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Anti-Islamic State protesters have blockaded Parliament Square in a rally outside the Houses of Parliament.

The group of predominantly Kurdish demonstrators stopped traffic this lunchtime in what marked the latest in a series of protests against terrorist atrocities in Iraq and Syria.

Protest against Isis causing havoc on Parliament Square pic.twitter.com/dxRSp3kj1E — Philip C (@Campbellphil) October 8, 2014

Campaigners are particularly concerned about the threat to Kurdistan posed by IS militants in Iraq.

Adnan Kochir, chairman of the Kurdish Cultural Centre in London, said protesters want the UK government to provide greater military support for Kurdish fighters.

He told the Standard: "We cannot continue to eat and sleep with what is happening to our brothers and sisters on the front line.

"David Cameron is good at talking about the threat of IS but where is the practical support [for Kurds]?

"We will do the job ourselves - we are capable of fighting, but we need the weapons on the ground."

He added campaigners were planning to hold more protests in the capital this week.

A Met Police spokeswoman said there would be no intervention to move the protesters on so long as they remained peaceful.

There are about 50,000 Kurds living in the UK, many of them Iraqi Kurds, according to statistics from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

A group of Kurdish protesters yesterday gathered at Oxford Circus tube station, causing it to be evacuated.

Last month UK politicians stepped up the battle against Islamist extremists by flying tonnes of ammunition to Kurdish forces in Iraq.

Kurdish fighters on the front line have managed to push back IS forces more than nine miles in recent weeks but they now face a complex battle over the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, according to reports.

IS forces seized the city, which is the second largest in Iraq, on June 10 and US forces believe it could take up to a year to reclaim it.

John Allen, President Barack Obama's envoy for the coalition against IS, told reporters in Baghdad this week: "It is a battle that is going to obviously demand as much planning and preparation as it possibly can."