Iraqi Kurdistan’s leader threatened on Saturday to intervene to protect Kurds in neighboring Syria, who are caught up in fighting between Kurdish forces and jihadists.

Iraqi Kurdistan's leader threatened on Saturday to intervene to protect Kurds in neighboring Syria, who are caught up in fighting between Kurdish forces and jihadists.

Massud Barzani's remarks came as fighting raged in Syria, which has been racked by civil war for nearly two and a half years.

Barzani, president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, called in a statement for an investigation by Iraqi Kurdish political parties into reports of "terrorists" killing Syrian Kurds.

If "it appears that innocent Kurdish citizens and women and children are under threat of death and terrorism, the Iraqi Kurdistan region will... be prepared to defend" them, Barzani said.