President Barack Obama said Monday he had sent up to 200 US extra troops equipped for combat, with surveillance gear and helicopters, to protect the US Embassy in Baghdad.

Together with a 275-strong embassy protection force already sent and another 300 US special forces charged with advising the Iraqi army, the deployment will mean nearly 800 US soldiers will be in Iraq, following the sudden advance of Sunni Islamic State radicals.

"In light of the security situation in Baghdad, I have ordered up to approximately 200 additional US Armed Forces personnel to Iraq to reinforce security at the US Embassy, its support facilities, and the Baghdad International Airport," Obama said in a letter to Congress.

"This force is deploying for the purpose of protecting US citizens and property, if necessary, and is equipped for combat."

The Pentagon said in a statement that the new detachment had arrived in Iraq on Sunday and was also equipped with aerial drones to protect American personnel traveling away from the embassy -- possibly in an evacuation.

There are now 475 US soldiers available to protect the US embassy and American citizens in Iraq.

Of the initial deployment to the embassy of 275 troops earlier this month, 100 had been on standby outside the country, but are now moving into positions in Baghdad, the Pentagon said.

Blackwater threatened to kill US official in Iraq: report
Washington (AFP) June 30, 2014 - The top manager in Iraq of the notorious private security firm Blackwater threatened to kill a US State Department investigator for probing the company's performance, The New York Times reported Monday.

The Times, citing an internal State Department memorandum, said the threat came just weeks before Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 civilians on September 16, 2007 in Baghdad's Nisour Square.

In an August 2007 memo detailing the threat made to her, lead State Department investigator, Jean Richter, said it "sent a clear message that the Blackwater contractors saw themselves as 'above the law' and actually believed that 'they ran the place.'

However, US embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater and the State Department team was ordered to leave, The Times said.

Four former Blackwater employees are currently on trial in a US court for the Nisour Square deaths.

The killings, seen as an example of the impunity enjoyed by private security firms on the US payroll in Iraq, exacerbated Iraqi resentment toward Americans and was part of the reason the Iraqi government refused to reach a treaty allowing US troops to stay beyond 2011.

Richter warned in her memo dated August 31, 2007, that little oversight of the company, which had a $1 billion contract to protect US diplomats, had created "an environment full of liability and negligence."

Daniel Carroll, Blackwater's project manager in Iraq, told Richter after an argument "that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq."

"I took Mr Carroll's threat seriously. We were in a combat zone where things can happen quite unexpectedly, especially when issues involve potentially negative impacts on a lucrative security contract," Richter wrote.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said there was little information she could provide to reporters as it was an ongoing legal case, but said the department's staff had been conducting a regular "contract review" not an investigation into Blackwater.

A fellow State Department investigator who witnessed the exchange corroborated Richter's report in a separate statement.

Blackwater lost its license to work in Iraq; it since been renamed twice and after merging with a rival firm is now called Constellis Holdings.

The State Department canceled its contract with the company soon after President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.

Turkey says opposes split of Kurdistan from Iraq
Ankara (AFP) June 30, 2014 - The Turkish government said on Monday that it was against Iraq's Kurdistan region splitting away from Baghdad, after Sunni militants seized a vast swathe of territory in Turkey's conflict-torn neighbour.

"The government is very closely monitoring the developments in Iraq," Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

"The entire world knows our official view: let Iraq not be split up, let guns not be directed against one another, let people not shed each other's blood, let outside powers ... pull their hands out of Iraq and let Iraq proceed on its path as an integrated society," he said.

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)-- which has now renamed itself the Islamic State -- have now declared a "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.

ISIL's actions in Iraq have alarmed countries in the region and sparked calls for Kurdish autonomy in Iraq to counter the radical Islamist threat.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for independence for Iraq's Kurdistan region, where Kurdish peshmerga security forces have mobilised to fight against ISIL.

Turkey -- which has its own Kurdish minority -- has traditionally been vehemently opposed to the notion of Kurdish independence.

Yet in recent years, Turkey has built up strong trade ties with Iraq's Kurdistan region and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has moved to satisfy some of the demands of Kurds in Turkey.

In May, Turkey began exporting oil supplies from Iraqi Kurdistan to international markets, drawing the ire of the central government in Baghdad.

Recent comments to the Financial Times made by Huseyin Celik, spokesman for Turkey's ruling AKP party, had suggested that Ankara could tolerate an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq.

But Arinc brushed away the Israeli premier's remarks and insisted that Ankara was committed to the territorial integrity of Iraq.

"There is no doubt that Netanyahu represents his government ... but the fact that he made this comment does not mean that it is going to come true. There is a state in Iraq with its constitution," said Arinc.

Fighters from ISIL in June had kidnapped 49 Turks including diplomats and children from the Turkish consulate in Mosul, and separately, seized 31 Turkish truck drivers.

Arinc said there was no positive development yet about the situation of the Turkish hostages, adding that the government was doing its best for their immediate release.

"We are hoping to meet them (the hostages) during Ramadan," he said, referring to the holy Muslim fasting month which has just started.