“ISIL’s strategy is obvious – to insert themselves in the ethnic and religious fault lines of Iraq, to undermine legitimate authorities and to spread fear among all communities,” said Nickolay Mladenov, the special representative of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for Iraq, briefing the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
“Their goals are also clear – to destroy the Iraqi State and replace it with a ‘State of Terror’ built on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Mladenov added.
The UN official warned that the ISIL state of terror would “threaten global peace and security” by seizing more pieces of land in Iraq and Syria.
“As the crisis unfolded, Iraq almost collapsed,” Mladenov said, saying that the Arab country’s western provinces were seized by the ISIL, southern provinces were hit by poverty, “Baghdad was threatened by a daily barrage of suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices and Iraq’s minorities have been subjected to unspeakable horrors.”