US did nothing to stop Ramadi fall to ISIL: Commander Soleimani

Iranian commander Major General Qassem Soleimani has slammed the United States over the recent fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi to the Takfiri ISIL terrorist group.

Soleimani, who is the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ Quds Force, said that while the Ain al-Asad air base hosting US fighter jets was very close to Ramadi, the American military forces took no action to stop the ISIL militants fighting to take over the Iraqi city.

“This is not but complicity in [a] conspiracy,” he said during a Sunday gathering of the veterans of the eight-year Iraqi-imposed war against Iran in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman.

“There is no will to fight the ISIL,” Soleimani said in a reference to the US-led coalition that purports to be targeting ISIL targets inside Iraq and Syria.

He also described the ISIL terror group as a “great plague,” which should be countered.

The group, whose members slaughter human beings in cold blood while chanting religious slogans, is a big threat, he said.

On May 17, the ISIL militants managed to bring Ramadi under their control.

The Popular Mobilization forces, one of the volunteer groups who have joined the Iraqi army, were dispatched to Anbar after Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called on them to join the fight to drive the Takfiri militants out of Ramadi.

Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said on Friday that around 55,000 people had fled Ramadi since mid-May.

Iraq’s former national security advisor told Press TV on Sunday that most US fighter jets deployed to bomb terrorists in the Arab country return to their bases without engaging terrorist positions.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie sharply criticized the US-led airstrikes against the ISIL as ineffective, saying, "from where I sit in Baghdad, eight out of each 10" aircraft loaded with ammunition return to their bases without striking their targets. 

Elsewhere in his remarks, General Soleimani said, “Today, no one stands to take up the fight against this dangerous phenomenon (ISIL) but the Islamic Republic.”

Since August 2014, the US and some of its allies have been conducting airstrikes against what they say are ISIL positions in Iraq. Some members of the US-led coalition also started bombarding ‘ISIL targets’ inside Syria in September last year without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

This is while many of the countries joining the so-called anti-terror coalition, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been the staunch supporters of the Takfiri elements.

The ISIL terrorists currently control swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq. They have committed terrible atrocities in both countries, including mass executions and beheading of local residents as well as foreign nationals.

MSM/HJL/KA

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