Leading Sunni group rejects further deployment of US and British troops in Iraq

The Muslim Scholars Committee in Iraq condemned on Friday US and British plans to send additional military trainers to the country, stressing this is “not a useful measure”, Quds Press has reported.

On Wednesday, Reuters said that President Barack Obama has ordered the deployment of 450 more US troops to Iraq’s Sunni heartland to advise and assist fragile Iraqi forces being built up to try to retake territory lost to ISIS. Britain, it was reported, planned to deploy an additional 125 military trainers.

Several other countries, including France, Australia, Sweden and Norway have already sent advisers for the same purpose.

The scholars’ statement said that such international efforts have no beneficial effect because they “turn around the real reasons for the conflict and do not treat them.”