OrionHunter
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Iraqi security forces and volunteers on the outskirts of Diyala province.
Photograph: Reuters
Iran has sent 2,000 advance troops to Iraq in the past 48 hours to help tackle a jihadist insurgency, a senior Iraqi official has told the Guardian.
The confirmation comes as the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, said Iran was ready to support Iraq from the mortal threat fast spreading through the country, while the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, called on citizens to take up arms in their country's defence.
Addressing the country on Saturday, Maliki said rebels from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) had given "an incentive to the army and to Iraqis to act bravely". His call to arms came after reports surfaced that hundreds of young men were flocking to volunteer centres across Baghdad to join the fight against Isis.
In Iran, Rouhani raised the prospect of Teheran cooperating with its old enemy Washington to defeat the Sunni insurgent group – which is attempting to ignite a sectarian war beyond Iraq's borders.
The Iraqi official said 1,500 basiji forces had crossed the border into the town of Khanaqin, in Diyala province, in central Iraq on Friday, while another 500 had entered the Badra Jassan area in Wasat province overnight.
The Guardian confirmed on Friday that Major General Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force, had arrived in Baghdad to oversee the defence of the capital.
There is growing evidence in Baghdad of Shia militias continuing to reorganise, with some heading to the central city of Samarra, 70 miles (110km) north of the capital, to defend two Shia shrines from Sunni jihadist groups surrounding them.
The volunteers signing up were responding to a call by Iraq's most revered Shia cleric, the Iranian-born grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to defend their country after Isis seized Mosul and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in a lightning advance this week. Samarra is now the next town in the Islamists' path to Baghdad.
"Citizens who can carry weapons and fight the terrorists in defence of their country, its people and its holy sites should volunteer and join the security forces," Sheik Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie, Sistani's representative, said on Friday in a sermon at the holy Shia city of Kerbala.
He warned that Iraq faced great danger and that fighting the militants "is everybody's responsibility, and is not limited to one specific sect or group", Associated Press reported. Karbalaie's comments have consistently been thought to reflect Sistani's views.
Residents offered little reaction to Barack Obama's statement late on Friday in which he appeared to condition renewed US military support on Iraqi leaders first making efforts to pull the country back from the brink. The US and Iran, foes throughout the US occupation of Iraq, share a common interest in defeating Isis, and Iran has so far expressed no opposition to US threats to send military support to Maliki.
Rouhani, asked at a televised press conference on Saturday whether Tehran could work with the US to tackle Isis, said: "We can think about it if we see America starts confronting the terrorist groups in Iraq or elsewhere. We all should practically and verbally confront terrorist groups."
Reuters reported US officials as saying there were no contacts taking place with Iran over the crisis in Iraq.
More here: Iran sends troops into Iraq to aid fight against Isis militants | World news | theguardian.com
The US has left Iraq in a mess. Afghanistan is next.
