ISIL poses threat to whole world: Iran FM

Iran’s foreign minister has warned that terrorists of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) pose a threat to the whole world.

Mohammad Javad Zarif made the remarks in an interview with Iran’s Arabic-language al-Alam news channel in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Friday.

“We believe that the ISIL, as an extremist Takfiri group, is a threat to the whole region and the entire world and [we] urge that no political investment be made on terrorist groups,” he said.

The Iranian top diplomat also noted that the government and nation of Iraq are capable of countering the ISIL, adding that the Takfiri group is hated by all religious and ethnic groups across Iraq.

Zarif further pointed out that Sunnis account for most of the victims of this “anti-human group” in Iraq and Syria, despite its claims of being Sunni.

On June 10, the ISIL militants took control of the city of Mosul, the capital of Iraq’s Nineveh Province. They later took control of the city of Tikrit, located about 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad.

Over the past days, Iraqi armed forces have been engaged in fierce clashes with the terrorists, who have threatened to take their acts of violence to other Iraqi cities, including the capital.

However, their advance has been slowed down as Iraqi military forces and volunteer fighters have begun engaging them on several fronts, pushing the militants out of several areas they had earlier overrun.