WASHINGTON: The United States said yesterday the declaration by Sunni militants of an “Islamic caliphate” on territory they have seized in Iraq and Syria has “no meaning.”
“We have seen these types of words or comparable claims from ISIL before,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militant group. “This declaration has no meaning for the people in Iraq and Syria,” she said, adding that it just “exposed the true nature of this organisation and its desire to control people by fear.”
The militants, who have seized a large swath of territory in northern and western Iraq and also control areas in neighboring Syria, have now renamed their group the Islamic State.
“This is a critical moment for the international community, for countries in the region, for all of the Iraqi people to unite against the threats that they face,” Psaki said, while stressing she did not want to “overemphasize” the declaration’s impact. The White House said the jihadists spearheading the offensive in Iraq had waged “a campaign of terror of gross acts of violence and repressive ideology that pose a grave threat to Iraq’s future.”AFP
