Militants Attack Iraq Air Base, US Assessment Teams Deploy

(Reuters) - Militants attacked one of Iraq's largest air bases on Wednesday as the first U.S. teams arrived to assess the Iraqi security forces and decide how to help counter a mounting Sunni insurgency.

Two weeks of advances by militants spearheaded by al Qaeda offshoot the Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has threatened to rupture the country two and a half years after the withdrawal of U.S. troops. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged leaders of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on
Tuesday to stand with Baghdad in the face of the onslaught.
Militants including ISIL and allied Sunni tribes battled Iraqi forces in the town of Yathrib, 90
km north of Baghdad, into the early hours of Wednesday, witnesses and the deputy head of
the municipality said.

Four militants were killed,
they said. Insurgents have surrounded a massive air base
nearby, which was known as "Camp Anaconda" under U.S. occupation, and struck it with

mortars.

Eyewitnesses said the air base had been surrounded on three sides. More than 1,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in less than three weeks, the United Nations has said, calling the figure "very much a
minimum".

The figure includes unarmed government troops machine gunned in mass graves by insurgents, as well as several reported incidents of
prisoners killed in their cells by retreating government forces.

U.S. President Barack Obama has offered up to 300 American advisers to Iraq but held off
granting a request by Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki's
government for air strikes.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said late on Tuesday 130 of the
advisers had now been deployed, with the initial group sent to establish the operations centre
included intelligence analysts, logistics experts  and special operations forces.

Kirby said about 40 special operations personnel already in the country and assigned to the U.S. Embassy's Office of Security Cooperation had been deployed as part of the first two assessment teams.

About 90 additional troops arrived in Iraq to begin helping establish a Joint Operations
Center in Baghdad with Iraqi forces.

Another 50 U.S. military personnel working in the region
are expected to arrive within the next few days to create four additional assessment teams,
Kirby said.

U.S. military personnel also are flying regular manned and unmanned reconnaissance flights over Iraq - about 30 to 35 per day - to give better insight about the situation on the ground
and help the assessment teams, he said.