SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the release of 2,000 Shiite prisoners in the north to take up arms against Sunni insurgents advancing on Baghdad, as his embattled government formally asked the US for air strikes to stop the rebels.
"The order reached our prison on Thursday and then the Shiite prisoners, numbering 2,000, were separated,” said an official at the Chamchamal prison in the autonomous Kurdistan Region, speaking to Rudaw on condition of anonymity.
The jail is located in the town of Chamchamal, west of Sulaimani province, and houses some of the most dangerous prisoners across Iraq. Thousands of inmates were recently transferred there from the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and from Kirkuk.
“The (Shiite) prisoners had been sentenced to death or life imprisonment, and it was decided to fly them back to Baghdad," said the source.
He added that maximum security was in place at the prison, after inmates from Kirkuk were transferred there following the fall of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, to the insurgents last week.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama said he did not need to seek approval from the US Congress for any action in Iraq.
Also in Washington, America’s top military commander General Martin Dempsey confirmed that Baghdad had asked the United States for direct air strikes to stop the week-long advance by rebels led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power,” said at a Senate hearing.
Maliki has called on Iraqis to form militias and take up arms against the rebels, and the country’s Shiite authorities have issued a religious edict for Shiites to fight the Sunni extremists, who have captured several cities and want to march on Baghdad to overthrow Maliki’s government.
