BAGHDAD
Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi has described the Tuesday capture of key city Mosul by militants as a "foreign occupation."
"This is a foreign occupation by terrorist groups coming from around the world to kill innocent people and undermine the state," al-Nujaifi told a Tuesday press conference.
He said the militants were "now eyeing control of the northern Saladin province."
Early Tuesday, fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) established full control over Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and capital of the Nineveh province, after fighting security forces since Friday.
The militant group – which Baghdad claims is linked to Al-Qaeda – seized the northern half of Mosul on Tuesday morning only hours after capturing the southern half, a security official said earlier.
Iraqi security forces withdrew from their positions as the ISIL took over the flashpoint city, he added.
Al-Nujaifi called on all Iraqis to join forces "with a view to repelling this terrorist attack and supporting the armed forces."
The parliamentarian said he had urged Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, to deploy his Peshmerga (Kurdish forces) to fight the militants alongside government troops.
"We have also called for the intervention of the international community to help repel this attack, which targets not only Iraq but the entire region," he added.
Al-Nujaifi said he had contacted the U.S. ambassador in Iraq to request U.S. support in line with a previous security pact between the two countries.
-Negligence-
Al-Nujaifi blamed Iraqi security forces for the loss of Mosul to the ISIL.
"The governor of Nineveh had provided security officials with information about the militants' plan to seize the province, but the security forces still failed to stop the terrorists," he said.
He asserted that security officials had "neglected intelligence about concentrations of terrorist groups."
"As the battle raged, security forces dropped their weapons and abandoned arms depots, prisons and airports, all of which fell into the militants' hands," al-Nujaifi said.
The parliament speaker went on to demand that "negligent" security and military officials be questioned, urging the deployment of forces "capable of stopping and defeating the terrorist advance."
"There must be popular and political mobilization to uproot the terrorists who have managed to occupy major cities due to the psychological breakdown of the armed forces," he said.
By Moayed Tarfi
englishnews@aa.com.tr
www.aa.com.tr/en
