French Muslims stage anti-ISIL rally

France’s Muslim community has staged a rally against the ISIL terrorist group, saying that Muslims are against heinous crimes perpetrated by the Takfiri group, Press TV reports.

The demonstration was organized in the French capital city of Paris for the third consecutive day. The demonstrators condemned the execution of a French national in Algeria by an ISIL-linked Algerian group.

The terrorist group, calling itself Jund al-Khalifah, killed Herve Gourdel after giving Paris an ultimatum to halt its military operations in Iraq.

Earlier this month, French President Francois Hollande announced the beginning of France’s airstrikes against the ISIL.

“We need to understand in France that military solutions are an illusion. Interventions inflame and fracture societies…We cannot create peace by force but we can destroy the peace,” another demonstrator said.

The protesters also lashed out at ISIL terrorists’ violence which has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in Syria and Iraq.

The protesters hope that constant demonstrations against ISIL’s barbaric acts will stop the false idea that Muslims support such terrorist groups.

“It’s a fact that in France there is a bad public image of Islam. … That’s why Muslims need to demonstrate more often and change the media’s focus,” one of the demonstrators said.

The US and its allies have been conducting air raids against the ISIL and other Takfiri terrorist groups inside Syria since the beginning of this week without formal authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate. A similar bombing campaign had started earlier against ISIL positions in Iraq.

Many observers note that the very countries in the US-led coalition had extended massive backing to various militant groups, including the Takfiri terrorists fighting to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011.

The ISIL Takfiris control large areas of Syria’s east and north. They sent militants into Iraq in June, seizing large parts of the land straddling the border between Syria and Iraq.

IA/MAM/AS