United States government
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, center, walks with the House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., right, and the committee’s chairman Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif. in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, before their meeting. Al-Maliki says terrorists “got a second chance” to thrive in Iraq, largely as the result of the rise of al-Qaida fighters in neighboring Syria’s civil war. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (NOO’-ree ahl-MAHL’-ih-kee) is expected to appeal to President Barack Obama for more U.S. assistance in beating back the bloody insurgency consuming his country.
Obama and al-Maliki will meet at the White House Friday. The Iraqi prime minister’s new aid requests come nearly two years after his government refused to let American forces stay in Iraq with legal immunity after the nine-year war formally ended.
Violence started rising in Iraq within months of the U.S. troop departure at the end of 2011. The State Department says at least 6,000 Iraqis have been killed in attacks so far this year.
The White House says Obama will raise concerns about the violence in Iraq and ways to reduce it during his meeting with al-Maliki.
