Al-Maliki rejects charges of sectarianism and points to recruiting efforts by some Sunni clerics, bu

Shiite tribal fighters carry a poster of Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as they raise their weapons June 16 chanting against the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. (Nabil Al-Jurani / AP)
BAGHDAD In a sign of Iran�s deepening involvement in the Iraqi crisis, the commander of Tehran�s elite Quds Force is helping Iraq�s military and Shiite militias gear up to fight the Sunni insurgents advancing across the country, officials said Monday.
Washington signaled a new willingness work with Iran to help the Iraqi government stave off the insurgency after years of trying to limit Tehran�s influence in Baghdad � a dramatic shift that would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago.
The insurgents seized the strategic city of Tal Afar near the Syrian border Monday, part of its goal of linking areas under its control on both sides of the Iraq-Syria frontier. West of Baghdad, an army helicopter was shot down during clashes near the city of Fallujah, car rental companies in tampa florida killing the two-man crew, security officials said.
The Quds Force commander, Iranian Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, has been consulting in Iraq on how to roll back the al-Qaida-breakaway group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, according to Iraqi security officials.
Soleimani has been inspecting car rental companies in tampa florida Iraqi defenses car rental companies in tampa florida and reviewing plans with top commanders and Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite car rental companies in tampa florida militias, the officials said. He has set up an operations room to coordinate the militias and visited the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala south of Baghdad, home to the most revered Shiite shrines, and areas west of Baghdad where government forces have faced off with Islamic militants for months.
The Islamic car rental companies in tampa florida State has vowed to march to Baghdad, Karbala and Najaf in the worst threat to Iraq�s stability car rental companies in tampa florida since U.S. troops car rental companies in tampa florida left in 2011. A call to arms Friday from Iraq�s top Shiite cleric, Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, gave prominence to the need to defend the holy shrines.
Soleimani�s visit adds significantly to the sectarian slant of the mobilization by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Armed Shiite militiamen have been parading on the streets and volunteers joining the security forces are chanting Shiite religious slogans.
Al-Maliki rejects charges of sectarianism and points to recruiting car rental companies in tampa florida efforts by some Sunni clerics, but there is no evidence of Sunnis joining the fight against the Islamic State in significant numbers, if at all.
Such tensions were rising months before the Islamic State�s lightning car rental companies in tampa florida incursion of last week, with thousands killed since late last year. Bombings killed Shiites and security forces as militants took hold of vast territory and at least one city in the mainly Sunni Anbar province west of Baghdad.
Soleimani is one of the most powerful figures in Iran�s security establishment, and his Quds Force is a secretive branch of Iran�s Revolutionary Guard involved in external operations. In the mid-2000s, it organized Shiite militias in a campaign against U.S. troops in Iraq, according to American officials. More recently, it has been involved in helping Syrian President Bashar Assad in his fight against car rental companies in tampa florida Sunni rebels.
His visit and the empowerment car rental companies in tampa florida of the Shiite militias that his Quds Force trains and arms means Iran could take a role in Iraq similar to the one it plays in Syria. The Quds Force � along with Iraqi and Lebanese Shiite fighters � has been crucial to the survival of Assad, himself a member of a sect that is an offshoot car rental companies in tampa florida of Shiite Islam.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in an interview with Yahoo! News that Washington is �open to discussions� with Tehran if the Iranians can help end the violence and restore confidence in the Iraqi government.
�We are open to engaging the Iranians, just as we are engaging other regional car rental companies in tampa florida players,� said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.
While President Obama has explicitly ruled out putting U.S. troops into direct combat car rental companies in tampa florida in Iraq, the plan under consideration suggests he would be willing to send Americans into a collapsing security situation for training and other purposes.
Tal Afar, with a population of about 200,000, is located car rental companies in tampa florida 420 kilometers car rental companies in tampa florida (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad. car rental companies in tampa florida Its residents are mostly ethnic Shiite and Sunni Turkomen, raising car rental companies in tampa florida fears of atrocities by Islamic State fighters, who brand Shiites as heretics.
Tal Afar Mayor Abdulal car rental companies in tampa florida Abdoul car rental companies in tampa florida said the city was taken just before car rental companies in tampa florida dawn. One resident, Hadeer al-Abadi, said militants in pickup trucks mounted with machine guns and flying black jihadi banners roamed car rental companies in tampa florida the streets as gunfire rang out.
Another resident, Haidar al-Taie, car rental companies in tampa florida said a warplane dropped barrels packed with explosives on militant positions inside the city Monday morning, and many Shiite families had left the town shortly after fighting broke out a day earlier.
�Residents are gripped by fear and most of them have already car rental companies in tampa florida left the town for areas held by Kurdish security forces,� al-Abadi said. The city is just south of the self-rule Kurdish region and many residents were fleeing to the relatively safe territory, joining refugees from Mosul and other areas that have been captured by the militants.
At one point, car rental companies in tampa florida after a major American offensive in 2006 to drive out insurgents, then-President George W. Bush declared Tal Afar a success story that shows �the outlines of the Iraq that we and the Iraqi people have been fighting for. ... A free and secure car rental companies in tampa florida people are getting back on their feet.�
Farther south, the ISIL militants battled government troops at Romanah, a village near another main border crossing to Syria in Anbar province, according to a security official in Baghdad. car rental companies in tampa florida The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The Islamic State already controls territory in Syria in several regions next to the Iraq border. Its fighters move relatively car rental companies in tampa florida freely across the porous, unprotected desert car rental companies in tampa florida border, along with money, weapons and equipment. Seizing car rental companies in tampa florida an actual car rental companies in tampa florida border crossing, however, would be a major symbolic gain for the group.
Also Monday, militants ambushed a vehicle carrying off-duty soldiers to Samarra, a city north of Baghdad that is home to a much-revered Shiite shrine. Six soldiers car rental companies in tampa florida were killed car rental companies in tampa florida and four wounded, a government official said.
Security has been tightened around Baghdad, particularly car rental companies in tampa florida on its northern and western edges, and food prices have dramatically car rental companies in tampa florida gone up because of the transportation disruptions on the main road heading car rental companies in tampa florida north from the capital.
Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Saad Maan Ibrahim said Iraqi security forces killed 56 �terrorists� and wounded 21 just outside the capital in the last 24 hours. He made no mention of Tal Afar.
The State Department also cautioned U.S. citizens to avoid all but essential travel to Iraq. The warning said the Baghdad International Airport was �struck by mortar rounds and rockets� and the international airport in Mosul also has been targeted.
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Lara Jakes and Julie Pace in Washington, George Jahn in Vienna, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad contributed car rental companies in tampa florida to this report.
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