Syria, Iran Join Fight Against Iraq's Militants

Syria and Iran have joined the fight against militant Sunni insurgents attempting to take over Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Thursday that Syrian warplanes targeted militants earlier this week on the Syrian side of the Iraqi-Syrian border.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has used the border area as a gateway to take over large areas in northern and western Iraq. Maliki said he welcomed but did not request the Syrian air attacks, which occurred Tuesday.
Other news accounts reported that the Syrian air assault was carried out over Iraqi air space.
Also, Iran is supporting the Shi’ite-led Baghdad government, supplying tons of military equipment and deploying surveillance drones in the Iraqi skies from an airfield in Baghdad.
The Syrian and Iranian fight against the militants linked to ISIL has produced an extraordinary confluence of interests with the United States, which otherwise is staunchly opposed to the Damascus regime of President Bashar al-Assad and is engaged in contentious negotiations with Iran over its nuclear development program.

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague, who met with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaks during a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq, June 26, 2014.

Political measure needed
British Foreign Secretary William Hague flew Thursday to Baghdad, where he met with Maliki and planned to hold talks with Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.
In his meeting with Hague, Maliki also conceded that political measures were needed alongside military action to repel a Sunni insurgent offensive that threatens to tear the country apart, the French news agency AFP reported.
"We should proceed in two parallel tracks," Maliki's office said he told Hague, who was on a surprise visit to Iraq.
Along with military operations, the authorities must continue "following up on the political process and holding a meeting of the parliament (on time) and electing a head of parliament and a president and forming the government,” Maliki said, according to AFP.