The Jim Bakker Show

Party cups as gas masks: Idlib civilians prepare for battle

A boy tries on an improvised gas mask in Idlib, Syria September 3, 2018. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

IDLIB, Syria (Reuters) – Hudhayfa al-Shahad strapped a colorful paper cup filled with cotton and charcoal to a child’s face and tightened a plastic bag around his head: an improvised gas mask if chemicals once again fall on Syria’s Idlib.

Civilians in Syria’s last major stronghold of active opposition to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule are preparing food and digging shelters ahead of an expected army offensive.

They are also putting their faith in neighboring Turkey’s diplomacy to spare them from military action, which could become a humanitarian disaster.

“We are preparing what little we can: small primitive masks we can place on our children’s mouths in case we are hit with chemicals,” 20-year-old Shahad told Reuters from his village south of Idlib city, where he shares a house with his pregnant wife, three children and around 15 other people.

His brother, 35-year-old construction worker Ahmed Abdulkarim al-Shahad, shows off the cavernous space under a cool, vine-covered courtyard the family has been digging and sheltering in from bombardment since 2012.

“Military preparations as we have seen are in full swing … We as civilians have started preparing the caves,” he said, showing glass bottles of pickled vegetables shelved on the damp cave walls.

Around 3 million people live in the rebel stronghold in northwest Syria, which comprises most of Idlib province and adjacent small parts of Latakia, Hama and Aleppo provinces.

About half of them fled fighting or were transferred there by the government under surrender deals from other parts of Syria as Assad has steadily taken back territory from rebels.

In April last year, a government warplane dropped sarin on Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib, killing more than 80 civilians, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry has said. It also said Syrian forces have used chemical weapons, including chlorine, more than two dozen times during the war.

Damascus and its ally Russia both deny these charges and say they do not engage in chemical warfare. Idlib residents are fearful and Washington has warned Assad against using chemical weapons in any offensive, promising a response if he does so.

Children hold plastic bags with a paper cup in them, in Idlib, Syria September 3, 2018. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

PROTECTION

Russia, Assad’s ally, resumed air strikes against insurgents in Idlib on Tuesday following weeks of bombardment and shelling by pro-Syrian government forces in an apparent prelude to a full-scale offensive against the last major rebel enclave.

But Turkey has said it hopes a summit with Iranian and Russian leaders in Tehran on Friday will avert an offensive.

And some people Reuters spoke to in Idlib suspected an offensive may be avoided.

“I do not believe there will be an attack on Idlib. It’s all a media war,” said 50-year-old former construction worker Jaafar Abu Ahmad from a rural area near Ma’arat al-Nuaman town. “The great world powers have pre-agreed on us and divided the land.”

Nevertheless, seven years of grinding war have taught Ahmad to be prepared. His family is currently expanding a damp dugout they have been digging and sheltering in from strikes for the past five years, stocking it with food.

“We have been digging in the earth for two months non-stop, me, my wife and children,” he said. “This cave is now our protection. We cleaned it recently after it had been neglected for a long time.”

Children walk in a makeshift shelter in an underground cave in Idlib, Syria September 3, 2018. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

With shelling, air strikes and rhetoric about an impending offensive increasing, a number of local councils across Idlib have come together and asked Turkey for protection.

“For us in the liberated areas our only guarantor in negotiations is our Turkish brothers,” said Ahmad Shtaam al-Rashu, the 48-year-old head of Ma’shureen village’s local council.

Turkey has erected observation posts along the frontlines between rebels and government forces, and Rashu said Turkey had told them this was a sign of its commitment to protect the people of Idlib.

Idlib is often described as the “last refuge” for rebels and internally displaced civilians, and any offensive threatens new displacement and human misery.

“As for escaping toward the (Turkish) border, I don’t believe we will move from our houses. The bombardment will get us. There is no place left after Idlib,” said Ahmed al-Shahad.

“We will fight to the last man, we no longer have any option.”

(Reporting by Khalil Ashawi in Syria; Writing by Lisa Barrington in Beirut; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Shells hit Syria’s Idlib as rebels brace for assault

FILE PHOTO:A general view taken with a drone shows the Clock Tower of the rebel-held Idlib city, Syria June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo

By Angus McDowall

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian military shelled the last stronghold of active rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday as a war monitor said insurgents blew up another bridge in anticipation of a government offensive.

Damascus, backed by allies Russia and Iran, has been preparing an assault to recover Idlib and adjacent areas of the northwest and resumed air strikes along with Russia on Tuesday after weeks of lull.

Idlib’s fate now appears likely to rest on the results of Friday’s Tehran summit between the leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran – a meeting that Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov on Wednesday said would make the situation “clearer”.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said Tuesday’s air strikes had only targeted militants and not struck populated areas. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said they had killed 13 civilians, including children, but no fighters.

The ministry said it had targeted buildings used to store weapons and explosives including a facility used to assemble explosive-packed drones that rebels have used to attack Russian planes stationed at Hmeymim air base.

Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that pro-government forces focused their shelling overnight and on Wednesday on the western and southern edges of the rebel enclave.

The countryside around Jisr al-Shughour in the west of the enclave was also the main target for Tuesday’s air strikes, rescue workers, a rebel source and the British-based Observatory said.

Turkey, which has a small military presence in observation posts it has erected along the frontlines between rebels and government forces, reiterated its warnings against an offensive.

Its president, Tayyip Erdogan, was quoted by a Turkish newspaper saying an attack on Idlib would be “a serious massacre” and he hoped for a positive outcome from a summit with Russian and Iranian leaders on the matter on Friday.

ALARM

The prospect of an offensive in Idlib has alarmed humanitarian agencies. The United Nations has said displaced people already make up about half of the 3 million people living in rebel-held areas of the northwest.

The human rights group Amnesty International said in a statement on Wednesday that the lives of “millions of people in Idlib are now in the hands of Russia, Turkey and Iran”, and urged all parties not to attack civilians.

Idlib’s rebel factions are divided, with a jihadist alliance that includes al Qaeda’s former official Syrian affiliate holding most ground. The alliance, Tahrir al-Sham, is designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations.

Russia has described Idlib as a “nest of terrorists” and a “festering abscess” that must be resolved. The United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura on Tuesday urged Russia and Turkey to find a solution and avert a bloodbath.

Several other factions in Idlib, including some that fought under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, this year joined together into a new alliance backed by Turkey.

This grouping, known as the National Liberation Front, also holds several important areas in and around Idlib. On Wednesday, one of the factions in it, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham group, destroyed a bridge on the western side of the enclave, the Observatory said.

Two other bridges were destroyed last week in anticipation of a government offensive, which a source close to Damascus has said is ready, and will be carried out in phases.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; additional reporting by Tom Balmforth, Andrew Osborn and Christian Lowe in Moscow and Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alison Williams)

Russian jets hit Syrian south, U.N. urges Jordan to open border

Syrian army soldiers stand as they hold their weapons in Deraa, Syria, July 4, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Dark smoke rose over areas held by Syrian rebels near the border with Jordan on Thursday as President Bashar al-Assad’s Russian allies unleashed heavy air strikes and government forces sought to advance on the ground.

The UNHCR refugee agency urged Jordan to open its borders to Syrians who have fled the fighting, saying the total number of displaced now stood at more than 320,000, with 60,000 of them gathered at the border crossing with Jordan.

Smoke rises in Deraa area, Syria in this handout released on July 4, 2018. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

Assad aims to recapture the entire southwest including the frontiers with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Jordan. The area is one of the last rebel strongholds in Syria after more than seven years of war.

With no sign of intervention yet by his foreign foes, government forces seem set for another big victory in the war after crushing the last remaining rebel bastions near Damascus and Homs.

State television footage showed giant clouds of smoke towering over fields, rooftops and a distant industrial area, accompanied by the sound of occasional explosions.

After four days of reduced bombardment, intense air strikes resumed on Wednesday following the collapse of talks between rebels and Russian officers, brokered by Jordan.

“The Russians have not stopped the bombardment,” Bashar al-Zoubi, a prominent rebel leader in southern Syria, told Reuters in a text message from the Deraa area, the focus of the government offensive.

“The regime is trying to advance and the clashes are continuing.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, monitoring the war through what it describes as many sources on the ground, said there had been 600 air strikes in 15 hours, extending into Thursday’s early hours.

State media said government forces had captured the town of Saida, some 10 km (six miles) east of Deraa city. A rebel command center said on Twitter government attempts to storm the town were being resisted after it was struck with “dozens of Russian air raids”, barrel bombs and rocket barrages.

The two-week-old attack has taken a chunk of rebel territory northeast of Deraa city, where some rebels surrendered.

The Observatory said 150 civilians have been killed.

ASSAD IN ASCENDANT

For the president, the Deraa campaign holds out the prospect of reopening the Nassib crossing with Jordan, a vital trade artery. Once Deraa is captured, the campaign is expected to move into the Quneitra area closer to the Golan frontier.

Recovering the frontier with the Golan Heights is also important to Assad, reestablishing his status as a frontline leader in the conflict with Israel, which sent reinforcements to the Golan frontier on Sunday.

State TV said Thursday’s bombardment had targeted the southern parts of Deraa, a city long split between rebels and the army, and the towns of Saida, al-Nuaima, Um al-Mayadan and Taiba.

Its correspondent said the army aimed to drive southwards through the area immediately east of Deraa city, where rebel territory narrows to a thin corridor along the Jordanian border.

This would split the territory in two.

The army has been trying for days to reach the Jordanian border in the area immediately west of Deraa, but had not succeeded in attempts to storm an insurgent-held air base there, the rebel command center Twitter account said.

Fleeing civilians have mostly sought shelter along the frontiers with Israel and Jordan, which is already hosting some 650,000 Syrian refugees. Both countries have said they will not open their borders, but have distributed some supplies inside Syria.

Southwest Syria is a “de-escalation zone” agreed last year by Russia, Jordan and the United States to reduce violence.

Near the start of the government’s offensive, Washington indicated it would respond to violations of that deal, but it has not done so yet and rebels said it had told them to expect no American military help.

For the anti-Assad rebels, losing the southwest will reduce their territory to a region of the northwest bordering Turkey and a patch of desert in the east where U.S. forces are stationed near the border with Iraq and Jordan.

Assad now controls most of Syria with help from his allies, though a large part of the north and east is in the hands of Kurdish-led militia backed by the United States.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Andrew Roche)

Syrian military extends southwest assault, thousands displaced

Smoke rises from al-Harak town, as seen from Deraa countryside, Syria June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Alaa al-Faqir

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on Deraa city for the first time in nearly a year on Monday, a rebel and a war monitor said, extending an assault in southwest Syria which has driven thousands from their homes.

Along with the barrels crammed with explosives, the helicopters dropped leaflets saying the army was coming and urging people to “kick out the terrorists as your brothers did in eastern Ghouta”, the sources said.

“My wife and I left with only the clothes on our backs, because the house was completely destroyed,” Muhammad Abu Qasim, 45, told Reuters. Heavy bombing had turned his village northeast of Deraa into “an unbearable hell”.

The region is politically sensitive because of its proximity to Israel and Jordan and because of a “de-escalation” deal there agreed between the United States, Jordan and Syrian government ally Russia.

Washington had warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies that violations of the ceasefire would prompt a response, but rebels said the United States had told them not to expect any American military support.

A European diplomat told Reuters the violation of the de-escalation agreement by Russia and Syria was “deeply troubling”.

“No one is in any doubt about the likely military outcome from this uneven clash, but the consequences could be significant. It not only risks a significant humanitarian crisis, but is likely to destabilize further an already precarious situation. It also casts real doubt about Russia’s willingness to stand by its own commitments,” he said.

The fighting has displaced thousands of people and threatens to uproot many more from their homes, adding to the around 6.5 million people already internally displaced by Syria’s seven-year-old conflict.

After fleeing her home many times since the start of war, 30-year-old widow Um Muhammad has once again been forced to move with her three children, and is now sheltering in a school deeper inside rebel territory in southwest Syria.

“Each of us took only our clothes. Right now there’s bombardment everywhere,” she told Reuters.

In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov was quoted by RIA news agency as saying Russian officials hoped to discuss southwest Syria with U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton soon, and separately with Jordan.

Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Twitter on Sunday his country, already hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees, could not take in Syrians fleeing fighting in the southwest and demanded the de-escalation agreement be respected.

BIRTHPLACE OF UPRISING

Assad has turned to the southwest after driving rebels from their last besieged enclaves in western Syria, including eastern Ghouta near Damascus, earlier this year.

It is one of two major areas still held by rebel factions, along with Idlib province on the border with Turkey in the northwest. Deraa, the southwest’s largest city, was an early center of the uprising against Assad in 2011 and has been split into rebel and government sectors for years.

Recent fighting has focused on the town of Busra al-Harir, half way along a narrow rebel salient stretching into government areas northeast of Deraa. If taken, it would split that salient in half, putting the northern part under siege.

The pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported on Monday that the army had advanced into Busra al-Harir.

The UK-based war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported fierce fighting inside the town between the army, along with allied militia, and insurgents.

But Abu Shaima, spokesman for a central operations room for rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said the insurgents had foiled attempts to advance.

Abu Bakr al-Hassan, spokesman for the FSA rebel group Jaish al-Thawra, said Russian planes were carrying out heavy air strikes to support the strong Busra al-Harir offensive.

On Sunday an air strike hit a medical center in Busra al-Harir, causing extensive damage but no casualties, said the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations, a charity that works in opposition parts of Syria.

The bombardment has killed about 30 people since it began on June 19, the Observatory reported.

The Syrian military said in a statement on state media on Monday it was committed to protecting civilians in the area.

Russia also said on Monday it had helped the army repel an insurgent attack in the southwest, killing 70 rebel fighters. Syrian state media reported that rebels shelled the nearby city of Sweida.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova in Moscow and Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

As Hodeidah battle grinds on, residents suffer lack of clean water, electricity

A displaced boy from Hodeidah city carries his brother who is affected by monoplegia, at a school where displaced people live, in Sanaa, Yemen June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

By Dahlia Nehme

DUBAI (Reuters) – Residents unable to flee Hodeidah face constant bombardment, lack of clean water and power cuts as an Arab coalition battles to capture Yemen’s main port from Iran-aligned Houthis.

“We hear loud explosions all the time,” Assem Mohammed, a 30-year-old pharmacist, said by telephone.

“We haven’t had water for three days.”

Mohammed, with his wife and six-month-old daughter, are among a dwindling number of residents who have remained in Hawak district, a neighborhood sandwiched between the airport, captured this week by the coalition, and the sea port, the latest target of the military offensive.

Whether through lack of funds or work or personal commitments, some families like Mohammed’s cannot escape.

Drivers transporting fleeing residents out of Hodeidah have more than doubled their fares since the battle began, while the hospital where Mohammed works has threatened employees with dismissal if they are absent for long periods.

“Electricity has also been cut in most of the city since three days, and in some neighborhoods for a week,” he said. He blamed the water shortage on damage to pipes that relief workers say has been caused by the Houthis digging trenches. Houthi officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Since 2015 Hodeidah residents have used privately-owned generators to produce electricity. But this month’s offensive has left them struggling to obtain the necessary diesel oil.

Temperatures during summer in Yemen soar to above 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) in the shade, which along with lack of clean water could help spread disease.

Coalition leaders Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have pledged a swift operation to capture the Red Sea port, without entering the city center to minimize civilian casualties and maintain a flow of essential goods.

But its maritime port is a principal entry point for Yemen’s relief supplies, and the United Nations fears heavy fighting will worsen what is already the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis, with 22 million Yemenis dependent on aid and an estimated 8.4 million believed to be on the verge of starvation.

A displaced woman from Hodeidah city carries her sick daughter at a school where displaced people live, in Sanaa, Yemen June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

“The level and degree of human suffering is heart-breaking,” Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen said on Thursday. “Of all the things we are worried about, cholera is top of the list.”

“It wouldn’t take much to start an unstoppable outbreak.”

Dozens of displaced families have been relocated to schools in the city, Mohammed Kassem, Hodeidah ICRC system manager, told Reuters as relief workers distributed food bags at one facility.

“We ran away only with the clothes we were wearing,” said one woman while waiting to receive her share.

The coalition says it wants to prevent the Houthis receiving weapons and generating cash from imports, eventually forcing them to start talks on handing over power to the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabu Mansour Hadi.

UN CONCERNED

Grande warned against cholera spreading “with lightning speed” if the water system breaks down and nothing is done to immediately address the situation.

U.N. officials estimate that in a worst-case scenario the fighting could cost up to 250,000 lives, especially if a cholera epidemic occurs in the widely impoverished region.

The Arab coalition intervened in the war in 2015 to roll back Houthi control of Yemen’s main population centers and reinstate its internationally recognized government. Coalition forces retook much of the south before the war, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, bogged down.

Tens of Hodeidah families have fled the fighting in Hodeidah for safety in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, while others have headed to Raymah and Wusab, also in Houthi-ruled areas inland.

“They told us there’s an organization where we can register as refugees over here, but God knows,” said Marwan al-Barah, one of those displaced from Hodeidah.

In a Sanaa school, Reuters TV footage showed men who had fled Hodeidah queuing to register their families as displaced, while women sat on the floor in classrooms as their bare-foot children and toddlers played nearby.

(Reporting by Dahlia Nehme; Editing by Sami Aboudi, William Maclean)

Canada police seek suspects in restaurant bombing, 15 injured

A police forensic investigator photographs evidence at Bombay Bhel restaurant, where two unidentified men set off a bomb late Thursday night, wounding fifteen people, in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada May 25, 2018. REUTERS/Mark Blinch

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canadian police were looking for two suspects who walked into a crowded restaurant Thursday night and detonated a bomb, injuring 15 people, but police said on Friday the incident did not appear to be a hate crime or linked to international terror.

The blast went off in a popular Indian restaurant in Mississauga, a city west of Toronto, at about 10:30 p.m. local time on Thursday. Security camera footage showed two men entering the restaurant, one carrying an object.

“There’s no indication this is a terrorist act, no indication this is a hate crime at this time,” Peel Police Chief Jennifer Evans told reporters on Friday.

The explosion caused “a considerable amount of damage,” Evans said, adding there were two private birthday parties at the restaurant at the time, with children under 10 in attendance. There were no children among the injured.

A police forensic investigator collects evidence at Bombay Bhel restaurant, where two unidentified men set off a bomb late Thursday night, wounding fifteen people, in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada May 25, 2018. REUTERS/Mark Blinch

Three people were critically injured, but by Friday morning, their condition was upgraded to stable, Evans said. Another 12 people ranging from 23 to 69 years of age suffered minor injuries.

The two male suspects fled after detonating the improvised explosive device, police said. No one has claimed responsibility and the motive for the attack was still not known.

Kul Prasad Sapkota said he was shocked to wake up to news that someone had exploded a bomb in the popular restaurant that he had known intimately during his six years as a chef there until 2016.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a post on Twitter: “We’re in solidarity with the victims of this violence, and wish a swift recovery to the injured. We’re working closely with police and officials in Mississauga on this.”

The blast in Mississauga comes a month after a driver deliberately plowed a white Ryder rental van into a lunch-hour crowd in Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 16.

“These are shocking incidents, made all the more shocking because they have been unusual in our society,” Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne told reporters on Friday.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Witnessing blast in Kabul: ‘You can still see the smoke in the pictures’

fghan security forces are seen at the site of a second blast in Kabul, Afghanistan April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

KABUL (Reuters) – The pictures show journalists killed in the second of two explosions that rocked Kabul during the morning rush hour. They were taken by Reuters photographer Omar Sobhani, 10 or 15 seconds after a suicide bomber, apparently targeting members of the media, detonated his explosives.

In one image, a cameraman from Al Jazeera can be seen kneeling wounded against the kerb, while nearby a journalist from Afghanistan’s Radio Azadi is being helped by an old man who was passing by when the blast went off.

Sobhani, who began working for Reuters as a driver and fixer in 2002 and has been a photographer since 2007, was among the journalists who had raced to cover the initial explosion on Monday morning in the Shashdarak area of central Kabul, not far from the U.S. embassy.

“I had been waiting with other journalists to cover an earlier blast. It was a normal scene. It was about 8:30 in the morning, there were security forces guarding the site of the first blast and quite a few people going to work and we were just waiting with other journalists,” he says.

“Then we heard a huge bang just behind me. I survived because I was standing in front of a concrete pillar that shielded me from the force of the explosion, but I saw all my friends and colleagues on the ground and a lot of them were dead with a few wounded – you can still see the smoke from the explosion in the pictures.”

Afghanistan’s interior ministry said the suicide bomber who detonated the second blast had posed as a media worker, showing a press card to security forces and standing among the gathered journalists before blowing himself up.

Sobhani was slightly wounded, but was able to quickly capture some images of the scene before withdrawing to seek help.

“I was shocked but I could see there was nothing to be done and I shot some pictures immediately before leaving,” he said. “I could feel some pain and there was some shrapnel in my shoulder, which was taken out at the hospital.”

Eight of the journalists were from Afghan outlets: two reporters from the Mashal TV, a cameraman and a reporter working for 1TV, three reporters from Radio Azadi and one from Tolo News, according to the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee.

The French news agency Agence France-Presse said its chief photographer in Afghanistan, Shah Marai, was killed.

For Sobhani and the other journalists at the scene, many of the victims of the attack were people they had worked alongside, covering the bloodshed in Afghanistan, for years.

“The people killed were all innocent people, people just going about their business or journalists just doing their job. They’re showing the truth of what’s happening, it’s not politics, it’s very important so that people can know what’s happening,” he said.

“It’s a challenging job with a lot of problems, you see war and violence all the time, but it’s important to make sure people know. I was very shocked, these were colleagues of mine, and one was a very good friend.”

(Reporting by Omar Sobhani and James Mackenzie; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Insurgents south of Syrian capital surrender, says state TV

Smoke rises from Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus, Syria April 20, 2018. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

By Angus McDowall

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Insurgents in the last area outside Syrian government control near Damascus agreed on Friday to withdraw, but the army’s bombardment continued pending a full surrender deal, state media and a war monitor reported.

The development heralds another advance for President Bashar al-Assad’s push to retake remaining enclaves and strengthen his position around the capital after retaking eastern Ghouta this month.

Large puffs of smoke could be seen on state television rising from a row of buildings as an artillery salvo struck home before one collapsed in a cloud of dust, accompanied by the rattle of automatic fire and the sound of distant blasts.

Assad is in his strongest position since early in the seven-year war despite U.S., British and French air strikes on April 14 – their first coordinated action in the war.

The attacks were to punish Assad for a suspected gas attack they say killed scores of people during an advance that captured Douma – the rebels’ last redoubt in eastern Ghouta.

But the single volley of raids, hitting three targets far from any frontline, had no effect on the wider war which has killed 500,000 people and made more than half of Syrians homeless.

International inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) who arrived in Damascus nearly a week ago were still waiting early on Friday to visit the site of the suspected poison gas attack.

However, a Reuters witness saw a vehicle with licence plates used by international organisations and escorted by Russian military police near the site in Douma on Friday, three days after U.N. security personnel doing reconnaissance for the OPCW inspectors was forced to turn back because of gunfire.

Syria and its ally Russia deny using chemical weapons in the assault on Douma. The Western countries say the Syrian government, which now controls the town, is keeping the inspectors out and may be tampering with evidence, both accusations Damascus and Moscow deny.

Physicians for Human Rights, a U.S.-based rights group, voiced “grave concern” over reports that Douma hospital staff had faced “extreme intimidation” after the area came back under government control to stop them talking about the incident.

A man rides on a motorbike along a street at the city of Douma in Damascus, Syria, April 20, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

DISPLACEMENT

The surrender of the enclave in south Damascus, which includes the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, Hajar al-Aswad district and neighbouring areas, will bring the entire area around the capital back under Assad’s control.

Under the deal, Islamic State fighters, who control part of the enclave, will leave for territory the group controls in eastern Syria, while other factions leave for opposition territory in the north, state media reported.

Sporadic shelling persisted, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said. State television said the military campaign was continuing because insurgents had not agreed to all details of the surrender. The Observatory said it was because some of the Islamic State fighters still rejected the deal.

Yarmouk was the biggest camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria before the war. Although most residents have fled, up to 12,000 remain there and in the neighbouring areas under jihadist or rebel control, said the U.N. agency that helps them.

“There are reports that large numbers of people have been displaced from Yarmouk Camp to the neighbouring area of Yalda. There are also reports of civilian casualties,” said Christopher Gunness, the spokesman for the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian camps.

Jihadist shelling of an adjoining neighbourhood injured five people, Damascus police were cited as saying early on Friday by state television.

Rebels on Thursday began pulling out of Dumayr, an enclave northeast of Damascus, under a surrender deal with the government. Insurgents in another enclave nearby – Eastern Qalamoun – said they had also agreed to withdraw.

Thousands of civilians, including the fighters’ families, are expected to leave with them for northern Syria before the areas come back under Assad’s rule under deals similar to others carried out across the country as government forces advance.

The United Nations has voiced concern that such “evacuations” involve the displacement of civilians under threat of reprisals or forced conscription. The government denies that.

“The U.N. expects further displacements in the near future to northern Syria from other locations controlled by non-state armed groups where negotiations reportedly are happening,” the world body said in a humanitarian note.

Conditions in the opposition-held pocket of northern Syria where the displaced will go are poor.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall, additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Douma, Editing by Peter Graff, Janet Lawrence, William Maclean)

Fifth device explodes in Texas, seen linked to others

A FedEx truck is seen outside FedEx facility following the blast, in Schertz, Texas, U.S., March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

By Jon Herskovitz and Jim Forsyth

AUSTIN/SCHERTZ, Texas (Reuters) – A package bomb blew up at a FedEx distribution center near San Antonio on Tuesday, the fifth in a series of attacks that have rocked Texas this month and sent investigators on a frantic search for what they suspect is a serial bomber.

The package filled with nails and metal shrapnel was mailed from Austin to another address in Austin and passed through a sorting center in Schertz, about 65 miles (105 km) away, when it exploded on a conveyer belt, knocking a female employee off her feet, officials said.

It was the fifth explosion in Texas in the past 18 days and the first involving a commercial parcel service.

“We do believe that these incidents are all related. That is because of the specific contents of these devices,” interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told members of the Austin City Council, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

A second package sent by the same person was discovered and turned over to law enforcement, FedEx Corp said in a statement. Meanwhile police had surrounded yet another FedEx location in the Austin area after discovering a suspicious package there.

The series of bombings have unsettled Austin, the state capital of some 1 million people, and drawn hundreds of federal law enforcement investigators to join local police. Schertz lies on the highway between Austin and San Antonio.

Speaking through the media, officials have appealed to the bomber to reveal the motives for the attacks. They have also asked the public for any tips, offering a $115,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the culprit.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a tweet: “We are committed to bringing perpetrators of these heinous acts to justice. There is no apparent nexus to terrorism at this time.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether it was ruling out both international and domestic terrorism.

“This is obviously a very, very sick individual, or maybe individuals,” President Donald Trump told reporters. “Theseare sick people, and we will get to the bottom of it.”

Investigators were trying to come up with a theory or intelligence regarding the motive for the bombings or identity of the bomber or bombers, a U.S. security official and a law enforcement official told Reuters.

Members of the media move cameras around before the start of a news conference outside the scene of a blast at a FedEx facility in Schertz, Texas, U.S., March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the FedEx package explosion as if there were a connection to the Austin bombings, the law enforcement official said. Both sources declined to be identified.

The individual or people behind the bombings are likely to be highly skilled and methodical, said Fred Burton, chief security officer for Stratfor, a private intelligence and security consulting firm based in Austin.

“This is a race against time to find him before he bombs again,” Burton said.

The four previous explosions killed two people and injured four others.

The first three devices were parcel bombs dropped off in front of homes on in three eastern Austin neighborhoods. The fourth went off on Sunday night on the west side of the city and was described by police as a more sophisticated device detonated through a trip wire.

The four devices were similar in construction, suggesting they were the work of the same bomb maker, officials said.

Federal authorities at the scene of Tuesday’s blast offered few details, telling reporters their probe was in the early stages and that the building would be secured before investigators could gather evidence.

The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were among those working with local officials in Austin, Schertz and San Antonio.

“We have agents from across the country. We have our national response team here. We have explosive detection canines here. We have intel research specialists,” Frank Ortega, acting assistant special agent in charge of the San Antonio ATF office, told reporters. “We’ve been working around the clock.”

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Mark Hosenball and Lisa Lambert in Washington; Writing Daniel Trotta; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Tom Brown)

Iraqi teenager guilty of carrying out London train bombing

The explosive device, left by Ahmed Hassan, can be seen still smoking on the underground train at Parsons Green tube station in London, Britain. Metropolitian Police/Handout via

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) – An Iraqi teenager, who had come to Britain as an asylum seeker, was found guilty on Friday of attempted murder after detonating a homemade bomb on a packed rush-hour London commuter train, injuring 30 people, prosecutors and police said.

Ahmed Hassan, 18, was found guilty of trying to murder the passengers on board an underground train heading to central London on Sept. 15 last year, prosecutors said.

The bomb went off at Parsons Green station and flames engulfed the carriage, but it did not fully explode, limiting the scale of injuries in what authorities said was Britain’s fifth major attack of 2017.

“It was only a matter of luck that the device did not work as he intended or it could easily have led to the loss of innocent lives,” said Sue Hemming from Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service.

Hassan, who the court heard had spoken of his duty to hate Britain because of the deaths of his parents in Iraq, had been placed under Britain’s counter-radicalisation program at the time.

“He was very cunning and devious,” Dean Haydon, the head of London Police’s Counter Terrorism Command told BBC TV.

“On the face of it, Hassan was engaged on the program. But coming back to his devious nature, he kept it very secretive in relation to what he was doing, what he was planning, and nobody around him actually knew what his plot was.”

Haydon said a review of the counter-radicalisation program would now be undertaken.

On the day of the attack, the teenager left his foster home in Sunbury-on-Thames in west London and set the timer for the device, made with the highly volatile triacetone triperoxide (TATP) – known as “the mother of Satan”, in toilets at Wimbledon station where he boarded a District Line underground train, police said.

A handout photograph of Ahmed Hassan, who has been convicted of exploding a device on an underground train at Parsons Green tube station in London, Britain. Picture supplied March 16, 2018. Metropolitian Police/Handout via REUTERS

SHRAPNEL

He got off at the stop before Parsons Green leaving behind his bomb which was placed in a bucket. It was packed with more than two kilograms of metal shrapnel including screws, bolts, nails, knives and screw drivers, the court heard.

There were 93 passengers in the carriage when it detonated. They reported hearing a loud bang and seeing a fireball with one woman suffering burns to her hands, legs, and face causing her to lose the hair on her eyebrows and eyelashes. Others were hurt in a stampede to flee the scene.

Hassan was arrested in the southern port of Dover the following day carrying 2,320 pounds in cash and a new phone.

The court heard he arrived in Britain in the back of a lorry in 2015, claimed asylum and was placed with foster parents in Sunbury. He told British officials that he had been taken by force by Islamic State militants, who had threatened to kill his family members, and had given him military training.

Britain said at the time there was no evidence to suggest IS was responsible for the Parsons Green attack despite the group’s claims of responsibility.

Police and prosecutors said his motive was unclear. A teacher and a youth worker told the court Hassan had seemed confused and angry, and that he believed his father had been killed by U.S. bombing.

Hassan admitted to police he had made the bomb but said he had never intended to kill and merely wanted attention. He had pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder.

He told the court that he had been attracted to the idea of being a fugitive, chased across Europe by the police and Interpol.

However, the jury at London’s Old Bailey court convicted him of attempted murder and he will be sentenced at a later date.

(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Paul Sandle and Andrew Heavens)

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