Kerry holds Iraq talks on US strategy against jihadists

US Secretary of State John Kerry held talks with Iraq's new leaders Wednesday on their role in a long-awaited strategy against Islamic State jihadists to be unveiled by President Barack Obama.
      
Iraq has been at the centre of US efforts to halt IS since its fighters spearheaded a lightning offensive in June seizing much of the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad.
     
But in a keenly awaited policy speech later Wednesday, Obama was widely expected to announce the expansion of the month-old US air campaign to neighbouring Syria, where IS has seized a swathe of the northeast, bordering Iraq.
      
The US administration has come under mounting domestic and international criticism for not taking stronger action against IS fighters who have committed a spate of atrocities in recent weeks, many of them paraded on the Internet.
     
Kerry's unannounced talks in Baghdad were the first stop on a regional tour to build support for the new US strategy which he has said will only work with the backing of the "broadest possible coalition of partners around the globe."      

He was to fly on to Saudi Arabia for talks on Thursday with 11 regional foreign ministers on a joint campaign against IS.
      
US efforts to build a broad regional coalition had been complicated by the sectarian politics of the region, with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states deeply suspicious of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
      
But they were given a boost on Monday by the formation of a new government that Kerry has said has "the potential to unite all of Iraq's diverse communities".
      
Kerry met new Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, a Shiite regarded as far less divisive than his predecessor Nuri al...