The U.N. envoy for Iraq is calling for “wide-based international support” to prevent Islamic State extremists from regaining a foothold in the country.

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert also told the Security Council on Tuesday that if the issue of thousands of returning Islamic State fighters and their families from Syria to Iraq isn’t managed properly, “we risk creating a new breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists.”

She stressed that this “is not just an Iraqi problem” because there are non-Iraqi fighters as well. She implicitly criticized some unnamed countries that are maintaining a “strategic distance” from their own nationals.

More broadly, Hennis-Plasschaert also criticized Iraqi political infighting that has blocked key ministerial appointments a year after national elections and corruption that she said is “pervasive at all levels in Iraq.”

 
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