The Jim Bakker Show

Exclusive: Assad linked to Syrian chemical attacks for first time

women affected by chemical weapon attack in Syria

By Anthony Deutsch

(Reuters) – International investigators have said for the first time that they suspect President Bashar al-Assad and his brother are responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, according to a document seen by Reuters.

A joint inquiry for the United Nations and global watchdog the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had previously identified only military units and did not name any commanders or officials.

Now a list has been produced of individuals whom the investigators have linked to a series of chlorine bomb attacks in 2014-15 – including Assad, his younger brother Maher and other high-ranking figures – indicating the decision to use toxic weapons came from the very top, according to a source familiar with the inquiry.

The Assads could not be reached for comment but a Syrian government official said accusations that government forces had used chemical weapons had “no basis in truth”. The government has repeatedly denied using such weapons during the civil war, which is almost six years old, saying all the attacks highlighted by the inquiry were the work of rebels or the Islamic State militant group.

The list, which has been seen by Reuters but has not been made public, was based on a combination of evidence compiled by the U.N.-OPCW team in Syria and information from Western and regional intelligence agencies, according to the source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Reuters was unable to independently review the evidence or to verify it.

The U.N.-OPCW inquiry – known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) – is led by a panel of three independent experts, supported by a team of technical and administrative staff. It is mandated by the U.N. Security Council to identify individuals and organizations responsible for chemical attacks in Syria.

Virginia Gamba, the head of the Joint Investigative Mechanism, denied any list of individual suspects had yet been compiled by the inquiry.

“There are no … identification of individuals being considered at this time,” she told Reuters by email.

The use of chemical weapons is banned under international law and could constitute a war crime. (For graphic on chemical attacks in Syria, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2cukvFr)

While the inquiry has no judicial powers, any naming of suspects could lead to their prosecution. Syria is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), but alleged war crimes could be referred to the court by the Security Council – although splits among global powers over the war make this a distant prospect at present.

“The ICC is concerned about any country where crimes are reported to be committed,” a spokesman for the court said when asked for comment. “Unless Syria accepts the ICC jurisdiction, the only way that (the) ICC would have jurisdiction over the situation would be through a referral by the Security Council.”

The list seen by Reuters could form the basis for the inquiry team’s investigations this year, according to the source. It is unclear whether the United Nations or OPCW will publish the list separately.

‘HIGHEST LEVELS’

The list identifies 15 people “to be scrutinized in relation to use of CW (chemical weapons) by Syrian Arab Republic Armed Forces in 2014 and 2015”. It does not specify what role they are suspected of playing, but lists their titles.

It is split into three sections. The first, titled “Inner Circle President” lists six people including Assad, his brother who commands the elite 4th Armoured Division, the defense minister and the head of military intelligence.

The second section names the air force chief as well as four commanders of air force divisions. They include the heads of the 22nd Air Force Division and the 63rd Helicopter Brigade, units that the inquiry has previously said dropped chlorine bombs.

The third part of the list – “Other relevant Senior Mil Personnel” – names two colonels and two major-generals.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, an independent specialist in biological and chemical weapons who monitors Syria, told Reuters the list reflected the military chain of command.

“The decisions would be made at the highest levels initially and then delegated down. Hence the first use would need to be authorized by Assad,” said de Bretton-Gordon, a former commander of British and NATO chemical and biological defense divisions who frequently visits Syria for professional consultancy work.

The Syrian defense ministry and air force could not be reached for comment.

CHLORINE BARREL BOMBS

Syria joined the international Chemical Weapons Convention under a U.S.-Russian deal that followed the deaths of hundreds of civilians in a sarin gas attack in Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus in August 2013.

It was the deadliest use of chemicals in global warfare since the 1988 Halabja massacre at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, which killed at least 5,000 people in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Syrian government, which denied its forces were behind the Ghouta attack, also agreed to hand over its declared stockpile of 1,300 tonnes of toxic weaponry and dismantle its chemical weapons program under international supervision.

The United Nations and OPCW have been investigating whether Damascus is adhering to its commitments under the agreement, which averted the threat of U.S.-led military intervention.

The bodies appointed the panel of experts to conduct the inquiry, and its mandate runs until November. The panel published a report in October last year which said Syrian government forces used chemical weapons at least three times in 2014-2015 and that Islamic State used mustard gas in 2015.

The October report identified Syria’s 22nd Air Force Division and 63rd Helicopter Brigade as having dropped chlorine bombs and said people “with effective control in the military units … must be held accountable”.

The source familiar with the inquiry said the October report had clearly established the institutions responsible and that the next step was to go after the individuals.

Washington on Thursday blacklisted 18 senior Syrian officials based on the U.N.-OPCW inquiry’s October report – some of whom also appear on the list seen by Reuters – but not Assad or his brother.

The issue of chemical weapons use in Syria has become a deeply political one, and the U.N.-OPCW inquiry’s allegations of chlorine bomb attacks by government forces have split the U.N. Security Council’s veto-wielding members.

The United States, Britain and France have called for sanctions against Syria, while Assad’s ally Russia has said the evidence presented is insufficient to justify such measures.

A Security Council resolution would be required to bring Assad and other senior Syrian officials before the International Criminal Court for any possible war crimes prosecution – something Russia would likely block.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Pravin Char)

Afghan officials probe attacks as death toll rises to at least 50

Afghan worker removing debris from suicide attack

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan security officials began investigating Tuesday’s attacks in the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar as the death toll climbed to at least 50.

The Ministry of Public Health raised the death toll from the Kabul attack to 37, with 98 wounded, while 13 people were confirmed dead in Kandahar. One security official said the death toll from the Kabul incident alone could reach as high as 45-50 with more than 100 wounded.

The violence highlights the precarious security situation in Afghanistan, which has seen a steady increase in attacks since international troops ended combat operations in 2014, with record numbers of civilian casualties.

Many of the Kabul victims were workers in parliamentary offices who were returning home in the afternoon rush hour or first responders hit when they were attending victims of an initial blast.

The Taliban, seeking to reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster, claimed responsibility for the attack, which they said targeted a minibus carrying personnel from the National Directorate for Security, Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency.

But they denied responsibility for the attack in Kandahar which killed mainly government officials or diplomats from the United Arab Emirates who were visiting the city to open an orphanage.

President Ashraf Ghani’s National security adviser, Hanif Atmar, travelled to Kandahar on Wednesday to launch an investigation. Five Emirati officials as well as the deputy governor of Kandahar, Abdul Shamsi, and a number of other senior officials were among the dead.

No claim of responsibility has been made for the attack, set off by a bomb hidden under sofas in the residence of the provincial governor.

However Kandahar police chief Abdul Razeq, a feared commander who was in the compound when the explosion occurred but who escaped injury, accused Pakistan’s intelligence services and the Haqqani network, a militant group linked to the Taliban.

He said workers may have smuggled in the explosives used in the attack during construction work and said a number of people had been held for questioning.

The United Nations condemned the “unprincipled, unlawful and deplorable attacks” which it said would make peace more difficult to achieve.

“Those responsible for these attacks must be held accountable,” said Pernille Kardel, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan.

On the same day as the two attacks, seven people were killed in a Taliban attack on a security unit in the southern province of Helmand.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi, writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Bombed Mosul bridge still lifeline for long-suffering civilians

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – The rubble of a bridge blown up by Islamic State in Mosul to block advancing Iraqi forces has become a lifeline for civilians as more and more of the northern city breaks loose from the grip of the ultra-hardline militants.

Men and women, children and the elderly scramble down the banks of the Khosr River, a tributary of the Tigris some 30 meters wide and a meter deep which counter-terrorism forces crossed last week in a nighttime raid.

Lumbering over ladders and pipes, civilians crawl onto the span of the bridge, which has collapsed into the murky water, and shimmy up the opposite bank along a dirt path.

Those escaping east to Zuhur district drag suitcases along with strollers and wheelchairs. Those returning west to Muthanna carry sacks of rice, potatoes and onions, cartons of eggs and packs of baby diapers. The journey in either direction is usually several kilometers.

“Now there are people entering and people leaving,” Major General Sami al-Aridi told Reuters this week after touring both sides of the river on foot.

“The ones who left are returning, and those who are leaving now are coming from … neighborhoods where there are currently clashes.”

He said he expected the latest evacuees to return in a day or two as Iraqi forces pushed further west.

The United Nations had warned that the U.S.-backed campaign to kick Islamic State out of Mosul, their largest urban stronghold in Iraq or Syria, could displace up to 1.5 million people.

But with much of the eastern half of the city now under government control, most residents have stayed in their homes or moved in temporarily with relatives in other neighborhoods.

That has complicated the task of the military, which must fight among civilians in built-up areas against an enemy that has targeted non-combatants and hidden among them.

HARSH CONDITIONS

The offensive, involving a 100,000-strong ground force of Iraqi troops, members of the autonomous Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi’ite militiamen, is the most complex battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

When it launched the offensive in October, the government hoped to have retaken the city by the end of 2016 but Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in December it could now take another three months to drive the militants out.

Fawaz, a 46-year-old schoolteacher going back across the ruptured bridge to his family’s home in Muthanna on Monday, held a jerry can filled with fuel in one hand and a bag of fresh food in the other.

“We spent two months without food, just what we had stored up,” he said, describing the harsh conditions that many residents faced after the Mosul campaign began in mid-October. Fawaz said he lost some 30 kg (66 lb) in that period.

He crossed the river earlier in the day to buy supplies and check in with his old workplace but was returning before nightfall to his neighborhood, where Iraqi forces are now in charge but mortars fired by Islamic State still land.

He shrugged off the danger with a laugh and, expressing the deep faith that Mosul residents say sustained them through 2-1/2 years of brutal Islamic State rule, said: “God is present.”

ACCUSTOMED TO VIOLENCE

Along a road running west towards the city’s ancient ruins, black armored Humvees race down one side, transporting soldiers to and from the frontline where they’re fighting Islamic State suicide attackers with machine guns, rockets and air strikes.

Civilians, including infants and the disabled, pad along the other side. Many are fleeing clashes with only their most prized possessions but others are pursuing more mundane tasks such as shopping for groceries or reconnecting electricity cables.

A Humvee rushes down the road to reinforce the troops. Behind, a man wearing a grey hoodie bicycles in the dust kicked up by the vehicle. Two more Humvees pass in the opposite direction carrying disabled civilians in their open beds.

“You see with your own eyes: one hand fights, one hand helps,” said a soldier guarding a forward command post.

A corner grocery has opened on the street and a school-age boy sells packets of sunflower seeds to soldiers.

Young children, one grasping a Barbie doll, play in side streets where orange trees hang low under the weight of ripened fruit. A general clad in black uniform hands out chocolates.

The kids do not flinch at the sound of explosions or gunfire. During a particularly heavy spell of clashes nearby, two boys no older than 10 stop in the road where stray bullets occasionally land. They scan the skyline.

“There, there is the Apache (attack helicopter). There, it’s coming! It’s going to work them in,” said one, turning to add: “We’ve become accustomed.”

AVOID CAMPS

Mosul residents say that despite the obvious dangers, they prefer their homes to camps outside the city where conditions are austere and movement heavily restricted.

About 135,000 people have fled to camps outside Mosul run by the government and aid groups. Rapid advances have accelerated displacement in the past two weeks but the figures are still a fraction of the total population.

“We’ve haven’t stayed in our homes and endured all this bombardment and everything just to live in tents,” said Abu Ahmed, visiting his family in Zuhur at the weekend.

The war raging just down the road doesn’t worry him.

“God willing, there is nothing,” he said before dropping to the ground and running for cover at the buzz of a missile overhead.

The street he was standing in suddenly clears of civilians and soldiers. Fifteen seconds later, the rocket explodes about a kilometer away sending a plum of grey smoke into the sky.

Cracks of gunfire replace the greetings and serendipitous reunions that had filled the street just moments earlier.

Abu Ahmed stands up again with a chuckle and brushes himself off. “A rocket,” he said. “Thanks and praise to God.”

(Editing by David Clarke)

Iraq forces advance in Mosul but civilian toll mounts

Iraqi forces inspect hospital in Mosul after clashes with ISIS

By John Davison and Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces fought their way into more districts of Mosul but advances in the city’s southeast were being slowed by Islamic State’s use of civilians for cover, military officials said on Tuesday.

The United Nations said civilian casualties had streamed into nearby hospitals in the last two weeks as fighting intensified in the jihadist group’s last major stronghold in Iraq.

Advances by elite forces in the city’s east and northeast have picked up speed in a new push since the turn of the year, and U.S.-backed forces have for the first time reached the Tigris river, which bisects the city.

“They entered Hadba (district) today. There is a battle inside the city,” Lt-Colonel Abbas al-Azawi, a spokesman for the Iraqi army’s 16th division, said.

Seizing control of Hadba, a large district, would likely take more than a day, and Islamic State (IS) were deploying suicide bombers, he added.

Recapturing Mosul after more than two years of Islamic State rule would probably spell the end of the Iraqi side of the group’s self-declared caliphate, which spans areas of Iraq and Syria.

Forces in the city’s eastern and northeastern districts, and in particular the elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), have made rapid gains in past days.

Better defenses against militant car bombs and improved coordination among the advancing troops had helped put Islamic State on the back foot, U.S. and Iraqi military officers said.

“Every day the Iraqi Security Forces go forward and every day the enemy goes backward or underground,” U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, spokesman for the coalition, told reporters in Erbil in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

MILITANTS ‘HIDING IN MOSQUES’

But fighting in neighbourhoods in the southeast has been tougher.

“The challenge is that they (IS) are hiding among civilian families, that’s why our advances are slow and very cautious,” Lieutenant-Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammedawi, a spokesman for the rapid response units of Iraq’s federal police, told Reuters.

Mohammedawi said rapid response units and Iraqi army units had fought their way into the Palestine and Sumer districts in the last day, but that Islamic State fighters were firing at civilians trying to flee.

“The families, when they see Iraqi forces coming, flee from the areas controlled by Daesh (Islamic State) towards the Iraqi forces, holding up white flags, and Daesh bomb them with mortars and Molotov cocktails, and also shoot at them.

“Whenever they (IS) withdraw from a district, they shell it at random, and it’s heavy shelling,” he said.

Col. Dorrian said militant fighters were hiding in mosques, schools and hospitals, using civilians as human shields.

The United Nations’ humanitarian coordination office (OCHA) said nearly 700 people had been taken to hospitals in cities in Kurdish-controlled areas outside Mosul in the last week, and more than 817 had required hospital treatment a week earlier.

“Trauma casualties remain extremely high, particularly near frontline areas,” OCHA said.

The U.S.-backed operation to drive the ultra-hardline militants from Mosul began in October and has recaptured villages and towns surrounding the city, and most of Mosul’s eastern half.

(Additional reporting by Girish Gupta in Erbil; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Richard Lough)

More than 2,000 Iraqis a day flee Mosul as military advances

By Stephen Kalin and Isabel Coles

NEAR MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – More than 2,000 Iraqis a day are fleeing Mosul, several hundred more each day than before U.S.-led coalition forces began a new phase of their battle to retake the city from Islamic State, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

After quick initial advances, the operation stalled for several weeks but last Thursday Iraqi forces renewed their push from Mosul’s east toward the Tigris River on three fronts.

Elite interior ministry troops were clearing the Mithaq district on Wednesday, after entering it on Tuesday when counterterrorism forces also retook an industrial zone.

Federal police advanced in the Wahda district, the military said on Wednesday, in the 11th week of Iraq’s largest military campaign since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

As they advanced, many more civilian casualties were also being recorded, the U.N. said.

Vastly outnumbered, the militants have embedded themselves among residents and are using the city terrain to their advantage, concealing car bombs in narrow alleys, posting snipers on tall buildings with civilians on lower floors, and making tunnels and surface-level passageways between buildings.

“We were very afraid,” one Mithaq resident said.

“A Daesh (Islamic State) anti-aircraft weapon was positioned close to our house and was opening fire on helicopters. We could see a small number of Daesh fighters in the street carrying light and medium weapons. They were hit by planes.”

Security forces have retaken about a quarter of Mosul since October but, against expectations and despite severe shortages of food and water, most residents have stayed put until now.

More than 125,000 people have been displaced out of a population of roughly 1.5 million, but the numbers have increased by nearly 50 percent to 2,300 daily from 1,600 over the last few days, the U.N. refugee agency said.

The humanitarian situation was “dire”, with food stockpiles dwindling and the price of staples spiraling, boreholes drying up or turning brackish from over-use and camps and emergency sites to the south and east reaching maximum capacity, it said.

Most of the fleeing civilians are from the eastern districts but people from the besieged west, still under the militants’ control, are increasingly attempting to escape, scaling bridges bombed by the coalition and crossing the Tigris by boat.

An Iraqi victory in Mosul would probably spell the end for Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate but in recent days the militants have displayed the tactics to which they are likely to resort if they lose the city, killing dozens with bombs in Baghdad and attacking security forces elsewhere.

Speaking with reporters in Washington through a video link, a U.S. military spokesman said the number of U.S.-led coalition advisers assisting Iraqi security forces in the second phase of the operation to retake Mosul had doubled to 450 in the past few weeks.

Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition fighting Islamic State, also confirmed that the advisors had entered the city limits of Mosul.

“They have been in the city at different times,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Kalin and Idrees Ali in Washington.; Editing by Louise Ireland and Alistair Bell)

Aleppo hit by air strikes and shelling as evacuation stalls

By Laila Bassam, Tom Perry and Lisa Barrington

ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The planned evacuation of rebel districts of Aleppo stalled on Wednesday as air strikes and heavy shelling hit the city and Iran was said to have imposed new conditions on the deal.

Iran, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main backers in the battle that has all but ended four years of rebel resistance in the city, wanted a simultaneous evacuation of wounded from two villages, Foua and Kefraya, that are besieged by rebel fighters, according to rebel and U.N. sources.

Rebel groups said that was just an excuse to hold up the evacuation from a shrunken insurgent enclave shattered by a powerful government offensive. A pro-opposition TV station said the operation could now be delayed until Thursday.

A ceasefire brokered on Tuesday by Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, and Turkey was intended to end years of fighting in the city, giving the Syrian leader his biggest victory in more than five years of war.

But air strikes, shelling and gunfire erupted on Wednesday and Turkey accused government forces of breaking the truce. Syrian state television said rebel shelling had killed six people.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said however that rebel resistance was likely to end in the next two or three days.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan will discuss Aleppo later on Wednesday, the Kremlin was quoted as saying.

Officials in the military alliance backing Assad could not be reached immediately for comment on why the evacuation, expected to start in the early hours of Wednesday, had stalled.

Nobody had left by dawn under the plan, according to a Reuters witness waiting at the departure point, where 20 buses stood with engines running but showed no sign of moving into rebel districts.

People in eastern Aleppo packed their bags and burned personal belongings, fearing looting by the Syrian army and its Iranian-backed militia allies.

In what appeared to be a separate development from the planned evacuation, the Russian defence ministry said 6,000 civilians and 366 fighters had left rebel-held districts over the past 24 hours.

A total of 15,000 people, including 4,000 rebel fighters, wanted to leave Aleppo, according to a media unit run by the Syrian government’s ally Hezbollah.

RAPID ADVANCES

The evacuation plan was the culmination of two weeks of rapid advances by the Syrian army and its allies that drove insurgents back into an ever-smaller pocket of the city under intense air strikes and artillery fire.

By taking full control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition, aided by Russia’s air force and an array of Shi’ite militias from across the region.

Rebels groups have been supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but the support they have enjoyed has fallen far short of the direct military backing given to Assad by Russia and Iran.

Russia’s decision to deploy its air force to Syria 18 months ago turned the war in Assad’s favor after rebel advances across western Syria. In addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus this year.

The government and its allies have focused the bulk of their firepower on fighting rebels in western Syria rather than Islamic State, which this week managed to take back the ancient city of Palmyra, once again illustrating the challenge Assad faces reestablishing control over all Syria.

Russia regards the fall of Aleppo as a major victory against terrorists, as it and Assad characterize all the rebel groups, both Islamist and nationalist, fighting to oust him.

But at the United Nations, the United States said the violence in the city, besieged and bombarded for months, represented “modern evil”.

The once-flourishing economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been pulverized during the war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and allowed the rise of Islamic State.

As the battle for Aleppo unfolded, global concern has risen over the plight of the 250,000 civilians who were thought to remain in its rebel-held eastern sector before the sudden army advance began at the end of November.

Tens of thousands of them fled to parts of the city held by the government or by a Kurdish militia, and tens of thousands more retreated further into the rebel enclave as it rapidly shrank under the army’s lightning advance.

The rout of rebels in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of terrified civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity”. There were food and water shortages in rebel areas, with all hospitals closed.

“SHOT IN THEIR HOMES”

On Tuesday, the United Nations voiced deep concern about reports it had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east Aleppo districts. It accused them of “slaughter”.

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, a U.N. spokesman. “There could be many more.”

The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and Russia said on Tuesday rebels had “kept over 100,000 people in east Aleppo as human shields”.

Fear stalked the city’s streets. Some survivors trudged in the rain past dead bodies to the government-held west or the few districts still in rebel hands. Others stayed in their homes and awaited the Syrian army’s arrival.

For all of them, fear of arrest, conscription or summary execution added to the daily terror of bombardment.

“People are saying the troops have lists of families of fighters and are asking them if they had sons with the terrorists. (They are) then either left or shot and left to die,” said Abu Malek al-Shamali in Seif al-Dawla, one of the last rebel-held districts.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents.

Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al-Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Aleppo and Tom Perry, John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Peter Millership, Paul Tait and Giles Elgood)

Thousands flee Aleppo onslaught as battle reaches climax

By Laila Bassam and Stephanie Nebehay

ALEPPO, Syria/GENEVA (Reuters) – Thousands of people fled the front lines of fighting in Aleppo on Tuesday as the Syrian military hammered the final pocket of rebel resistance and Russia rejected an immediate ceasefire.

The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity” with civilians being shot dead.

The U.N. human rights office said it had reports of abuses, including that the army and allied Iraqi militiamen summarily killed at least 82 civilians in captured districts of the city, once a flourishing economic center with renowned ancient sites.

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. office. “There could be many more.”

Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.

Colville said the rebel-held area was “a hellish corner” of less than a square kilometer, adding its capture was imminent.

The Syrian army and its allies are in the “last moments before declaring victory” in Aleppo, a Syrian military source said, after rebel defences collapsed, leaving insurgents in a tiny, heavily bombarded pocket of ground.

Turkish and Russian officials will meet on Wednesday to examine a possible ceasefire and opening a corridor, a senior Turkish official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

But Moscow, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, rejected any immediate call for a ceasefire. “The Russian side wants to do that only when the corridors are established,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

The spokesman for the civil defence force in the former rebel area of Aleppo said rebels now controlled an area of less than three sq km. “The situation is very, very bad. The civil defence has stopped operating in the city,” he told Reuters.

A surrender or withdrawal of the rebels from Aleppo would mean the end of the rebellion in the city, Syria’s largest until the outbreak of war after mass protests in 2011, but it is unclear if such a deal can be struck by world powers.

By finally dousing the last embers of resistance burning in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military coalition of the army, Russian air power and Iran-backed militias will have delivered him his biggest battlefield victory of the war.

However, while the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, will suffer a crushing defeat in Aleppo, the war will be far from over.

“FLEEING IN PANIC”

Aleppo’s loss will leave the rebels without a significant presence in any of Syria’s main cities, but they still hold much of the countryside west of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, also in northwest Syria.

Islamic State also has a big presence in Syria and has advanced in recent days, taking the desert city of Palmyra.

The army and its allies had taken full control over all the Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat in the city, a Syrian military source said on Tuesday.

After days of intense bombardment of rebel-held areas, the rate of shelling and air strikes dropped considerably late on Monday and through the night as the weather deteriorated, a Reuters reporter in the city said.

However, rocket fire pounded rebel-held areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, reported. Rebels and government forces still fought at points around the reduced enclave, the Observatory said.

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF cited an unnamed doctor in Aleppo as saying that many unaccompanied children were trapped in a building that was under attack, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had no knowledge of the incident.

“Artillery shelling is continuing but because of the weather the aerial bombing has stopped. Many of the families and children have not left for areas under the control of the regime because their fathers are from the rebels,” said Abu Ibrahim, a resident of Aleppo in a text message.

Colville said he feared retribution. “In all, as of yesterday evening we have received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children,” Colville told a news briefing, naming the Iraqi armed group Harakat al-Nujaba as reportedly involved in the killings.

The military official said the rebels were fleeing “in a state of panic”, but a Turkish-based official with the Jabha Shamiya insurgent group in Aleppo said on Monday night that they had established a new frontline along the river.

“The bombardment is not on the frontlines, the greater burden of the bombardment is on the civilians, and this is what is causing a burden on us,” the official said.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents.

Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.

“Last night people slept in the streets and in buildings where every flat has several families crowded in,” he added.

Celebrations on the government side of the divided city lasted into Monday night, with fighters shooting rounds into the sky in triumph.

TIDE OF REFUGEES

A daily bulletin issued by the Russian Defence Ministry’s “reconciliation center” from the Hmeimin airbase used by its warplanes, reported that more than 8,000 civilians, more than half of them children, had left east Aleppo in 24 hours.

State television broadcast footage of a tide of hundreds of refugees walking along a ravaged street, wearing thick clothes against the rain and cold, many with hoods or hats pulled tight around their faces, and hauling sacks or bags of belongings.

One man pushed a bicycle loaded with bags, another family pulled a cart on which sat an elderly woman. Another man carried on his back a small girl wearing a pink hat.

At the same time, a correspondent from a pro-Damascus television station spoke to camera from a part of Aleppo held by the government, standing in a tidy street with flowing traffic.

In some recaptured areas, people were returning to their shattered homes. A woman in her sixties, who identified herself as Umm Ali, or “Ali’s mother”, said that she, her husband and her disabled daughter had no water.

They were looking after the orphaned children of another daughter killed in the bombing, she said, and were reduced to putting pots and pans in the street to collect rainwater.

In another building near al-Shaar district, which was taken by the army last week, a man was fixing the balcony of his house with his children. “No matter the circumstances, our home is better than displacement,” he said.

All around the buildings in that area were earthen fortifications and rebel slogans daubed on walls. But in a playground, all the equipment was burned.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam in Aleppo, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Pravin Char and Peter Millership)

Two U.S. service members, many civilians dead in Afghanistan

By Sardar Razmal

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Two American service members were killed fighting the Taliban near the northern city of Kunduz on Thursday, the U.S. military said amid reports that air strikes called in to protect the troops had caused heavy civilian casualties.

Although the U.S. military gave no details, Afghan officials said there had been heavy fighting overnight about 5 km (3 miles) from the city center, which Taliban fighters succeeded in entering as recently as last month, and air strikes had caused many casualties.

There were angry protests by civilians who brought the bodies of at least 16 dead into Kunduz, Mafuzullah Akbari, a police spokesman said. Some reports put the death toll higher but there was no immediate official confirmation.

“The service members came under fire during a train, advise and assist mission with our Afghan partners to clear a Taliban position and disrupt the group’s operations in Kunduz district,” the U.S. military said in a statement.

In a separate statement, the NATO-led Resolute Support mission confirmed that air strikes had been carried out in Kunduz to defend “friendly forces under fire”.

“All civilian casualty claims will be investigated,” it said.

In a statement, the Taliban said American forces were involved in a raid to capture three militant fighters when they came under heavy fire. An air strike hit the village where the fighting was taking place, killing many civilians.

The deaths underline the precarious security situation around Kunduz, which Taliban fighters came close to over-running last month, a year after they briefly captured the city in their biggest success in the 15-year long war.

While the city itself was secured, the insurgents control large areas of the surrounding province.

The U.S. military gave no details on the identity of the two personnel who were killed or what units they served with and there was no immediate detailed comment on the circumstances of their deaths.

Although U.S. combat operations against the Taliban largely ended in 2014, special forces units have been repeatedly engaged in fighting while providing assistance to Afghan troops.

Masoom Hashemi, deputy police chief in Kunduz province, said police were investigating to try to determine if any of the dead were linked to the Taliban.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers remain in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support training and assistance mission and a separate counterterrorism mission.

The deaths come a month after another U.S. service member was killed on an operation against Islamic State fighters in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Afghan forces, fighting largely on their own since the end of the international combat mission, have suffered thousands of casualties, with more than 5,500 killed in the first eight months of 2016.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Robert Birsel)

Separate bomb attacks kill at least 22 in Afghanistan

Officials cleaning the site of the bombing June 20 2016

By Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) – More than 20 people were killed in separate bomb attacks in Afghanistan on Monday, including at least 14 when a suicide bomber struck a minibus carrying Nepali security contractors in the capital Kabul, officials said.

A Reuters witness saw several apparently dead victims and at least two wounded being carried out of the remains of a yellow bus after the suicide bomber struck the vehicle in the capital.

Hours later, a bomb planted in a motorbike killed at least eight civilians and wounded another 18 in a crowded market in the northern province of Badakhshan, said provincial government spokesman Naveed Frotan. The casualty count could rise, he said.

The attacks are the latest in a surge of violence that highlights the challenges faced by the government in Kabul and its Western backers as Washington considers whether to delay plans to cut the number of its troops in Afghanistan.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter that 14 people had been killed and eight wounded in the attack in Kabul. Police were working to identify the victims, he said.

The casualties appeared to include Afghan civilians and Nepali security contractors, Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said, after police and emergency vehicles surrounded the scene in the Banae district in the east of the city.

He said the suicide bomber had waited near a compound housing the security contractors and struck as the vehicle moved through early morning traffic. Besides the bus passengers, several people in an adjacent market were also wounded in the attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack in a statement from the Islamist group’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, on Twitter. However it denied responsibility for the attack in Badakhshan.

Islamic State, which is bitterly opposed by the Taliban, said it carried out the Kabul attack but Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed the claim as “rubbish”.

“By organizing this attack, we wanted to show Americans and NATO military officials that we can conduct attacks wherever, and whenever, we want,” the Taliban spokesman said.

The Nepal government was still working through its embassy in Pakistan, which also oversees Afghanistan, to verify reports that its citizens were involved in the attack, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bharat Paudel said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his condolences to his two South Asian neighbors after the attack.

“We strongly condemn the horrible tragedy in Kabul. Our deep condolences to people and governments of Afghanistan and Nepal on loss of innocent lives,” Modi said on Twitter.

Another explosion in Kabul later on Monday morning wounded a provincial council member and at least three of his bodyguards, Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid said. It was thought a bomb had been attached to the lawmaker’s car, he said.

The attacks underlined how serious the security threat facing Afghanistan remains since former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a U.S. drone strike last month and was replaced by Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada.

The blasts follow a deadly suicide attack on a bus carrying justice ministry staff near Kabul last month and a separate attack on a court in the central city of Ghazni on June 1.

The Taliban claimed both those attacks in revenge for the execution of six Taliban prisoners.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi; Additional reporting by Gopal Sharma in KATHMANDU and Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez)

Amnesty: Russian Airstrikes in Syria ‘May Amount to War Crimes’

Russian airstrikes in Syria killed at least 200 civilians and the Russian government might have lied to cover up the deaths and widespread damage to residential areas, according to a new Amnesty International report.

The human rights organization said Tuesday that some of the strikes seemed to be directly launched at civilian areas, with no clear military target to be found, and “show evidence of violations of international humanitarian law.” In a statement, Philip Luther, who directs Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, said the strikes “may amount to war crimes.”

The Russian Defense Ministry disputes the allegations in the report, which it says includes “fake information” and “trite clichés,” a ministry spokesman told Reuters.

Russia has been performing airstrikes in Syria since Sept. 30, independent of the United States-led coalition that is dedicated to destroying Islamic State interests. Russian government authorities have publicly stated that the airstrikes are only aimed at terrorist targets.

However, the Amnesty report cites interviews with witnesses and survivors of those attacks, as well as analysis from weapons experts, as evidence that some of the airstrikes occurred in areas where “there were no military targets or fighters in the immediate vicinity.”

The report references six specific attacks in Homes, Idleb and Aleppo between September and November. Amnesty alleges five of those strikes targeted residential areas, while the sixth occurred very close to a hospital.

Amnesty referenced a Nov. 29 incident in which three missiles hit a busy public market in Idleb, killing 49 civilians. One man told the group that he spoke to a woman who was “crying beside a line of dead bodies” after her husband and three children died in the attack. In researching the report, Amnesty said it determined that there were no apparent military targets in the area.

Amnesty’s report also references an Oct. 1 airstrike against a mosque in Idleb, which caused the deaths of two civilians. A witness told Amnesty there weren’t any military targets within 500 meters of the mosque. But the report cites comments Russian officials publicly made about the airstrike, which the officials said targeted Islamic State interests and destroyed a command post.

Weeks later, after reports surfaced that the mosque had been destroyed, Russian officials said the claims were fabricated and showed a satellite picture of the mosque supposedly still intact. However, Amnesty reported the picture showed a different mosque than the one destroyed in the attack.

Amnesty called for independent investigations into the alleged transgressions, saying Russian leaders “failed to take feasible precautions to avoid, or at least minimize, harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”

Amnesty said it also has evidence Russia used unguided bombs in civilian areas, as well as widely criticized cluster bombs. Reuters reported Russia’s Defense Ministry denied using any cluster bombs in Syria.

Amnesty reported that it is also “researching and documenting its concerns” about the airstrikes conducted by the United States-led coalition.

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