Iranian President Sheikh Hasan Rouhani said that If not for Iran, the world would now be facing the Takfiri group, ISIL, a terrorist government in charge of Baghdad and Damascus.
Iran was a “pioneer in fighting against extremism and violence in the world in word and action,” Rouhani said at a conference on Saturday.
“If Iran hadn’t help, ISIL would have been materialized practically and today, we would be facing an ISIL terrorist government instead of a terrorist group,” Fars news agency quoted Rouhani as saying.
Also Saturday, an Iranian minister said Syria was on the frontlines of “plans and plots” against Iran and that ISIL was continuously attempting to send terror cells to the Islamic Republic.
Speaking to a Lebanese TV station affiliated with Lebanese Hezbollah, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi also said that Iran had offered Syrian President Bashar Assad and his family asylum in Iran, which Assad had refused.
