The Commonwealth Government strongly supports President Obama’s announcement regarding targeted airstrikes against ISIL forces in the Kurdish region of Iraq, accompanied by humanitarian airdrops.
ISIL, now also known as the Islamic State, has emerged suddenly and violently as a major threat to the people of Syria and Iraq and a danger to the region and the wider world.
ISIL is set on carving out a terrorist state in the Middle East. Its forces have advanced into the Kurdish region of Iraq, capturing a number of towns and Mosul Dam.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces are hard pressed and, according to some reports, have retreated to within 25km of the Kurdish capital, Erbil.
The situation is very serious.
The airstrikes ordered by President Obama would be in support of US personnel located in Erbil and also to break the ISIL siege of Mount Sinjar, where thousands of Iraqi women and children are in desperate need of food and water.
The world is no longer confronting an evil terrorist group but a highly potent terrorist army.
ISIL is armed with tanks and other modern weapons. It has shown it is capable of holding territory, imposing its own abhorrent form of government and forging alliances with other extremist organisations.
It must be defeated.
8 August 2014