Surge in Iraqi Violence Reunites Maliki and Obama

WASHINGTON - With violence spiking again in Iraq, fomenting fears of widening instability in the region, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki pressed President Obama on Friday for American help in fighting Qaeda terrorists in his country's lawless west.

Mr. Maliki said the Iraqi government was 'mobilizing our people in order to fight Al Qaeda because it's good for Iraq and the Middle East.' Speaking after a meeting with the president in the Oval Office, Mr. Maliki said he and Mr. Obama had 'similar ideas' on counterterrorism priorities, though he did not offer details on any requests for military equipment or other aid.

Other Iraqi officials said the government was appealing for a range of aid, including Apache helicopter gunships and Hellfire missiles, as well as more American intelligence and other forms of counterterrorism support, like reconnaissance drones that would be operated by Americans.

'Unfortunately, Al Qaeda has still been active and has grown more active recently,' Mr. Obama acknowledged, adding, 'We had a lot of discussion about how we can work together to push back against that terrorist organization that operates not only in Iraq but also poses a threat to the entire region and to the United States.'

Mr. Maliki's visit was his first to the White House since December 2011, and the changes since that last trip were stark.

At the end of 2011, the United States was withdrawing the last of its soldiers after nearly nine years of war, and he and Mr. Obama were inaugurating a new relationship. Now, coordinated bombings regularly rip through Iraqi cities as sectarian tensions increase and Mr. Maliki's government battles a resurgent Al Qaeda in Iraq, which American officials say is building camps, training facilities and staging areas in western Iraq.

The political and security setbacks have put both leaders in an awkward position. Mr. Obama, who two years ago hailed the reduction in violence and praised Mr. Maliki for leading 'Iraq's most inclusive government yet,' is eager to focus on other priorities. Mr. Maliki, who pushed for the American withdrawal and has tried to keep his distance from Washington, finds himself having to ask the president for help.

The changed circumstances were evident in the White House's decision to forgo a joint news conference like the one it held the last time Mr. Maliki visited. Instead, the two leaders made only brief remarks in the Oval Office.

'It's hard for the administration to make any claims that things have gone well inside Iraq,' said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow and expert on Iraq at the Center for American Progress. 'But the blame for that falls largely on Iraq's leadership.'

Still, Mr. Katulis said the administration recognized it would need to keep a focus on Iraq, not least because the rise of Al Qaeda in western Iraq could worsen the civil war in Syria, with terrorists moving back and forth across the porous border between the countries.

'There's recognition that if Syria continues on current trends, you're going to need to be more involved in Iraq,' he said.

Mr. Obama said he and Mr. Maliki spent much of their meeting discussing Syria, and the two seemed more in sync on strategies there than in 2011. Both endorsed the diplomatic effort aimed at finding a political transition in Syria. Two years ago, Mr. Maliki refused to back Mr. Obama's call for sanctions and for Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, to step down.

A joint statement issued after the meeting on Friday said Iraqi officials had presented a new five-year, $357 billion plan to revitalize their energy industry, which involves building new pipelines. The plan is extraordinarily ambitious, and given that Iraq's entire government budget in 2012 was $100 billion, it left some analysts shaking their heads.

'I don't know where they're coming up with the money,' said Ramzy Mardini, an adjunct fellow at the Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies in Beirut, Lebanon. 'The pipelines they want to build would go through regions where they don't have adequate security.'

The Iraqi request for aid is coming at time when Qaeda forces are outgunning Iraqi troops.

'Some of these Al Qaeda networks that are coming in from Syria and that are based in Iraq now really have heavy weapons,' a senior administration official told reporters in a conference call on Wednesday.

'Iraqi helicopter pilots that we have trained have been killed by heavy machine-gun weaponry,' said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to characterize the private diplomatic exchanges. 'And so they're trying to take this threat - take on this threat - with equipment that isn't really geared toward doing it effectively.'

American intelligence and counterterrorism officials say they have mapped the locations and origins of new terrorist networks and are sharing that information with the Iraqis. But Mr. Maliki has sent contradictory signals in response to American offers in the past two years to enhance intelligence-sharing operations or to send targeting analysts.

Analysts also said Mr. Maliki continued to emphasize big-ticket items, like F-16 fighter jets, that are better suited to lending his government symbolic power in the region than to rooting out Qaeda camps.

Outside the White House, several hundred supporters of the Iranian dissident group the Mujahedeen Khalq, known as M.E.K., rallied to protest a Sept. 1 attack by gunmen on Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad, that killed 52 of its members. The group has claimed the Iraqi government was complicit in the attack, an accusation it has denied.

Protesters waved yellow banners and were addressed by Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker; Tom Ridge, a former secretary of homeland security; and other former American officials who support their demands.

Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.