WESTERN countries will face a terrorism threat on their own doorstep unless they intervene now to confront Islamic insurgents.in Iraq, a senior Kurdish security official has warned.
Masrour Barzani, head of Kurdistan's National Security Council, said he doubted the Iraqi army's ability to roll back the advances of the Islamic State (Isis) forces without outside help.
He believed, though, that the rest of the world did not appear to be serious about confronting the insurgency but would face an increasing threat when many of the Isis fighters returned to their native countries. Mr Barzani said Kurdistan was the "frontline against terrorism" in the Middle East, and that the inaction of Western nations was at their peril.
He said: "They have a choice: either they can come and face them here or they can wait for them to go back to their own countries and face terrorism on their doorsteps.
Kurdistan, which has its own armed forces known as Peshmerga", has managed to insulate itself so far against the violence in the rest of Iraq and neighbouring Syria. They share all but 10 miles of their southern border with Isis forces who have declared an Islamic caliphate.
Iraq's million-strong army, trained and equipped by the United States at a cost of around $25 billion (£15 bn), largely evaporated in the north after Isis overran the city of Mosul last month.
From there, they went on to seize most Sunni majority areas with little resistance, putting Iraq's survival as a unified state in jeopardy.
The fighting has continued as politicians wrangle in Baghdad over forming a new government.
For now, the militants are busy fighting what remains of the Iraqi army backed by Shi'ite militias further south but they may eventually turn to the north of the country, where the Kurds have expanded their territory by as much as 40 per cent.
Isis has claimed responsibility for a wave of car bombings in mostly Shi'ite areas of Baghdad which killed at least 27 people on Saturday.
The hardline Sunni Islamist organisation said two of the explosions were suicide missions.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article