An offensive by insurgents that threatens to split Iraq seemed to slow on Saturday after days of lightning advances as government forces regained some territory in counter-attacks, easing pressure on the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
Photo: Kurdish security forces take positions during clashes with ISIS in the outskirts of Kirkuk. (Reuters: Azad Lashkari)
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As Iraqi officials spoke of wresting back the initiative against Sunni militants, neighbouring Shiite Iran held out the prospect of working with its long-time arch-enemy the United States to help restore security in Iraq.
US president Barack Obama said on Friday he was reviewing military options, short of sending combat troops, to combat the insurgency.
The US ordered an aircraft carrier moved into the Gulf on Saturday, readying it in case Washington decides to pursue a military option after insurgents overran towns and territories in the north and advanced on Baghdad.
Thousands of people responded to a call by Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric to take up arms and defend the country against the insurgency, led by the Sunni militant Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Explained: What is ISIS?
International correspondent Mark Corcoran takes a look at the feared insurgent group currently poised to march on Baghdad.In a visit to the city of Samarra, prime minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to rout the insurgents, whose onslaught has put the future of Iraq as a unitary state in question and raised the spectre of sectarian conflict.
The militant gains have alarmed both Mr Maliki's Shiite supporters in Iran and the US, which helped bring him to power after invading the country and toppling former Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Oil prices have jumped over fears of ISIS disrupting exports from Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries member Iraq.
But having encountered little resistance in majority Sunni areas, the militants have now come up against the army, which clawed back some towns and territory around Samarra on Saturday with the help of Shiite militia.
"We have regained the initiative and will not stop at liberating Mosul from [ISIS] terrorists, but all other parts [of Iraq]," Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the Iraqi military's commander-in-chief, said.
Militants in control of Tikrit, 45 kilometres north of Samarra, planted landmines and roadside bombs at the city's entrances, apparently anticipating a counter-attack by government forces.
Residents said the militants deployed across the city and moved anti-aircraft guns and heavy artillery into position.
Families began to flee north in the direction of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city which Kurdish forces occupied on Thursday after the Iraqi army fled.
Iraqi army regains towns with counter attacks
Security sources said Iraqi troops attacked an ISIS formation in the town of al-Mutasim, 22 kilometres south-east of Samarra, driving militants out into the surrounding desert on Saturday.
The army also reasserted control over the small town of Ishaqi, south-east of Samarra, to secure a road that links the city to Baghdad and the cities of Tikrit and Mosul further north.
Troops backed by the Shiite Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia helped retake the town of Muqdadiya north-east of Baghdad, and ISIS was dislodged from Dhuluiya after three hours of fighting with tribesmen, local police and residents, a tribal leader said.
In Udhaim, 90 kilometres north of Baghdad, the Asaib militia and police fought militants who earlier occupied the local municipal building, an official said, and they directed mortar fire at the government protection force of the Baiji oil refinery, Iraq's largest.
Video: Explained: The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) (Scott Bevan)
Masked jihadists under the black flag of ISIS aim to revive a caliphate that would span a fragmenting Iraq and Syria, redrawing borders set by European colonial powers a century ago and menacing neighbours like Iran and Turkey.
Mr Obama said on Friday he was reviewing US military options to help Iraq repel the insurgency.
But he cautioned that any US intervention must be accompanied by an Iraqi government effort to bridge divisions between Shiite and Sunni communities.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, asked at a televised news conference whether Tehran could work with the United States 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," Mr Rouhani added, a relative moderate who has presided over a thaw in Iran's long antagonistic relations with the West.
A senior Iranian official earlier this week said that Tehran, which has strong leverage in Shiite-majority Iraq, may be ready to cooperate with Washington against ISIS rebels.
The official said the idea of cooperating with the Americans was being mooted within the Tehran leadership. For now, according to Iranian media, Iran will send advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to boost Baghdad.
US officials said there were no contacts going on with Iran over the crisis in Iraq.
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Reuters
