...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
Lions of Islam who are holding swathes of Iraq and Syria.
| An interesting development... |
Turkey, a vocal critic of Syrian
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...
's regime, has faced international criticism for letting snuffies pass through its territory to fight in Syria.
Ankara wants a wider strategy for Syria that would ultimately bring Assad's downfall. It has repeatedly called for a buffer zone, backed by a no-fly zone, to be put in place inside the war-torn country on the Turkish border.
"We can defeat this organization by uniting all our powers, with the support of the countries in the region," al-Abadi said, in translated remarks.
Al-Abadi said he expected Turkish support on intelligence-sharing, military training and armaments.
Davutoglu said Turkey was already training Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters to combat the IS.
| Oh? Fascinating. |
Turkey and Iraq shared a "common approach to fight all terrorist organizations in the region" including the IS and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Davutoglu said.
| There it is: "Stop giving those awful people house space." |
Iraq is battling to retake large areas overrun by the jihadist group while Turkey borders territory which the holy warriors control in neighboring Syria.
The Iraqi prime minister said that Iraqi security forces and peshmerga fighters were "rapidly" pushing out the Lions of Islam from areas under their control.
Al-Abadi's visit to Turkey follows a trip to Iraq by Davutoglu in November -- in a sign of a thaw in bilateral ties which were strained in recent years over a number of issues including Ankara's move to aid Iraqi Kurds independently export oil.
"We want to export oil through Turkey," the Iraqi premier said. "It is in Iraq's interest."
| And there's the hook. In a troubled neighbourhood, it's always best to have a back up plan. Iraqi News has an additional quote from the Turkish PM, which sounds more blandly diplomatic than action oriented: |
Davutoglu said, at a presser with his Iraqi counterpart Haider al-Abadi that was held in Ankara and followed by IraqiNews.com, that, “There are effective mechanisms between the two countries for the development of relations in the framework of military and security cooperation,” noting that, “Iraqi-Turkish relations have entered a new phase in strategic cooperation to confront terrorism.”
He added,”Turkey is always ready to support Iraq,” stressing that, “There should not be any imported muscle crossing into Iraq or Syria and we will now allow for the existence of ISIS as a terrorist organization in the region.”