Iraqi-Kurds urge coalition to expand fight against ISIL

Kurdish officials in Iraq have called on the US-led coalition to expand its aerial bombing campaign and send soldiers to help combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Masrour Barzani, the chancellor of Kurdistan’s regional security, told Al Jazeera that the Kurds needed ‘boots on the ground’ in the fight against ISIL.

“I believe there has to be a way to bring more forces on the ground and not only depend on air strikes,” Barzani said.

On Wednesday, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi said the international community was not doing enough to help defeat ISIL.

“We are in this almost on our own,” he said. “There is a lot being said and spoken, but very little on the ground.”

Iraqi soldiers and police, Kurdish forces, Shia militias and Sunni tribesmen have succeeded in regaining some ground from ISIL. But large parts of the country, including three major cities, remain outside Baghdad’s control.

The group captured large swaths of territory in western and northern Iraq in a blitz last year year, plunging the country into its worst crisis since the US troops left at the end of 2011.