Iraqi premier rejects foreign ground troops in Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has opposed any deployment of foreign ground forces in the country as part of efforts against the ISIL terrorists.

Al-Abadi told Australian Defense Minister David Johnston in Baghdad that the presence of any foreign troops in Iraq to combat the militants amounts to intervention in the country.

“Abadi renewed rejection of any ground intervention in Iraq,” a statement from Abadi’s office quoted him as saying.

The remarks come as United States and France are carrying out airstrikes against the Takfiri group.

Washington says it will not deploy further troops to Iraq, but sent hundreds of military personnel to Iraq in June for tasks such as advising local forces.

The US Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has recently said American forces may be needed if current efforts to combat the ISIL fail.

The US withdrew its forces from Iraq in 2011, two years after President Barack Obama took office. Many Iraqis blame their country’s problems on the US-led invasion of 2003.

Meanwhile, Iraqi army forces, backed by volunteer fighters, have managed to break a siege by ISIL Takfiri militants on hundreds of soldiers in an area of the western province of al-Anbar.

Army spokesman, Lieutenant General Qassim al-Moussawi, has said that Iraqi forces were able to liberate overnight as many as 400 troops who had been surrounded by ISIL terrorists three days ago in the Sijir area near the city of Fallujah, located roughly 69 kilometers (43 miles) west of Baghdad.

Over the past few weeks, Iraqi forces have killed a large number of the Takfiri terrorists in their mop-up operations in the area.

The latest developments come as Takfiri ISIL terrorists currently control some parts of Iraq’s northern and western regions.

The West and its regional allies, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are reportedly giving financial and military support to the militants.