Iraq rejects presence of foreign ground troops to fight IS

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are pictured during training before deploying to fight the Islamic State, at a temporary military camp near the front line in Gwar, northern Iraq September 22, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

BAGHDAD-- Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al- Abadi said Monday that Iraq rejects the presence of foreign ground troops in the country to fight the Islamic State militant group, an al-Qaida offshoot group.

"Abadi renewed rejection of any ground intervention in Iraq," a statement from Abadi office quoted him as saying during a meeting with Australian Defense Minister David Johnston in Baghdad.

Abadi attributed his country's rejection to the presence of foreign ground troops to the capability of the Iraqi security forces alongside the allied militias win the battles against the Islamic State militants and other militant groups, the statement said.

The United States, France have recently enhanced air strikes against the positions of the Islamic State in northern and central Iraq as part of a wider counter-terrorism efforts by many regional and world countries to fight the extremist militant group which is seen as a threat to Iraq, the region and the whole world.

The security situation in Iraq began to drastically deteriorate since June 10 when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and hundreds of IS militants, who took control of the country's northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territories after the Iraqi security forces abandoned their posts in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces.