ISIL will be defeated, says Sheikh Mohammed

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai.

ISIL will be defeated by the international coalition which the UAE is actively supporting, according to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai.


In an opinion column written for local newspapers, Sheikh Mohammed stressed that military containment is only a "partial solution".


"Lasting peace requires three bigger ingredients: winning the intellectual battle, upgrading weak governance and grassroots human development," he said in the column published by UAE daily The National on Sunday.


"The world must unite behind a holistic drive to discredit the ideology that gives the extremists their power, and to restore hope and dignity to those whom they would recruit," he added.


Sheikh Mohammed added: "ISIL is a barbaric and brutal organisation. It represents neither Islam nor humanity’s most basic values. Nonetheless, it has emerged, spread and resisted those who oppose it. What we are fighting is not just a terrorist organisation, but the embodiment of a malicious ideology that must be defeated intellectually.


"I consider this ideology to be the greatest danger that the world will face in the next decade."


The UAE was one of five Arab allies, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain that supported the US-led airstrikes against IS targets inside Syria last week. Members of IS and Al Qaeda were reportedly killed during the mission.