Anbar religious leaders urge youth not to join up with ISIL

Friday preachers and religious scholars meeting at a conference in Iraq’s Anbar province on Wednesday (June 18th) cautioned Arab youth against travelling to Iraq to fight alongside the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL).

“The conference stressed the importance of security and peace and the return to conditions as normal by way of a stand against terrorist groups,” said a statement issued by conference attendees.

“The conference sent a clear warning to Arab and Islamic youth against sympathising with or responding to the recordings and statements broadcast online by ISIL which aim to attract fighters to Iraq under the pretext of jihad and fighting,” conference spokesman and al-Quds Mosque preacher Sheikh Sabah al-Issawi told Al-Shorfa.

“They should know that coming to Iraq will not be a picnic and that the Iraqi people will be the ones fighting and rejecting them,” he added. “We as clergy warn them against travelling here, because ISIL is the one enemy in the country. If they want to get involved in shedding the blood of our children and our people, this means they will not get out of Iraq and return home safely.”

Conference attendees called on all Arab fighters currently in Iraq to return home.