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U.S. authorities increased to 86 people the number of CDC workers potentially exposed to live anthrax at three laboratories in Atlanta, with at least 52 of them taking antibiotics as a precaution.

The number of personnel that may have been infected is an increase from the 75 workers that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged on Thursday.

The Associated Press says:

"The safety lapse was discovered last Friday and CDC revealed it on Thursday. It occurred when a high level biosecurity lab failed to completely inactivate anthrax samples sent to three less secure labs that were researching new ways to detect the germs in environmental samples.

"Workers in the less secure labs were not wearing adequate protective gear because they believed the samples had been inactivated. Procedures in two of the labs may have spread anthrax spores in the air. Anthrax is particularly dangerous when inhaled.

"Live bacteria were discovered last Friday on materials gathered for disposal, and the CDC began sending emails to potentially affected employees that day, said agency spokesman Tom Skinner."

BAGHDAD (AP) — Signs emerged Tuesday of a reprisal sectarian slaughter of Sunnis in Iraq, as police said pro-government Shiite militiamen killed nearly four dozen detainees after insurgents tried to storm a jail and free them northeast of Baghdad.

The Iraqi military insisted the Sunni inmates were killed when the attackers shelled the facility outside the city of Baqouba. Neither account could be independently confirmed, but a local morgue official said many of the detainees had bullet wounds to the head and chest.

The allegation of Shiite killings of Sunnis was the first hint of the beginnings of a return to sectarian warfare that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007. Sunni militants also have been accused of atrocities — an apparent attempt to provoke Shiite militias into revenge attacks that would strengthen the hand of an al-Qaida splinter group within Iraq's Sunni community.

A U.N. commission warned Tuesday that "a regional war in the Middle East draws ever closer" as Sunni insurgents advance across Iraq to control areas bridging the Iraq-Syria frontier. It said Iraq's turmoil will have "violent repercussions" in Syria, most dangerously the rise of sectarian violence as "a direct consequence of the dominance of extremist groups."

During the United States' eight-year presence in Iraq, American forces acted as a buffer between the two Islamic sects, though with limited success. The U.S. military withdrew at the end of 2011, but it is now being pulled back in — albeit so far in far fewer numbers.

The fighting around the jail was the closest to Baghdad since the al-Qaida breakaway group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant began its lightning advance, seizing several key northern cities in the Sunni heartland last week.

There were conflicting details about the clashes in the al-Kattoun district near Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province and one of the bloodiest battlefields of the U.S.-led war, and on how the detainees were killed. The city is 60 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of the Iraqi capital.

Officers said the local police station, which has a small jail, came under attack Monday night by Sunni militants who arrived in two sedan cars to free the detainees. The militants fired rocket-propelled grenades on the building before opening fire with assault rifles.

A SWAT team accompanied by Shiite militiamen rushed to scene and asked the local policemen to leave, according to the officers. When the policemen later returned to the station, they found all those in the detention cells dead.

The bodies were taken to the Baqouba morgue, where an official said most had gunshot wounds to the head and chest. One detainee, however, survived and was taken to the hospital.

Police later arrived at the hospital and took the wounded man away, said a hospital official.

The police officers, the hospital and morgue officials all spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for their own safety.

A different account was provided to The Associated Press by Iraq's chief military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi. He said 52 detainees who were held at the station in al-Kattoun died when the attackers from the Islamic State shelled it with mortars.

Nine of the attackers were killed, al-Moussawi said.

The Islamic State is known to be active in Diyala, a volatile province with a mix of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds and where Shiite militiamen are deployed alongside government forces. Sunni militants have for years targeted security forces and Shiite civilians in the province, which abuts the Iranian border.

The Islamic State has vowed to march to Baghdad, and the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf in the worst threat to Iraq's stability since U.S. troops left. The three cities are home to some of the most revered Shiite shrines. The Islamic State has also tried to capture the city of Samarra north of Baghdad, home to another major Shiite shrine.

Nearly 300 armed American forces are being positioned in and around Iraq to help secure U.S. assets as President Barack Obama nears a decision on an array of options for combating the Islamic militants, including airstrikes or a contingent of special forces.

The White House has continued to emphasize that any military engagement remained contingent on the government in Baghdad making political reforms.

The U.S. and Iran, Iraq's Shiite neighbor and close ally, also held an initial discussion on how the longtime foes might cooperate to ease the threat from the al-Qaida-linked militants that have swept through Iraq. Still, the White House ruled out the possibility that Washington and Tehran might coordinate military operations in Iraq.

The push by the Islamic State's militants has largely been unchecked as Iraqi troops and police melted away and surrendered in the onslaught on the city of Mosul and Trikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown.

On Monday, the Islamic State captured the strategically located city of Tal Afar near the Syrian border, a move that strengthens its plans to carve out a state-like enclave on both sides of the border.

Iraqi military officials said some 400 elite troops and volunteers who have joined security forces were flown to an airport outside Tal Afar on Monday, but were immediately pinned down by heavy artillery shelling from the militants.

Iraq has been in danger of sliding back to wholesale Shiite-Sunni bloodletting since Sunni militants seized at least one city and significant parts of the countryside in Anbar province west of Baghdad early this year.

Continuous bombings blamed on Sunni militants in Baghdad and elsewhere, and targeted assassinations of members of both communities have deepened fears of outright sectarian warfare.

In Baghdad on Tuesday, a suicide bomber set off his explosives outside a central Baghdad store that sells military uniforms, killing seven people and wounding 22, according to police and hospital officials.

Elsewhere in the capital, a sticky bomb attached to a car exploded, killing three passengers and wounding 11 bystanders, according to police and hospital officials.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

BAGHDAD (AP) — The most respected voice for Iraq's Shiite majority on Friday joined calls for the country's prime minister to form an inclusive government or step aside, a day after President Barack Obama challenged Nouri al-Maliki to create a leadership representative of all Iraqis.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's thinly veiled reproach was the most influential to place blame on the Shiite prime minister for the nation's spiraling crisis.

The focus on the need to replace al-Maliki comes as Iraq faces its worst crisis since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011. Over the past two weeks, Iraq has lost a big chunk of the north to the al-Qaida-inspired Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, whose lightning offensive led to the capture of Mosul, the nation's second-largest city.

The gravity of the crisis has forced the usually reclusive al-Sistani, who normally stays above the political fray, to wade into politics, and his comments, delivered through a representative, could ultimately seal al-Maliki's fate.

Calling for a dialogue between the political coalitions that won seats in the April 30 parliamentary election, al-Sistani said it was imperative that they form "an effective government that enjoys broad national support, avoids past mistakes and opens new horizons toward a better future for all Iraqis."

Deeply revered by Iraq's majority Shiites, al-Sistani's critical words could force al-Maliki, who emerged from relative obscurity in 2006 to lead the country, to step down.

On Thursday, Obama stopped short of calling for al-Maliki to resign, but his carefully worded comments did all but that. "Only leaders that can govern with an inclusive agenda are going to be able to truly bring the Iraqi people together and help them through this crisis," Obama declared at the White House.

The Iranian-born al-Sistani, believed to be 86, lives in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, where he rarely ventures out of his modest house on a narrow alley near the city's Imam Ali shrine and does not give media interviews. His call to arms last week prompted thousands of Shiites to volunteer to fight against the Sunni militants who now control a large swath of territory astride both sides of the Iraq-Syria border.

The extent of al-Sistani's influence was manifested in the years following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq when he forced Washington to modify its blueprint for the country and agree to the election of a constituent assembly that drafted the nation's constitution.

For the past two years, he has shunned politicians of all sects, refusing to receive any of them to show his disillusionment with the way they run the country. However, the danger posed by the Islamic State militants appears to have forced him to say more.

His call to arms has given the fight against the Sunni insurgents the feel of a religious war between Shiites and Sunnis. His office in Najaf dismissed that charge, with his representative, Ahmed al-Safi, saying Friday: "The call for volunteers targeted Iraqis from all groups and sects. ... It did not have a sectarian basis and cannot be."

Al-Maliki's State of Law bloc won the most seats in the April vote, but his hopes to retain his job are in doubt with rivals challenging him from within the broader Shiite alliance. In order to govern, his bloc must first form a majority coalition in the new 328-seat legislature, which must meet by June 30.

If al-Maliki were to relinquish his post now, according to the constitution the president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, would assume the job until a new prime minister is elected. But the ailing Talabani has been in Germany for treatment since 2012, so his deputy, Khudeir al-Khuzaie, a Shiite, would step in for him.

Al-Maliki's Shiite-led government long has faced criticism of discriminating against Iraq's Sunni and Kurdish populations. But it is his perceived marginalization of the once-dominant Sunnis that sparked violence reminiscent of Iraq's darkest years of sectarian warfare in 2006 and 2007.

Shiite politicians familiar with the secretive efforts to remove al-Maliki said two names mentioned as replacements are former vice president Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite and French-educated economist, and Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who served as Iraq's first prime minister after Saddam Hussein's ouster. Others include Ahmad Chalabi, a one-time Washington favorite to lead Iraq, and Bayan Jabr, another Shiite who served as finance and interior minister under al-Maliki.

Nearly three years after he heralded the end of America's war in Iraq, Obama announced Thursday he was deploying up to 300 military advisers to help quell the insurgency. They join some 275 troops in and around Iraq to provide security and support for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and other American interests.

But the U.S. leader was adamant that U.S. troops would not be returning to combat.

Obama has held off approving the airstrikes sought by the Iraqi government, though he says he could still approve "targeted and precise" strikes if the situation required it and if U.S. intelligence gathering identified potential targets.

Manned and unmanned U.S. aircraft are now flying over Iraq 24 hours a day on intelligence missions, U.S. officials say.

A Shiite politician close to al-Maliki said Obama did not offer enough to help Iraq at its hour of need.

"His plan does not rise up to the level of Iraqi-U.S. relations. His message is clear: America is not ready to fight terrorism," said the official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Another Shiite, cleric Nassir al-Saedi, warned that the 300 advisers would be attacked. Al-Saedi is loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia fought the Americans during their eight-year presence in Iraq.

"Our message to the occupier: We will be ready for you if you are back," he said during Friday prayers attended by al-Sadr supporters in Baghdad's Sadr City district.

Sunnis, predictably, had a different take.

Mohammed al-Khalidi, a Sunni lawmaker who favors replacing al-Maliki's government, said he thought "Obama's statement was balanced and reasonable."

"But," he added, "U.S. officials should be aware that the situation in Iraq needs an immediate remedy because Iraq is heading to the unknown."

___

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

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