Iraq's FM Calls Sunni Muslims Main Victims of ISIL
QOM (Tasnim) – Iraq's foreign minister rejected the claim that the ongoing turmoil in the Arab country caused by the ISIL militants is a confrontation between Shiites and Sunnis, saying that most of the people killed by the terrorist group were Sunni Muslims.
“Takfiris first attacked Sunnis, and the northern city of Mosul, which is a Sunni-populated region, was invaded by Takfiris from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group. These terrorists do not have any faith or religion,” Ibrahim al-Jaafari said on Sunday.
He made the comments in an address to an international conference on threats posed by extremist and Takfiri groups underway in Iran’s central holy city of Qom from November 23 to 24.
In Iraq, Sunnis constitute 84 percent of the victims of the ISIL terrorists, Christiand account for 2 percent of them and the remaining 14 percent are Shiites, he noted.
He said terrorist activities increased after September 11, 2001 and the extremist movements emerged in the name of Islam, and added that it is Muslim scholars’ duty to enlighten the world’s people about the threat of terrorism.
The ISIL is one of the Takfiri groups which is active in Iraq and Syria and is believed to be supported by the West and some regional Arab countries.
The terrorist group claims as an independent state the territory of Iraq and Syria, with implied future claims intended over more of the Levant, including Lebanon, occupied Palestine, Jordan, Cyprus, and Southern Turkey.
