Iraq: Syria carried out air strikes on ISIS militants

Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki has confirmed that Syria carried out air strikes on ISIS militants inside Iraqi territory this week.

Nouri al-Maliki said Syrian fighter jets had bombed militant positions around the border town of Qaim on Tuesday.

While Iraq did not ask for the raid, the prime minister added, it “welcomed” any such strike against the Islamist group ISIS.

ISIS and its Sunni Muslim allies have seized large parts of Iraq this month including the second city, Mosul.

The Iraqi government has struggled to hold back the militants’ advance from the north and west and has also been receiving support from Iran, with whom its Shia Muslim majority has close links.

The US, which also backs the government, has stressed that the militants can only be defeated by Iraq’s own forces.

Nouri al-Maliki will seek to form a new government in an effort to maintain national unity when parliament assembles again next week in Baghdad.

In another development, reports say that a unit of al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, pledged allegiance to Isis in the Syrian town of Albu Kamal, near the Iraqi border.

Until recently, the Nusra Front had been fighting in Syria against Isis, which it sees as harming its cause with its brutality and extremism.