“Iraq enjoys the potential, necessary military capabilities and the popular power and resolve to fight against the elements of terrorism and extremism,” Marzieh Afkham said on Saturday.

She also dismissed reports about the deployment of Iranian forces to Iraq.

“Any move that complicates the situation in Iraq will not be in the interest of Iraq and the region. Iraqi people and government from all political and religious groups will confront the pro-violence, extremist and terrorist elements as a unified front,” Afkham stated.

She added that Iran believes that the Baghdad government can fully overcome the ongoing crisis in Iraq and thwart conspiracies through consolidation of national unity and internal solidarity.

The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Takfiri terrorist group has captured two Iraqi provincial capitals this week, namely Tikrit in the Salahuddin Province, and Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in the northern province of Nineveh.

On Friday, top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a religious decree calling on people to take up arms and defend their country against the Takfiri militants.

The Iraqi army is currently battling the terrorists on the outskirts of the city of Muqdadiyah, situated northeast of Baquba, in Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala.

The extremist terrorists have threatened to take their acts of violence to other Iraqi cities, including the capital, Baghdad.

SHI/SHI