BAGHDAD – An al-Qaeda splinter militia's advances on the capital threatened to trigger a new Sunni-vs.-Shiite civil war Thursday. As independent Kurdish forces aligned with Iraq's military joined the fight, the United States mulled requests to aid the collapsing Iraqi army.
"We have to deal with what is clearly an emergency situation in Iraq," President Obama said Thursday. "I don't rule out anything, because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria."
