REBEL fighters have consolidated their control of the al-Waleed border post between Iraq and Syria, government forces admitted today.

Since Sunni tribes took the Turaibil border crossing between Iraq and Jordan on Sunday after Iraqi security forces fled, the inability of the border guards to retake the al-Waleed post now means that the frontiers between the neighbouring countries are outside government control.

The tribes were negotiating to hand the Turaibil crossing over to fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis).

The two other official crossings between Iraq and Syria — al-Qaim and Rabia — are also outside government hands, with Isis fighters holding the first and security forces from the country’s autonomous Kurdish region in control of the second.

US Secretary of State John Kerry met Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad yesterday to push for a more inclusive government.

Washington, which withdrew its troops from Iraq in 2011 after an occupation which followed the 2003 invasion, has been so far unable to help Iraq to contain the Isis offensive.

US President Barack Obama agreed last week to send up to 300 special forces troops as advisers but has held off from providing air strikes and ruled out redeploying ground troops.

Washington is worried that Mr Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government has worsened the insurgency by adhering to sectarian policies which have alienated moderate Sunnis, who have now joined the Isis revolt. 

While Washington has been careful not to say so publicly, it wants Mr Maliki to relinquish power and Iraqi officials say such a message has been delivered behind the scenes.

Mr Kerry had claimed on Sunday that the US would not choose who rules in Baghdad, but added that Washington had noted dissatisfaction among Kurds, Sunnis and some Shi’ites with Maliki’s leadership. 

He said that the US wanted Iraqis to “find a leadership that was prepared to be inclusive and share power.”

Elsewhere in Iraq, 23 prisoners were killed during an Isis attack on a convoy transporting them south of Baghdad yesterday morning near the town of Hashimiyah in Babil province. 

It was not immediately clear how the detainees died.

The Iraqi PM’s security spokesman said yesterday that “hundreds” of Iraqi soldiers have been killed in the offensive that has overrun vast tracts of the country.