US Secretary of State John Kerry vowed Monday that the United States would provide "intense" support to Iraq to help it battle a militant offensive. "The support will be intense, sustained, and if Iraq?s leaders take the steps needed to bring the country together it will be effective," Kerry told reporters after a day of meetings in Baghdad. Kerry made the remarks at the US embassy in Baghdad, in the heavily-fortified Green Zone, after talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other leaders from across the political and communal spectrum. A major militant offensive, led by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) but involving a raft of other Sunni groups as well, began in Iraq's main **rthern city Mosul on June 9.