Iraq Forces Kill '279 Terrorists' in 24 Hours as Kurds Take Border Crossing with Syria

Iraqi security forces have killed 279 "terrorists" in the past 24 hours, as they push back against a major militant offensive, a security spokesman said on Sunday, as Kurdish forces seized control of one the two official Iraqi border crossings with Syria

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's security spokesman, Lieutenant General Qassem Atta, made the announcement about the casualties during a televised news conference.

Atta announced that the government had "regained the initiative."

Officials added that security forces and tribal fighters repelled a militant assault in the strategic town of Tal Afar near the Syrian border. It provides a critical corridor for militants to access conflict-hit Syria.

Ten people were killed in militant shelling of the town, and 18 anti-government fighters also died in ensuing clashes.

The shelling in Tal Afar, a Shiite Turkmen town that is one of the few in Nineveh province not overrun by a major militant offensive, also wounded 40 people, police and a local official said.

Militants also took control of the al-Adhim area in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, officers said.

Meanwhile, a senior Kurdish security official said Sunday that Kurdish forces are in control of one the two official border crossings with Syria, which they seized after Iraqi forces withdrew,

The Kurdish troops took control of the Rabia crossing on Tuesday and have held it since, Jabbar Yawar, the secretary general of the ministry responsible for the Kurdish peshmerga forces, told Agence France Presse.

Two peshmerga fighters were killed in an attack by militants after Kurdish troops took the crossing, Yawar said.

A major offensive by militants that overran swathes of territory has allowed Iraqi Kurds to begin realizing long-held territorial dreams, moving their forces into areas that the federal government has long opposed them adding to their autonomous northern region.

The Kurds have at the same time joined the fight against the militants, who have taken over all of one province and chunks of three more since they launched their assault late on Monday.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the most powerful militant group in Iraq and a major force in the rebellion against Syria's President Bashar Assad, has spearheaded the offensive, though supporters of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein have also been involved.

A recruitment center for anti-ISIL volunteers at the town of Khales in central Iraq came under mortar attack on Sunday, leaving six people dead, including three Iraqi soldiers, police and a doctor said.

Washington responded to the sweeping unrest by deploying an aircraft carrier to the Gulf, but Iran has warned against foreign military intervention in its Shiite neighbor, voicing confidence that Baghdad is able to repel the onslaught.

Security forces have generally performed poorly, with some abandoning their vehicles and positions and discarding their uniforms, though they seem to have begun to recover from the initial onslaught and have started to regain ground.

Iraqi commanders have said security forces were now starting to push the militants back, and that soldiers had recaptured two towns north of Baghdad.

They will be joined by a flood of volunteers, urged on by a call to arms from top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

U.S. President Barack Obama has said he was "looking at all the options" to halt the offensive that has brought the militants within 80 kilometers of Baghdad's city limits, but ruled out any return of U.S. combat troops.

Washington has also ordered aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush into the Gulf in response to the crisis.

Obama has been under mounting fire from his Republican opponents over the swift collapse of Iraq's security forces, which Washington spent billions of dollars training and equipping before pulling out its own troops in late-2011.

Later on Sunday, the exiled governor of Mosul, Iraq's second city which was seized by Islamist fighters last week, called for U.S. and Turkish air strikes against the militants. 

"Air strikes might be conducted, not in the cities but on ISIL bases in uninhabited areas," Atil al-Nujaifi said in comments published Sunday in Turkish newspaper Hurriyet. 

"We need political and logistical support, but not foreign troops," he added. 

Speaking from Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, Nujaifi said he doubted Baghdad's security forces -- some of whom abandoned their uniforms and vehicles when ISIL fighters attacked -- would be able to repel the militant advance on their own. 

"(The Iraqi army) cannot fight against ISIL. Only Sunnis can do that, because then ISIL would not be able to use sectarian issues" to gather support, he said.

Nujaifi criticized the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for failing to protect civilians.

ISIL fighters kidnapped 49 Turks including diplomats and children when they stormed Turkey's consul in Mosul on Wednesday, in addition to 31 truck drivers seized earlier in the week.

Turkey's Deputy Foreign Minister Naci Koru ruled out the prospect of a military operation to free the abductees but also told reporters there was "no negotiation process" with ISIL.