Iraq Picks New President to Confront Militant Threat

BAGHDAD — Trying to piece together a new government to confront a Sunni militant offensive and growing internal strains, Iraqi leaders on Thursday selected a well-regarded Kurdish politician to be the country’s new president.

Though the post is largely ceremonial, Iraqi officials said the choice was a vital step to try to ease the growing distrust between the country’s northern Kurdish population and the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad and present a more united front against the militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Yet even as the government is trying to rally, the Sunni militants are consolidating their grip over a broadening portion of the map. Along with the nuts and bolts of traditional governance, like paving neglected roads, ISIS is also employing violence and intimidation in the quest to create a hard-line Islamist caliphate.

On Thursday, militants destroyed a shrine in Mosul that was said to be the tomb of the prophet Jonah, and there have been increasing reports of public executions. Reports also surfaced of an edict ordering women and girls to undergo genital mutilation in ISIS-held territory, though some Mosul residents said they had seen no evidence it was being enforced, and some militant-affiliated social media accounts denied it.

The starkly divergent scenes — of a political class in the capital struggling to make the country whole, and militants taking every measure to carve it up — presented a picture of a country in chaos just as President Obama is set to weigh recommendations by the Pentagon for possible military action, which could include airstrikes, either by drones or warplanes.