Group of 26 countries vows to support fight against Islamic State

Twenty-six countries, including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and 10 Arab states, as well as representatives of the Arab League, EU and UN, yesterday vowed to support the new Iraqi government against the extremist group Islamic State “by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance”.

The conference on peace and security in Iraq was convened in Paris at the initiative of French president François Hollande, who travelled to Baghdad and Erbil on September 12th. Mr Hollande was the first western head of state to visit Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi, who took office on September 8th.

In their final communique, participants said Islamic State (IS) “is a threat not only to Iraq but also to the entire international community”.

The fleet of black Mercedes outside the French foreign ministry and the foreign ministers conversing in rooms heavy with silk brocade, gold leaf and crystal chandeliers were the response of the “civilised world” to the decapitation of British aid worker David Haines and American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

“Iraq faces a criminal terrorist movement,” said Iraqi president Fouad Massoum, who co-chaired the conference with Mr Hollande. “Its crimes are an expression of obscurantist, bloodthirsty thinking.”

Mr Massoum, who is Kurdish, accused IS of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”.

Disagreement

Confusion reigns over the name of the extremists who stunned the world by seizing Iraq’s second city, Mosul, on June 10th. Mr Hollande and his foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, now call it “Da’esh”, the Arab acronym for “Islamic State”, the name the group claims for itself.

“The Da’esh movement is not a state, nor are they representatives of Islam,” Mr Fabius said. But US officials persist in calling it by the acronym Isil, signifying Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, one of the group’s former names.

Iraq’s previous prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia Muslim, was accused of pushing Iraq’s Sunni minority into the arms of IS. Mr al-Abadi will “implement a policy of inclusiveness, and ensure that all components are fairly represented within the federal institutions and all citizens are treated equally”, the final communique said.

Mr Hollande defined the goal of the conference as “providing the necessary political support to the new Iraqi authorities to fight the major threat called Da’esh”.

On the eve of the conference, US officials said several Arab countries offered to carry out airstrikes against the IS. The conference did not clarify military roles within the US-led coalition.

Mr Massoum asked for “airborne operations against terrorist sites.” The coalition “must not allow them to implant themselves [in northern Iraq]. We must cut their sources of finance and stop fighters travelling through neighbouring countries to join them,” he said.