Air Strikes on ISIL ‘Security Show’: Iranian Speaker
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani played down the US-engineered aerial bombardment of positions of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group as a mere “security show” that is unlikely to weaken terrorists.
Addressing the 131st Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in the Swiss city of Geneva, Larijani said the attacks on the ISIL by the US-led coalition could only be useful in terms of a “gesture of counter-terrorism.”
The speaker underscored that such military campaign would not help prevent the terrorist violence against people, especially women in the areas seized by the ISIL militants.
Larijani reiterated that the “savage terrorists” who are committing heinous crimes in Syria and Iraq are the very same groups that had been being armed and sponsored by certain world powers until a few months ago.
“The problem is that the phenomenon of terrorism is being deal with tactically, which is a strategic mistake,” the Iranian speaker said of US military campaign to allegedly destroy the ISIL.
The ISIL militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the summer, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.
Since late September, the US and several of its Arab and western allies have been conducting airstrikes against ISIL inside Syria and Iraq with almost no significant result.