President Barzani praises Italian assistance to Kurdish Peshmerga in fight against ISIS
During their meeting, President Barzani warned of the “serious threat” of an ISIS resurgence in the region and stressed the need of continued international coordination to combat the terror group, according to a statement from the Kurdistan Region Presidency.
Other topics including the Iraq protests and latest developments in Syria were discussed in the meeting, the statement concluded.
Italy is a member of the US-led coalition to defeat ISIS. Several Italian officials have visited the Kurdistan region before, with former Italian Defense Ministers Roberta Pinotti and Elisabetta Trenta visiting in May and October of last year.
Barzani thanked the Italian government for their military support to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces within the framework of the counter-ISIS coalition and hailed the role of Italian personnel in providing military training , the statement added.
Italy has supported, trained, advised, and assisted both Iraqi Security Forces and Peshmerga.
Five Italian troops were wounded in Kirkuk last month while training Iraqi security forces in the ongoing fight against ISIS.
Visiting troops at Camp Dublin in Baghdad yesterday morning, Guerini offered a message of solace to Italy’s troops abroad.
“Arriving in Iraq, the thought immediately goes to our five boys who were involved in an attack a month ago…Italy is with you. Always,” he said in a tweet on the visit.
In Erbil, Guerini commended the role of Peshmerga forces in the defeating of ISIS and protection of minority groups, and confirmed his country's continued military support to protect the security and peace of the region.
Over the last three to four years, the coalition has trained more than 15,000 Peshmerga soldiers.
Despite being territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017, ISIS has exploited the security vacuum in territories disputed by Erbil and Baghdad to increase its hit-and-run activities.
The Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC), which releases monthly data on militant activity, says there were 50 incidents in November alone, concentrated mainly around Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Saladin, including bombings, mortar attacks, shootings, and death threats.
Resolving the disputed status of these frontier areas and bolstering security cooperation between Iraqi and Kurdish forces is widely seen as the means of preventing the ISIS resurgence.
ISIS seized vast areas of northern Iraq in the summer of 2014. At the height of its power between 2014 and 2016, ISIS controlled an area roughly the size of Great Britain, spread across both Iraq and Syria.
The latest US Pentagon inspector general report covering July 1 to October 25 said ISIS has continued to cement and expand its command and control structure in Iraq, enabling the group to stage more attacks.
Turkey's invasion of northern Syria has also allowed militants to break out of prisons controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and vanish amid the chaos.
Rudaw
