Iraq struggles to drive back Sunni militants

BAGHDAD, July 3 (AFP): Baghdad's forces struggled Thursday to break a military stalemate with Sunni militants, as US officials reached out to key leaders to push for an end to political chaos in Iraq.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki meanwhile extended an amnesty aimed at undercutting support for the militants who have overrun large areas of Iraq, after the new parliament's first session ended in farce, with MPs walking out instead of working on government formation.
On the ground, Iraqi forces were struggling to break a stalemate with militants after initially wilting before the onslaught. They have since performed better, albeit with limited offensive success.
A police lieutenant colonel said security forces on Thursday clashed with militants near Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, which they have been unsuccessfully fighting to retake in a highly-touted operation for over a week.
West of the northern city of Kirkuk, meanwhile, a roadside bomb on Thursday killed one Kurdish peshmerga fighter and wounded four others.
The cost of the conflict has been high for Iraq's forces, with nearly 900 security personnel among 2,400 people killed in June, the highest figure in years, according to the United Nations.
The day before, Salaheddin province's governor, Ahmed Abdullah Juburi, said security forces were "advancing slowly because all of the houses and burned vehicles (en route to Tikrit) have been rigged with explosives, and militants have deployed lots of roadside bombs and car bombs."
Juburi said it would be days before security forces could make a concerted push into the city, the capital of Salaheddin province.
Maliki's security spokesman also told reporters that loyalists had clashed with militants south of Baghdad.
In an effort to break the stand-off, the government has bought more than a dozen Sukhoi warplanes from Russia, announcing on Tuesday that a second group of five aircraft had arrived in Iraq, implicitly as part of that deal.
But the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said the three Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack jets shown landing in Iraq in a video released Tuesday by the defence ministry are likely from Iran, which has pledged to aid Iraq against the militants.
IISS also noted that most of Iran's Su-25s are actually from Saddam Hussein's air force. Defecting pilots had flown seven planes across the border during the Gulf War in 1991.
Meanwhile, Top US officials have reached out to key regional leaders to help resolve the political chaos in Iraq even as the Iraqi premier offered a general amnesty to undercut support for a raging jidhadist-led offensive.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's offer on Wednesday came after a farcical opening to the new parliament in Baghdad, despite international calls for Iraq's fractious politicians to unite urgently to combat insurgents, as the military struggles to seize the initiative against the Sunni militants.
With hopes of a unity government waning, Washington reached out to regional players with President Barack Obama calling Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Vice President Joe Biden contacting the speaker of Iraq's previous parliament, Osama al-Nujaifi, a prominent Sunni leader.
The White House said Biden and Nujaifi agreed on the importance of Iraqis "moving expeditiously to form a new government capable of uniting the country."
Secretary of State John Kerry meanwhile phoned Kurdish leader Massud Barzani and stressed the important role the Kurds would play in a new multi-sect government in Baghdad, seen as vital to meeting the challenge of Islamic State (IS) jihadists who have seized vast tracts of Iraqi territory, according to spokeswoman Jen Psaki.