DHAKA: Iraq has formally called on the US to launch air strikes against jihadist militants who have seized several key cities over the past week.

"We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power," confirmed top US military commander Gen Martin Dempsey in front of US senators.

Earlier the Sunni insurgents launched an attack on Iraq's biggest oil refinery at Baiji north of Baghdad, reports the BBC.

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki earlier urged Iraqis to unite against the militants.

Government forces are battling to push back ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and its Sunni Muslim allies in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, after the militants overran the second city, Mosul, last week.

US President Barack Obama met senior Congress members on Wednesday to discuss the Iraq crisis. The White House said Obama had "reviewed our efforts to strengthen the capacity of Iraq's security forces to confront the threat from ISIL [ISIS], including options for increased security assistance".

Ahead of the briefing Senate leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said he did not "support in any way" getting American troops involved in the Iraqi "civil war".

But Gen Dempsey told a Senate panel that it was in America's "national interest to counter [ISIS] wherever we find them".

In other developments:

    UK Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament in London that ISIS was also plotting terror attacks on Britain

    India confirmed that 40 of its citizens had been kidnapped in the violence-hit Iraqi city of Mosul

    Saudi Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal warned that Iraq faced the risk of civil war

    Turkey is investigating reports that 15 Turkish builders were abducted by ISIS on Tuesday; 80 Turks were kidnapped in Mosul last week

BDST: 0838 HRS, JUN 19, 2014