Iraqi forces battled a militant attack on the key city of Ramadi today while Baghdad accused the Kurds of seizing oil fields, further dashing hopes politicians could unite to save Iraq from break-up.
The militant push to take Anbar provincial capital Ramadi comes two days before a planned parliamentary session meant to revive flagging efforts to replace the caretaker government in power since April elections.
Sunni militants have seized several areas west of Ramadi since the fighting began yesterday afternoon, killing 11 police, bombing a police station and taking control of another, a police lieutenant colonel and a doctor said.
The officer said the insurgents were attempting to "storm Ramadi from the western side."
The fall of the city, where anti-government fighters have held shifting areas since the beginning of the year, would be a major advance for the jihadist-led militants, who have overrun large areas of five provinces, including parts of Anbar, since June 9.
It could increase the threat on the capital by solidifying militant positions in Anbar and breaking the isolation of rebel-held Fallujah, only 60 kilometres west of Baghdad.
As the battle for Ramadi raged, Iraq's oil ministry accused the country's autonomous Kurdish region of seizing key northern oil fields.
The ministry said Kurdish forces had seized "crude oil (wells) in the Kirkuk and Bey Hassan oil fields" this morning.
Kurdish peshmerga fighters have moved into swathes of disputed northern areas vacated by Iraqi forces during the initial militant offensive, and regional president Massud Barzani has said they will stay there.
Maliki has accused Barzani of exploiting the chaos created by the jihadist Islamic State (IS), and said the region was hosting militants involved in the offensive.
That claim drew derision from Barzani's office, which shot back yesterday that Maliki "has become hysterical and has lost his balance."
Saying Malik had "destroyed the country," it demanded that he "apologise to the Iraqi people and step down."
Control over the Kirkuk region and its oil wealth would be the realisation of a long-held Kurdish dream, and Barzani's announcement this month that a referendum on independence was in the works has enraged the Shiite Arab premier.
The escalating war of words between Maliki and the Kurds has already cast a pall over the parliamentary session slated for Sunday. So far, international calls for feuding politicians to come together to face the militant offensive have gone unheeded.
