each other in the past when facing local armed groups, often because of
disagreement among each other over what to do or using the pretext of
non-interference to avoid accusation of meddling in each other's
affairs. Those challenges include Iraq, as well as the militia violence
now tearing Libya apart and other conflicts.
However, expressing frustration at the lack of Arab action, he said some members wouldn't refuse a Western intervention.
Elaraby
said what is needed from Arab countries is a "clear and firm decision
for a comprehensive confrontation" to what he called "cancerous and
terrorist" groups.
"What is happening in Iraq,
and the presence of an armed terrorist group that not only challenges
the state authority but its very existence and that of other countries,
... is one of the examples of the challenges that are violently shaking
the Arab world, and one the Arab League, regrettably, has not been able
to confront," he said.
Elaraby said the League
has the mechanism needed to provide the legal and political cover for
such joint action "to help any Arab country to face the challenges to
its security, safety and territorial integrity," including military
intervention if needed.
A decades-old joint
Arab defense agreement states that members states can initiate help
alone or collectively to ward off an attack and restore peace and order
by all means, including use of force. Elaraby said an agreement to
activate that clause in the 1950 agreement is needed.
Before
the Arab League meeting, Elaraby also spoke by telephone to U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss ways to deal with the Islamic
State insurgents.
Meanwhile Sunday, the U.S.
said it launched airstrikes around Haditha Dam in western Iraq,
targeting Islamic State insurgents for the first time in the country's
contested Anbar province. U.S. officials said that while the dam remains
in control of the Iraqis, the U.S. offensive was an effort to beat back
militants who have been trying to take over key dams across the
country, including the Haditha complex.
U.S.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, traveling in Georgia, said the Iraqi
government had asked the U.S. to launch the airstrikes and that Iraqi
forces on the ground conceived the operation. National Security Council
spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the militants could have opened or
damaged the dam.
"Destruction of the dam or
release of water would create a level of flooding that would potentially
pose a catastrophic threat to thousands of Iraqis along the Euphrates
valley from Anbar province into parts of Baghdad, including possible
flooding in areas in and around the Baghdad International Airport, where
hundreds of U.S. personnel reside," Hayden said.
Anbar
has for some time been a contested region between Iraqi forces and
Islamic State militants backed by allied Sunni tribes. The situation
deteriorated significantly in late December, and the militants took over
parts of Ramadi and Fallujah.
The Iraqi
government and allied tribes launched an offensive on Jan. 26 to wrest
control of the cities back from the militants and sporadic clashes have
continued around Fallujah and in some parts of Ramadi, with only limited
success by Iraqi security forces. U.S. airstrikes could greatly boost
their hand now.
Amid fighting in Anbar, the
province's governor and the mayor of Haditha were wounded by a roadside
bomb, said Faleh al-Issawi, a member in Anbar's provincial council. Gov.
Gov. Ahmed al-Dulaimi later tweeted that he had been wounded, though
not seriously.
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