Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.11
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:
Turkey will not participate in ground operations against the Islamic State terrorist organization, Turkish channel Haber7 reported Sept. 11.
This decision was made on Sept. 10 during a meeting of the Prime Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu with the country's security forces.
The United States Secretary of State John Kerry is conducting a tour on Middle Eastern countries aimed to create an international coalition against the Islamic state terrorist organization.
Currently, Kerry is in Saudi Arabia and will hold a meeting with the heads of foreign ministers of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC), Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey.
Kerry previously visited Iraq, where he talked with the new authorities of the country and pledged to neutralize the Islamic State organization in Syria and Iraq with joint efforts.
The IS was established in 2003 in Iraq. In 2004-2006, the terrorist organization was led by Abu Musab al-Zargavi. It consisted of 11 radical Islamic groups, which had close ties with an Al-Qaeda terrorist organization.
After the start of the military confrontation in Syria between the armed opposition and the government forces and the terrorist organization penetrated to Syria in 2013. The Islamic State organization then announced its refusal to take an oath to al-Qaeda and declared jihad on all groups and government forces.
The strengthening of the position of the Islamic State organization in Syria has led to its ability to return to Iraq.
On June 10, the militants of the terrorist group known as the IS (also referred to as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) supported by the banned Iraqi Ba'ath Party seized the administrative center of the Mosul city in the northern Iraqi province of Ninawa, a number of small settlements, as well as part of the Salah al Din Province, including its center - the city of Tikrit.
The IS militants took control of the Iraqi town of Tal Afar June 16 and the city's military airport also came under the control of the IS militants June 22.
It was reported June 25 that the Sunni groups in Iraq are taking up arms against the IS militants.
In particular, the 1920 Revolution Brigades group is armed against the militants. The 1920 Revolution Brigades group actively fought against Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq in 2007.
The activists of the Iraqi Islamic National Resistance, the Islamic Army of Iraq, Sunni Mujahideen Army are also armed.
In late June, the Islamic State organization announced the creation of an Islamic caliphate on the territories under its control in Iraq and Syria. Iraqi authorities have appealed to the international community for help in combating the organization.
It was also reported that a particularly tense situation was in the north of the country where terrorists threaten ethnic religious minorities, Kurds Yezidis, with genocide. The number of Yezidis who have fled their homes is more than 100,000.