Iran to help Iraq fight terror if requested

A senior Iranian official says the Islamic Republic, if requested, will spare no effort to lend support to Iraq in the fight against Takfiri militants.

“Should the Iraqi government ask for Iran’s help in the fight against terrorism, we will spare no effort [to support Baghdad],” Ali Akbar Velayati, the president of the Center for Strategic Research of Iran’s Expediency Council, said on Monday.

Velayati made the remarks in a dinner banquet with Chinese media staff, reporters, experts and professors of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences at the Iranian Embassy in Beijing on Monday.

The Iranian official expressed confidence that the Iraqi nation and government will successfully survive the current crisis.

He said that terror acts by Takfiris in Iraq are the result of the country’s successful elections as well as the high number of votes won by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s party.

Velayati also stated that extremists seek to undermine the result of this valuable victory.

Iraqi forces continue battle against the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Takfiri terrorist group, as the militants are advancing in Iraq, threatening to take their acts of violence to several Iraqi cities, including the capital, Baghdad.

On April 30, Iraq held parliamentary elections – its first nationwide polls since the US troops withdrew in 2011 – despite threats by al-Qaeda-linked militants to ruin the election process. Iraq’s electoral commission put the turnout from the elections at about 60 percent. Results from the vote showed that Maliki’s State of Law alliance won the largest share of votes, garnering 92 out of 328 parliamentary seats.