Even as US officials face new challenges posed by a quickly changing political landscape in the Middle East, Iraq claimed Saturday to have entered into intelligence and security cooperation with Russia, Iran and Syria, according to an Al Jazeera report.
The agreement was revealed by the Iraqi military's joint operations command who said the cooperation had come "with increased Russian concern about the presence of thousands of terrorists from Russia undertaking criminal acts with ISIS."
The Al Jazeera report cites a Russian foreign ministry official who told Interfax on Friday that Moscow could "theoretically" join the US-led coalition if Damascus were included in efforts to fight ISIS and any international effort in Syria had a UN mandate.
