ISIL Brigades Sleep Tonight 40 Miles North of Baghdad

At the US Embassy in Baghdad dozens of Marines and Army troops have moved in to reinforce security. Another 100 personnel are in the region to provide support, if needed, the Pentagon said. The aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush and five other warships are now in the Persian Gulf. More than 500 Marines and dozens of helicopters are on standby. Their top priority : evacuate all Americans at the embassy if it becomes necessary. Meanwhile, the violence in Iraq continues, as militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, battled to gain control of the city of Baquba, only about 37 miles (60 kilometers) north of Baghdad. According to one Baquba police official and an official in the Baquba governor's office, ISIL has made a great advance on Baquba and is pushing very hard to take it, but the city has not fallen to the militants. The al-Maliki government says it still controls large areas in the city. Eyewitnesses told CNN of clashes in Baquba between ISIL fighters and Iraqi government forces. Baquba officials told CNN that ISIL is moving in on the western side of Baquba and that villages just west of the city, as well as some areas in western Baquba, are under ISIL control. Families, mainly shiite, are fleeing the west side of the city, the officials said, and moving deeper into Baquba or leaving the city to escape the anticipated violence. The ISIL push started late Monday with a large-scale attack on the Al Wahda police station on the western edge of Baquba. Heavy clashes between Iraqi security forces and ISIL militants killed at least one Iraqi security force member, nine militants and 44 prisoners, according to Baquba officials. Iraqi state television reported that 52 prisoners were killed when ISIL militants launched hand grenades into the local prison. ISIL says the prisoners were shot by government guards. Kurdish security sources also reported fighting around Saadiya, about 55 miles (89 kilometers) north of Baghdad, where Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are trying to retake control from ISIL militants. The two sides are also fighting for control of Bashir village, southwest of Kirkuk city, as frightened civilians flee ISIL shelling. ~~~~~ Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki's media adviser, Ali al Mosawi, told CNN today that al-Maliki's meeting with the US ambassador to Iraq had been "productive" and that the two nations were coordinating to combat the terrorist threat. The government hopes "there will be more cooperation from the American side to combat terrorism. There is cooperation, but we are looking for more support," Mosawi said. Another statement from al-Maliki's office accused the Saudi government of appeasing terrorists and providing radical groups with material and moral support, in an apparent response to a Saudi call for a more inclusive shiite-sunni government. "The Saudi government must bear responsibility of the serious crimes committed by these [ISIL/sunni] groups," according to the statement. Media reports indicate that sunni private donors in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia financially support ISIL. ~~~~~ The West is scrambling to decide how to respond to the ISIL advance toward Baghdad. The US and Iran held "very brief discussions" about Iraq and the threat posed by ISIL in Vienna on Monday, a USCState Department spokeswoman said. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns is in Vienna for nuclear talks with Iran. And Great Britain, which was allied with the United States during the war in Iraq, is concerned about ISIL migration to Britain. Today, British Prime Minister David Cameron said at a news conference that ISIL's advances in Syria and Iraq constitute the "most serious threat to Britain's security that there is today. The number of foreign fighters in that area, including those from the UK who could try to return to the UK, this is a real threat to our country," Cameron said. "And we will do absolutely everything that we can to keep our people safe." It means, he said, "arresting people who are involved in plots...and focusing our security our policing, our intelligence effort" on the area of the world where ISIL operates. The Obama administration faces difficult choices should it decide to respond to the ISIL blitz. The US has increased drone surveillance over western and northern Iraq to gather more intelligence. But using fighter jets to strike at militant targets could be difficult. Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling explained : "It's the same reason it was so hard to target them when we had 160,000 troops there : They intermingle with the people," said General Hertling. "I think the uninitiated might say: 'Hey, What's so hard about that? Let's just drop a couple bombs.'" but it isn't that easy. Senator John McCain would agree. He does not support Obama's decision to rule out US troops on the ground for reasons partly related to air strikes - Senator McCain says that forward air controllers on the ground would be necessary to properly target aerial bombings. And an Obama decision to use American ground troops would be opposed by most of his own Democrat Party, from House minority leader Nancy Pelozi to Senate majority leader Harry Reid to Hillary Clinton, who today said she would not put US troops on the ground in Iraq. And Obama would also be opposed by his Hollywood donors. ~~~~~ While these decision points are the major topic in Washington, there are growing indications of a return to sunni-shiite sectarian violence in Iraq. The bullet-riddled bodies of four men in their late 20s or early 30s, very likely sunnis, were found at different locations in the Baghdad shiite neighborhood of Benouk, according to unnamed police and morgue officials. Also today, a car bomb in Baghdad's shiite Sadr City district killed 12 people and wounded 30 in a crowded outdoor market. No one claimed responsibility for the bombing, but attacks targeting shiite districts are usually the work of sunni militants. In the rampaging sectarian violence of 2006 and 2007, Baghdad woke up virtually every morning to find dozens of bodies dumped in the streets, on trash heaps or in the Tigris river with torture marks or gunshot wounds. ~~~~~ Dear readers, President Obama is still trying to make a decision about what to do to help hold Iraq together. Iran and the US are eyeing up each other as the odd couple that might save Iraq. Britain is facing up to the possibility of ISIL attacks in Europe. The sunnis are determined to use ISIL to regain their voice as the majority group in Iraq. ISIL itself is determined to create an islamist state that stretches from northern Syria through Iraq to the Iran border - and the $500,000,000 it stole from Mosul banks makes it by far the richest jihadist militant terrorist group in the workd. As a comparison, al-Qaida under Osama bin Laden had an estimated $35,000,000 to $70,000,000 war chest. And, while everyone is in decision mode, ISIL militant brigades sleep tonight 40 miles north of Baghdad.