U.N. envoy criticizes international response to Iraq crisis

The U.N. envoy to Iraq says the international response to Iraq’s security and humanitarian crisis “is grossly insufficient” and warns that the lack of support could damage the country’s current opportunities to successfully fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) extremist group.

Jan Kubis told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that Iraq is unable to cope alone with the security challenge and with providing humanitarian aid for over 8.2 million people, an increase of three million in five months.

Kubis says Iraqi security forces and their allies are liberating territory from the ISIS group but it is “far from being defeated.”