MOSCOW, September 12 (RIA Novosti) - Elimination of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group's fighters will not itself lead to success, as shown by the example of US-led War in Iraq, the head of the Council of the Federal National-Cultural Kurdish Autonomy in Russia Farhat Patiev said Friday during a round table discussion held in International Information Agency Rossiya Segodnya.
"If we believe that purely physical elimination of militants could lead to success, we will make the mistake the Americans were making all the time in Iraq war. Physical confrontation itself is not enough," Patiev said.
He stressed that it is an "ideological victory" that matters. Patiev argued that the mode of administration functioning on the territory of Syrian Kurdistan, where not only Kurds, but also representatives of other nationalities participate in governance, could "Help resolve all the problems piled up in Syria."
"ISIL aims to annihilate the Kurdish people, which is genocide. The fact that most Kurds in the region are Sunni Muslims does not stop the ISIL fighters from exterminating Kurds," Patiev stressed.
The IS Sunni extremist group, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In 2014, it launched an offensive on Iraq, seizing vast areas across the country"s North and North-West. In June, the group proclaimed an Islamic Caliphate on the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria. IS are known for their hardline Islamic fundamentalism and have been accused of brutality toward ethnic and religious minorities.
