Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday the Kurdish-controlled city of Arbil was becoming an operations base for the Islamic State militant group that seized swathes of **rthern and western Iraq last month. Maliki is under pressure as Sunni Muslim militants, led by the al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State, hold large parts of the **rth and west of the country and have threatened to march on the capital. "We will never be silent about Arbil becoming a base for the operations of the Islamic State and Baathists and Al Qaeda and the terrorists," Maliki said in his weekly televised address.