Zebari told the BBC that the Peshmerga (armed Kurdish fighters) were "encountering fierce resistance, bombs on the roadside, suicide bombers and so on.

“ISIL is a formidable threat not only to Iraq or the Kurds, the Yazidis, to the Christians to the whole world,” Zebari said.

“This is a very very serious status. I mean we are not talking of a bunch of amateur jihadist who want to go to heaven, they have an agenda, they have an army, a fully grown army, they have money and finances, they have oil, they are controlling water resources, they are controlling the territory of two countries, Syria and Iraq, and controlling six, seven million people, and with agenda to establish an Islamic khilafa that doesn’t stop here that plans mountains of Kurdistan and extends up to Arabian peninsula. We have to destroy this ideology.”

“This organization is far more serious than Al-Qaeda organization or underground organization that choose to attack selective targets, they have an agenda to protect a khilafa state according to their own interpretation of Islam,” he warned. 

"The Peshmerga forces are pushing and taking the fight to them to clear the dam," Zebari said.

He said the next objective was to clear the Nineveh plain "to ensure the return of minorities".

On June 10, the ISIL terrorists took control of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province, which was followed by the fall of Tikrit, located 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad. The terrorist group has also pushed their way towards Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, where it has been stopped by Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

NTJ/MB