Iraq says it shared information that France, U.S., Iran were targets

Posted 2015-11-16 02:29 by Grunt Report with 0 comments

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has said his country’s intelligence services shared information they had which indicated that France, the United States and Iran were among countries being targeted for attack.

He did not elaborate, but the comments came after 129 people were killed in Paris on Friday by gunmen and suicide bombers in attacks claimed by Islamic State.

“Information has been obtained from Iraqi intelligence sources that the countries to be targeted soon, before it occurred, are Europe in general, specifically France, as well as America and Iran,” Jaafari said from the sidelines of talks in Vienna on ending the war in Syria on Saturday.

He said the countries had been informed. A video of his comments was posted on his website.

Though he did not specify the threat was from Islamic State militants, who control large areas of Iraq and Syria, Jaafari said recent attacks in Egypt, Lebanon and France required a global response to the jihadist group.

France denounced Friday’s strikes on bars, a concert hall and soccer stadium in Paris as an act of war and vowed to destroy Islamic State, which it has been targeting with air strikes in Syria as part of a U.S.-led coalition.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin and Saif Hameed; Editing by Michael Georgy and Andrew Bolton)