LONDON, June 16 (Reuters) - Britain said on Monday it would ban the Sunni Islamist insurgent group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), whose stunning offensive in northern Iraq in the past week has spurred fears of all-out sectarian warfare in the Middle East.
Britain's interior ministry, the Home Office, published a draft order proscribing ISIL under the British Terrorism Act. The order will be debated in parliament on Thursday before coming into effect on Friday.
The ban will make it a criminal offence in Britain for a person to belong to or arrange meetings in support of ISIL, as well as wear clothing suggesting they are a member or supporter of the organisation.
ISIL militants seized Mosul, northern Iraq's main city, last week and proceeded to sweep through towns and cities on the Tigris, plunging the country into its worst crisis since U.S. troops withdrew in 2011.
ISIL seeks a caliphate ruled on mediaeval Sunni Muslim precepts in Iraq and Syria, and is also fighting Syria's Iran-backed government. It considers all Shi'ites to be heretics deserving death and has boasted of massacring hundreds of Iraqi troops who surrendered to its forces last week.
Britain, which took part in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to topple Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, bans more than 55 groups it regards as international terror organisations under the Terrorism Act of 2000.
As well as ISIL, the government said it would add another four groups to the banned list - Turkiye Halk Kurtulus Partisi-Cephesi, Kateeba al-Kawthar, Abdallah Azzam Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith and Gareth Jones)
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