World/Nation

• Obama: U.S. may help with chaos in Iraq

WASHINGTON - Less than three years after pulling American forces out of Iraq, President Barack Obama is weighing a range of short-term military options, including airstrikes, to quell an al-Qaida inspired insurgency that has captured two Iraqi cities and threatened to press toward Baghdad.

"We do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold," Obama said Thursday in the Oval Office.

However, officials firmly ruled out putting American troops back on the ground in Iraq, which has faced resurgent violence since the U.S. military withdrew in late 2011. A sharp burst of violence this week led to the evacuation Thursday of Americans from a major air base in northern Iraq where the U.S. had been training security forces.

Obama, in his first comments on the deteriorating situation, said it was clear Iraq needed additional assistance from the U.S. and international community given the lightning gains by the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Levant. Republican lawmakers pinned some of the blame for the escalating violence on Obama's reluctance to re-engage in a conflict he long opposed.

For more than a year, the Iraqi government has been pleading with the U.S. for additional help to combat the insurgency, which has been fueled by the civil war in neighboring Syria. Northern Iraq has become a way station for insurgents who routinely travel between the two countries and are spreading the Syrian war's violence.

• Conservatives feel left out in GOP reshuffle

WASHINGTON - California Republican Kevin McCarthy secured a clear shot to becoming House majority leader on Thursday as his sole rival dropped his bid in a leadership fight that exposed deep fissures within the GOP.

Barring an unforeseen challenge, McCarthy is on a glide path to the No. 2 job in the House behind Speaker John Boehner, with elections slated for June 19. Earlier in the day, backers of the four-term congressman had spoken confidently about his prospects.

Texas Rep. Pete Sessions said he had decided to abandon the race after it "became obvious to me that the measures necessary to run a successful campaign would have created unnecessary and painful division within our party."

Within 48 hours of Rep. Eric Cantor's lightning primary-election downfall, McCarthy and his deputies aggressively rounded up votes with a pitch to Southern Republicans and pointed private conversations on the House floor in a race that occasionally had the markings of a personality-driven contest for class president.

• Bowe Bergdahl to arrive today in San Antonio

WASHINGTON - Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has been recovering in Germany after five years as a Taliban captive, is returning to the United States today, but he will not receive the promotion that would have been automatic had he still been held prisoner.

Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Thursday that Bergdahl had left Germany on board a U.S. military aircraft and was expected to arrive at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, early this morning.

A U.S. official, meanwhile, said the promotion list, which would have boosted Bergdahl to staff sergeant, was expected to be released this week and he would not be on it.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Associated Press last week that the promotion would no longer be automatic because Bergdahl is now free and any promotion would be based on routine duty requirements, such as proper levels of training and education as well as job performance.

The U.S. official said medical personnel had determined that Bergdahl was ready to move on to the third phase of his reintegration process, which would happen at Brooke. The official was not authorized to provide details about Bergdahl's promotion by name and spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity.

• al-Qaida-inspired group vows to take Baghdad

BAGHDAD - Islamic militants who seized cities and towns vowed Thursday to march on Baghdad to settle old scores, joined by Saddam Hussein-era loyalists and other disaffected Sunnis capitalizing on the government's political paralysis over the biggest threat to Iraq's stability since the U.S. withdrawal.

Trumpeting their victory, the militants also declared they would impose Shariah law in Mosul and other areas they have captured.

In northern Iraq, Kurdish security forces moved to fill the power vacuum - taking over an air base and other posts abandoned by the military in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk. The move further raised concern the country could end up partitioned into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish zones.

Three planeloads of Americans were being evacuated from a major Iraqi air base in Sunni territory north of Baghdad, U.S. officials said, and Germany urged its citizens to immediately leave parts of Iraq, including Baghdad.

- The Associated Press