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| Iraq formally asks US to launch air strikes against rebels | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Iraq has formally called on the United States to launch air strikes against jihadist militants who have seized several key cities. | |
| "We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power," confirmed top US military commander Gen Martin Dempsey. | |
| The announcement came after insurgents launched an attack on Iraq's biggest oil refinery north of Baghdad. | |
| PM Nouri Maliki earlier urged Iraqis to unite against the militants. | |
| Government forces are battling to push back ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and its Sunni Muslim allies in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, after the militants overran the second city, Mosul, last week. | |
| US President Barack Obama is due to discuss the Iraq crisis with senior Congress members on Wednesday. | |
| Ahead of the meeting Senate leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said he did not "support in any way" getting American troops involved in the Iraqi "civil war". | |
| But Gen Dempsey told a Senate panel that it was in America's "national interest to counter [ISIS] wherever we find them". | |
| In other developments: |