Iraq’s MPs urge authorities to ask Russia for help in anti-IS fight

TEHRAN, October 21. /TASS/. Baghdad needs to replace the United States with Russia for joint fight against terrorist groups, Iraq's former national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, has said in an interview with Fars News Agency.

"The parliament fractions are calling on the Iraqi government to request Russian airstrikes and use it to attack the ISIL [IS] military bases and oil centers," Rubaie, who is now a senior legislator at the Iraqi parliament, said on Tuesday.

The US Air Force is not cooperating with Iraq's federal government, security and armed forces and refuses to provide any intelligence on the Islamic State (IS) concentration and field camps, he added.

The politician complained that in every ten flight missions carried out by the US-led coalition aircraft, IS positions are attacked in only two missions, while "nothing special happen" in the other eight missions.

Iraqi security expert Hesham al-Hashemi told FNA that the Baghdad government would ask for Russia's direct military assistance in the fight against the IS in the coming days. Further military advances by Iraq's joint forces "would be a great achievement for the quadrilateral coalition," he said.

"If the Iraqi security forces achieve considerable advances in their fight against the ISIL in the Northern parts of Salahudin province, Iraq will surely ask for Russia's military aid to help them in the fight against the ISIL [IS]," Al-Hashemi told FNA.

The expert stressed that the Iraqi Air Force desperately needed the Russian Air Force's assistance in the fight against the IS. Speaking on the security agreement signed between Iraq and the US, he said: "The Baghdad-Washington agreement will not prevent Iraq from asking for further military aid in the ongoing fight against terrorism from any third country."

US Marine General Joseph Dunford, who visited Iraq on Tuesday, claimed that he managed to convince Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi not to request Russia’s air campaign against the IS.

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