US may send in drones to Iraq to battle jihadists

Washington vowed June 12 to boost aid to Iraq and is mulling drone strikes amid fears Iraqi forces are crumbling in face of militants increasingly emboldened since the U.S. withdrawal. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhilei called for the "safe and immediate" return of 49 Turkish citizens kidnapped from the consulate in Mosul.

During a call with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Biden said "the United States is prepared to support Turkey's efforts to bring about the safe return of its citizens."

Iraqi officials have already privately asked the U.S. to consider sending in drones to root out jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who in a lightning offensive have seized a swathe of the north.

The request has been turned down in the past, but Washington is now weighing several possibilities for more military assistance to Baghdad, including drone strikes, a U.S. official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Resorting to such aircraft - which remain highly controversial in Afghanistan and Pakistan - would mark a dramatic shift in the U.S. engagement in Iraq, after the last American troops pulled out inlate 2011.

"The United States has been fast to provide necessary support for the people and government of Iraq," National Security Advisor Susan Rice told a Washington think-tank June 11. "We are working together to roll back aggression and counter the threat" posed by ISIL to Iraq and the region, Rice said.

But she insisted the U.S. "must do more to strengthen our partners' capacity to defeat the terrorist threat on their home turf by providing them the necessary training, equipment and support." State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki stressed there were no current plans to send U.S...