Iraq has a tall order ahead to eradicate seditions and “bury extremist dreams and hatred speech”, the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani, said in a speech during a ceremony held by the country’s Joint Operations Command (JOC) on the fifth anniversary of ISIS defeat.
Al-Sudani attributed the victory to the contributions of the Iraqi army, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/al-Hashd al-Shaabi), the Tribal Mobilization, the Counter-Terrorism Agency, the Federal Police, the Quick Reaction Force (QRF), the Peshmerga forces, and all the other security and military bodies.
“During that Odyssey, the words of the supreme authority in Najaf was the light the Iraqis followed,” he said, “the Jihad Kifai indict was the launching point toward liberating the cities and sub-districts, one by one,” he said.
The prime minister reminisced about the efforts of the Iraqi troops and fighters, martyrs, the victims of the Yazidi genocide and Speicher massacre, the women of Iraq, and the suffering of the displaced people.
“Our patriotic doctrine that rejects terrorism and extremism rendered its eradication inevitable in order to restore Iraq’s prosperous diversity and cultural wealth,” he said.
“We still have a long way to eradicate all seditions and bury the dreams of extremism and hate speech. A lot of work also awaits us to achieve reform, development, and decent life,” he said.
“The Iraqis who defeated terrorism are capable of defeating the corruption that has become the first enemy of the state,” he concluded.