“We do not lie to the Iraqi people; the danger of terrorism (posed by) ISIL is there,” Hadi al-Amiri told reporters.
“ISIL is a real threat to Baghdad and the battle against the group has not finished yet,” he was quoted by the Arabic-language Al-Alam news network as saying.
Al-Amiri further pointed to a massive military operation due to be mounted by the Iraqi army and Popular Mobilization Forces in the near future in Fallujah, Anbar province, 69 kilometers west of Baghdad, and called on Fallujah residents to leave the city.
Iraq has been facing the growing threat of terrorism, mainly posed by the ISIL terrorist group, which is believed to be supported by the West and some regional Arab countries.
The ISIL militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the last summer, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.
However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, have blunted the edge of the ISIL offensive.
The terrorist group claims as an independent state the territory of Iraq and Syria, with implied future claims intended over more of the Levant, including Lebanon, occupied Palestine, Jordan, Cyprus, and Southern Turkey.