The US Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Iraq to build support against Islamic State militants.<br /><br />It is the start of a tour of the Middle East to garner both financial and military backing to defeat the militants that have seized control of parts of Iraq and Syria.<br /><br />His visit comes hours before a speech in which US President Barack Obama will try to rally Americans behind another war in a region he has long sought to leave.<br /><br />But it will be hard to placate all the forces in Iraq. Three car bombs exploded on Wednesday in a Shi’ite neighbourhood, killing nine people and injuring 29 others.<br /><br />Sectarian tensions appea as entrenched as ever, possibly worsened by a month of US air strikes on Sunni jihadists.<br /><br />The fallout risks increasing grievances that helped Islamic State fighters find support amongst Iraq’s Sunnis and may make it more difficult to convince them to combat the militants.
