Tag Archives: Civilians

100,000 civilians behind Islamic State lines in Iraqi city of Mosul

Displaced civilians walk towards the Iraqi Army positions after fleeing their homes due to clashes in the Shifa neighbourhood in western Mosul, Iraq June 15 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – About 100,000 civilians remain trapped behind Islamic State lines in Mosul with a U.S.-backed government offensive to recapture the Iraqi city entering its ninth month, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

Islamic State snipers are shooting at families trying to flee on foot or by boat across the Tigris River, it said.

“These civilians are basically held as human shields in the Old City,” said the UNHCR representative in Iraq, Bruno Geddo, referring to Mosul’s historic district where the militants are besieged by Iraqi government forces.

“There is hardly any food, water, electricity, fuel. These civilians are living in an increasingly worsening situation of penury and panic because they are surrounded by fighting.”

The offensive to retake Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq, started on Oct. 17 with air and ground support from a U.S.-led international coalition.

Iraqi government forces regained eastern Mosul in January, then a month later began the offensive on the western side that includes the Old City.

The Old City “is a very dense labyrinth, a maze of narrow alleyways where fighting will have to be done on foot, house by house,” said Geddo.

“ISIS (Islamic State) snipers continue to aim at people trying to flee because there is this long-standing policy of executing people trying to flee the territory of the caliphate,” he said.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in a speech from an historic mosque in the Old City three years ago, covering parts of Iraq and Syria.

Moscow said on Friday its forces may have killed Baghdadi in an air strike in Syria last month, but Washington said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials were skeptical.

About 200,000 people were estimated to be trapped behind Islamic State lines in Mosul in May, but the number has declined as government forces have thrust further into the city.

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of the northern Iraqi city, have fled, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps. UNHCR has provided many with shelter, food and other necessities.

Geddo voiced deep concern about “collective punishment” of families whose relative may have been an IS fighter.

“Collective punishment means in a deeply tribal society that you see evictions, destruction of property, confiscation of property for families perceived as being associated with ISIS because one family member might have been having that link.

“This is a very critical point for the future of Iraq. Because it is essential to uphold the rule of law, to pursue those who committed crimes through the court system, the judicial system, rather than applying tribal custom,” he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

‘Staggering’ civilian deaths from U.S.-led air strikes in Raqqa: U.N.

FILE PHOTO" Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters stand amid smoke in Raqqa's western neighbourhood of Jazra, Syria June 11, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Intensified coalition air strikes supporting an assault by U.S.-backed forces on Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa in Syria are causing a “staggering loss of civilian life”, United Nations war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias supported by a U.S.-led coalition, began to attack Raqqa a week ago to take it from the jihadists. The SDF, supported by heavy coalition air strikes, have taken territory to the west, east and north of the city.

“We note in particular that the intensification of air strikes, which have paved the ground for an SDF advance in Raqqa, has resulted not only in staggering loss of civilian life, but has also led to 160,000 civilians fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced,” Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry told the Human Rights Council.

Pinheiro provided no figure for civilian casualties in Raqqa, where rival forces are racing to capture ground from Islamic State. The Syrian army is also advancing on the desert area west of the city.

Separately, Human Rights Watch expressed concern in a statement about the use of incendiary white phosphorous weapons by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, saying it endangered civilians when used in populated areas.

In its speech to the 47-member forum in Geneva, the U.S. delegation made no reference to Raqqa or the air strikes. U.S. diplomat Jason Mack called the Syrian government “the primary perpetrator” of egregious human rights violations in the country.

Pinheiro said that if the international coalition’s offensive is successful, it could liberate Raqqa’s civilian population, including Yazidi women and girls, “whom the group has kept sexually enslaved for almost three years as part of an ongoing and unaddressed genocide”.

“The imperative to fight terrorism must not, however, be undertaken at the expense of civilians who unwillingly find themselves living in areas where ISIL is present,” he added.

Pinheiro also said that 10 agreements between the Syrian government and armed groups to evacuate fighters and civilians from besieged areas, including eastern Aleppo last December, “in some cases amount to war crimes” as civilians had “no choice”.

Syria’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Hussam Edin Aaala, denounced violations “committed by the unlawful U.S.-led coalition which targets infrastructure, killing hundreds of civilians including the deaths of 30 civilians in Deir al-Zor.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Miles and Tom Heneghan)

Philippines army struggles as city siege enters fourth week

A joint group of police and military forces use a mallet to open a door while conducting a house to house search as part of clearing operations in different sections of Marawi city. REUTERS/Stringer

By Neil Jerome Morales and Simon Lewis

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Fighting in Marawi City in the southern Philippines entered its fourth week on Tuesday with military officials conceding that troops were struggling to loosen the grip of Islamist fighters on downtown precincts despite relentless bombing.

Military spokesman Brigadier General Restituto Padilla said the urban terrain was hampering the army’s progress because the rebels had hunkered down in built-up neighborhoods, many of them with civilians they had taken as human shields.

Hundreds of other civilians were still trapped in the ruins of the town and – facing capture, starvation or bombardment from above – several have braved sniper fire to dash across a bridge to safety. Some were shot dead, a few made it alive.

Asked when the fighting would end, Padilla said: “I can’t give you an estimate because of compounding developments faced by ground commanders.”

The military had set Monday, the Philippines’ independence day, as a target date to flush out the militants, both local and foreign fighters who have pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Flags were raised at ceremony in the town on the insurgency-plagued island of Mindanao, but heavy gunfire resumed early on Tuesday, and the military continued to target the militants with mortars and helicopter-mounted machineguns.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who declared martial law in Mindanao on May 23 – hours after several hundred fighters overran parts of the town and tried to seal it off to create an Islamic caliphate – did not show at any independence day events.

Duterte is best known for a brutal war on drugs since he took office a year ago, and he has suggested that funding for the Islamist militants came from the narcotics trade.

Some media reports highlighted the absence of the president at a time of serious conflict, but a spokesman said he was tired and needed to rest.

The Philippines has been fighting twin insurgencies from Maoist-led rebels and Muslim separatists in the south for nearly 50 years. Critics say military action is not enough to bring peace to a region that has long suffered from political neglect and poverty.

‘PURE PROPAGANDA’

The seizure of Marawi has alarmed Southeast Asian nations which fear Islamic State – on a backfoot in Iraq and Syria – is trying to set up a stronghold on Mindanao that could threaten their region.

The ultra-radical group’s news agency, Amaq, said the military in the largely Christian Philippines had “completely failed” to take back Muslim-majority Marawi.

“Islamic State fighters are spread in more than two-thirds of Marawi and tighten the chokehold on the Philippine army that is incapable of maintaining control of the situation,” it said.

Padilla branded the Amaq report “pure propaganda”.

Responding to the report, Lieutenant General Carlito Galvez, head of military command in Western Mindanao, told Reuters the militants controlled 20 percent of the town.

That is at least twice the area that the military had given a week ago, when it had said the rebels were holed up in a sliver of urban terrain equal to 10 percent and shrinking.

Almost the entire population of about 200,000 fled after the militants tried to overrun it, but the military believes that beyond the checkpoints now fencing off its main roads there are still some 300-600 civilians trapped or being held hostage.

Padilla said about 100 militants were still fighting, down from the estimated 400-500 who stormed the town.

Former military chief Rodolfo Biazon told ABC-CBN television on Monday that the government seemed to be struggling to control the situation because rebel forces could move freely in an out of the town, raising the prospect of reinforcements.

“Marawi has porous boundaries. You see them in one place of Mindanao today, you see them in another place tomorrow,” said Biazon, also a former legislator.

As of Tuesday, the number of security forces and civilians who had died in the battle for Marawi officially stood at 58 and 26, respectively. The death toll of militants was put at 202.

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency said that at least 200 government troops had been killed and many had abandoned their posts, leaving behind weapons that were seized by the militants.

It released a video showing the insurgents fighting and what it said was the execution of six Christians who were shot simultaneously in the back of the head. Reuters was not able to independently confirm the authenticity of the video.

At dawn on Tuesday, five police officers and five Christian civilians ran through the city’s commercial district to reach a government-controlled area on the Agus River’s west bank.

The military said that, in another incident, the insurgents knocked on the door of a house where 18 people were hiding. They escaped through a back door, but five were shot dead, eight were captured and only five made it to safety at the river.

(For graphic on Islamic State-linked groups in the Philippines south, click: tmsnrt.rs/2rYIHTj)

(For graphic on battle of Marawi, click: tmsnrt.rs/2qBkSPk)

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema and Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.N. warns of increasing civilian deaths in battle for Iraqi city of Mosul

Residents who fled their homes due to fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants return to their village cleared by the Iraqi forces in western Mosul in Iraq June 7, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Children trying to flee western Mosul have been shot dead by Islamic State militants, the U.N. human rights office said on Thursday, saying it had reports of a “significant escalation” in civilians deaths in the battle for the Iraqi city.

It also said it was investigating reports that 50-80 people had died in an air strike on the Zanjili district of Mosul on May 31. It did not say who carried out the strike.

The killing of fleeing civilians by Islamic State militants occurred in the al-Shifa neighborhood on May 26, June 1 and June 3, it said.

“Credible reports indicate that more than 231 civilians attempting to flee western Mosul have been killed since 26 May, including at least 204 over three days last week alone,” the U.N. human rights office said in a statement.

“Shooting children as they try to run to safety with their families – there are no words of condemnation strong enough for such despicable acts,” the statement quoted U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein as saying.

Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a push on May 27 to capture the remaining Islamic State-held enclave in the western side of the city, where about 200,000 people are trapped in harrowing conditions.

Last week Iraqi police said at least seven civilians had been killed by Islamic State mortar shells in the Zanjili area of western Mosul.

But a young man told Reuters he had been wounded when an air strike hit a group of 200-250 civilians collecting water because an Islamic State fighter was hiding among them.

The U.N. statement said the deaths in Zanjili were reportedly caused by one of several recent air strikes that had inflicted civilian casualties and it was seeking further information about those attacks, without elaborating.

“The murder of civilians, as well as the intentional directing of an attack against civilians who are not directly taking part in hostilities, are war crimes,” it said.

Islamic State’s self-declared “caliphate” is in retreat across Iraq and Syria. U.S.-backed Syrian forces this week launched an operation to capture Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Seizing of Philippines city by Islamist militants a wake-up call for Southeast Asia

FILE PHOTO: Soldiers stand guard along the main street of Mapandi village as government troops continue their assault on insurgents from the Maute group, who have taken over large parts of Marawi City, Philippines June 2, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Tom Allard

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – At the beginning of the battle that has raged for the past 12 days in Marawi City at the southern end of the Philippines, dozens of Islamist militants stormed its prison, overwhelming the guards.

“They said ‘surrender the Christians’,” said Faridah P. Ali, an assistant director of the regional prison authority. “We only had one Christian staff member so we put him with the inmates so he wouldn’t be noticed,” he said.

Fighters from the Maute group, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS), menaced the guards and shouted at prisoners: but no one gave up the Christian man. “When they freed the inmates, he got free,” said Ali.

It was a brief moment of cheer, but over the next few hours the militants took control of most of the city, attacked the police station and stole weapons and ammunition, and set up roadblocks and positioned snipers on buildings at key approaches. The assault has already led to the death of almost 180 people and the vast majority of Marawi’s population of about 200,000 has fled.

For a graphic about the battle:(http://tmsnrt.rs/2rhRPEa)

The seizing of the city by Maute and its allies on the island of Mindanao is the biggest warning yet that the Islamic State is building a base in Southeast Asia and bringing the brutal tactics seen in Iraq and Syria in recent years to the region.

Defense and other government officials from within the region told Reuters evidence is mounting that this was a sophisticated plot to bring forces from different groups who support the Islamic State together to take control of Marawi.

The presence of foreigners – intelligence sources say the fighters have included militants from as far away as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Chechnya and Morocco – alongside locals in Marawi, has particularly alarmed security officials.

For some time, governments in Southeast Asia have been worried about what happens when battle-hardened Islamic State fighters from their countries return home as the group loses ground in the Middle East, and now they have added concerns about the region becoming a magnet for foreign jihadis.

“If we do nothing, they get a foothold in this region,” said Hishammuddin Hussein, the defence minister of neighboring Malaysia.

Defense and military officials in the Philippines said that all four of the country’s pro-Islamic State groups sent fighters to Marawi with the intention of establishing the city as a Southeast Asian ‘wilayat’ – or governorate – for the radical group.

Mindanao – roiled for decades by Islamic separatists, communist rebels, and warlords – was fertile ground for Islamic State’s ideology to take root. This is the one region in this largely Catholic country to have a significant Muslim minority and Marawi itself is predominantly Muslim.

It is difficult for governments to prevent militants from getting to Mindanao from countries like Malaysia and Indonesia through waters that have often been lawless and plagued by pirates.

The Combating Terrorism Center, a West Point, New York-based think tank, said in a report this week that Islamic State is leveraging militant groups in Southeast Asia to solidify and expand its presence in the region. The key will be how well it manages relations with the region’s jihadi old guard, CTC said.

COMMANDER FIRED

The Maute group’s attack is the biggest challenge faced by Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte since coming to power last June. He has declared martial law in Mindanao, which is his political base.

His defense forces were caught off guard by the assault and have had difficulty in regaining control of the city – on Saturday they were still struggling to wipe out pockets of resistance.

On Monday, Brigadier-General Nixon Fortes, the commander of the army brigade in Marawi, was sacked.

An army spokesman said this was unrelated to the battle. But a military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Friday that Fortes was dismissed because not all his forces were in the city when the rebels began their rampage, even though military intelligence had indicated that Islamist militants were amassing there.

The assault came just months after security forces attacked the mountain lair of Isnilon Hapilon, a long-time leader of Abu Sayyaf, or “Father of the Sword”, a notorious Islamist militant group known for kidnapping.

He swore allegiance to Islamic State in 2014, and quickly got other groups to join him. Most important among them was the Maute group, run by brothers Omar and Abdullah Maute from a well-known family in Marawi.

In a video that surfaced last June, a Syria-based leader of the group urged followers in the region to join Hapilon if they could not travel to the Middle East. Hapilon was named IS leader in Southeast Asia last year.

The Philippines military said Hapilon was likely wounded in the raids but managed to escape to Marawi, where he joined up with the Maute group.

According to a statement on a social media group used by Maute fighters, the group wants to cleanse Marawi of Christians, Shi’ite Muslims, and polytheists – who believe in more than one God. It also wants to ban betting, karaoke and so-called “relationship dating.”

MOUNTAIN LAIRS

Some officials said Philippines security forces became complacent about the threat from IS after the January raids.

“We did not notice they have slipped into Marawi because we are focusing on their mountain lairs,” Philippines Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters.

Over the past few months, Philippine and Indonesian intelligence sources said, Hapilon’s forces were swelled by foreign fighters and new recruits within Marawi. Many of the outsiders came to Marawi using the cover of an Islamic prayer festival in the city last month, said Philippines military spokesman Lt. Col. Jo-Ar Herrera.

Lorenzana said that Hapilon brought 50-100 fighters to join Maute’s 250-300 men, while two other groups, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters  and the Ansar Al-Khilafah Philippines, together brought at least 40 militants with them.

On May 23, four days before the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, they launched their attack when Philippine forces made an abortive attempt to capture Hapilon inside Marawi.

After the military retreated in the face of a phalanx of armed guards, about 400 militants quickly fanned out across the city, riding trucks mounted with 50-calibre machine guns and armed with rocket-propelled grenades and high-powered rifles.

Within hours, they attacked the jail and nearby police station, seizing weapons and ammunition, according to accounts from residents.

The Dansalan College, a Protestant institution, and the Catholic Cathedral of Maria Auxiliadora, were both razed, and a priest and about a dozen other parishioners captured. They remain hostages.

A Shi’ite mosque was also destroyed, and a statue of Jose Rizal, the Philippines hero of the uprising against Spanish rule, was beheaded.

SNIPERS ON ROOFTOPS

Herrera said the attack had the hallmarks of a professional military operation. “There was a huge, grand plan to seize the whole of Marawi,” he said.

After the initial battle, IS flags flew across the city and masked fighters roamed the streets proclaiming Marawi was theirs, using loud-hailers to urge residents to join them and handing out weapons to those who took up the offer, according to residents.

The military brought in helicopters to fire rockets at militant positions as ground troops began to retake key bridges and buildings, though some residents this has also led to the deaths of civilians.

“ISIS people were running on the street, running away from them. They were bombing them in the street (but) it hit our house and the mosque. Many other houses too,” said Amerah Dagalangit, a pregnant 29-year-old in an evacuation center near Marawi.

“Many people died when the bomb exploded,” she said, adding that a Muslim priest and children were among the victims.

Military officials said they had not received any report of the incident. Reuters could not independently verify the account.

The military has said 20 civilians have been killed in the fighting and that all were at the hands of the militants. It also says 120 rebels and 38 members of the security forces have been killed, including 10 soldiers who died from friendly fire in an airstrike.

“PEOPLE WILL GET KILLED”

Officials in neighboring Indonesia worry that even if the Filipinos successfully take back Marawi in coming days, the threat will still remain high.

“We worry they will come over here,” said one Indonesian counter-terrorism official, noting that Mindanao wasn’t very far from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

More than 2,000 people remain trapped in the center of Marawi, with no electricity and little food and water. Some are pinned down by the crossfire between the military and the militants, while others fear they will be intercepted by the militants as they flee, according to residents.

The bodies of eight laborers who had been shot in the head were found in a ravine outside Marawi last Sunday. The police said they had been stopped by the militants while escaping the city.

There will most likely be more civilian casualties in retaking the city, the military said.

“We are expecting that people will get starved, people will get hurt, people will get killed,” said Herrera, the military spokesman. “In these types of operations, you can’t get 100 per cent no collateral damage.”

(With Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Martin Howell)

Islamic State fighters seal off Mosul mosque preparing for last stand

A member of the Iraqi rapid response forces fires a mortar shell against Islamic State militants positions in western Mosul, Iraq May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State militants have closed the streets around Mosul’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque, residents said, apparently in preparation for a final showdown in the battle over their last major stronghold in Iraq.

Dozens of fighters were seen by residents taking up positions in the past 48 hours around the medieval mosque, the site where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamist caliphate in July 2014.

Islamic State’s black flag has been flying from the mosque since the militants captured Mosul and seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014.

U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a new push on Saturday to capture the group’s remaining enclave in western Mosul, comprising of the Old City center where the mosque is located, and three adjacent districts alongside the western bank of the River Tigris.

The fall of the city would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the self-styled caliphate. Meanwhile in Syria, Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-air strikes are beseiging Islamic State forces in the city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in that country.

SYMBOLIC FOCUS

Up to 200,000 people still live in harrowing conditions behind Islamic State lines in Mosul, running low on food, water and medicine, and with difficult access to hospitals, the United Nations said on Sunday.

The Grand al-Nuri Mosque has become a symbolic focus of the campaign, with Iraqi commanders privately saying they hope to capture it during Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month which started over the weekend in Iraq.

“Daesh’s fighters know that the mosque is the most important target and they are preparing for a major battle there,” said Hisham al-Hashemi, who advises several Middle East government including Iraq’s on Islamic State affairs.

But a battle in or near the mosque would put the building and its famed leaning minaret at risk, experts have said.

The minaret, several feet off the perpendicular and standing on humid soil, is particularly vulnerable as it has not been renovated since 1970. Its tilt gave the landmark its popular name – al-Hadba, or the hunchback.

The Mosul offensive, now in its eighth month, has taken much more time than expected as Islamic State is fighting in the middle of civilians and using them as human shields.

Over the past few days, the militants ordered dozens of families living in the Zanjili district to move into the Old City to prevent them from escaping toward the Iraqi forces trying to advance from the northern side, a resident said.

Government forces have been dropping leaflets over the districts telling families to flee but the intensity of the fighting has prevented people from escaping.

The militants been countering the offensive with suicide car and motorbike bombs, snipers, booby-traps and mortar fire.

About 700,000 people, about a third of the pre-war city’s population, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Sewage tanker bomb kills at least 80, wounds hundreds in Afghan capital

Burned vehicles are seen after a blast at the site of the incident in Kabul, Afghanistan May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

By Mirwais Harooni and Sayed Hassib

KABUL (Reuters) – A powerful bomb hidden in a sewage tanker exploded in the morning rush hour in the center of Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least 80 people, wounding hundreds and damaging embassy buildings in the Afghan capital’s unofficial “Green Zone”.

The victims of the explosion at a busy intersection appeared mainly to have been Afghan civilians on their way to work or school, as well as office workers whose nearby buildings did not have the protection of the blast walls that fortify the zone.

The bomb, one of the deadliest in Kabul and coming at the start of the holy month of Ramadan, exploded close to the entrance to the German embassy, wounding some staff, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said. Pictures showed the embassy building with its windows ripped out.

One Afghan security guard was killed and others were likely among the dead, Gabriel said. A spokeswoman for the German foreign ministry said the bomber’s target was unknown.

“Such attacks do not change our resolve in continuing to support the Afghan government in the stabilization of the country,” Gabriel said.

Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for city police, said the explosives were hidden in a sewage truck. He also suggested that the German embassy might not have been the target of the blast, which sent towering clouds of black smoke into the sky near the presidential palace.

“There are several other important compounds and offices near there too,” he told Reuters.

The blast, which shattered windows and blew doors off their hinges in houses hundreds of meters away, was unusually strong.

No group had claimed responsibility by late Wednesday afternoon.

The Taliban, seeking to reimpose Islamic rule after their 2001 ouster by U.S.-led forces, denied responsibility and said they condemned attacks that have no legitimate target and killed civilians.

Islamic State, a smaller militant group in Afghanistan seeking to project its claim to a global Islamic caliphate beyond its Middle East base, has previously claimed responsibility for high-profile attacks in Kabul, including one on a military hospital in March that killed more than 50 people.

The NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission in Kabul said Afghan security forces prevented the vehicle carrying the bomb from entering the Green Zone, which houses many foreign embassies as well as its headquarters, also suggesting it may not have reached its intended target.

A public health official said at least 80 people had been killed and more than 350 wounded.

Germany will cease flights deporting rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan in the next few days, a German official confirmed. Germany began carrying out group deportations of Afghans in December, seeking to show it is tackling an influx of migrants by getting rid of those who do not qualify as refugees.

The French, Turkish and Chinese embassies were among those damaged, the three countries said, adding there were no immediate signs of injuries among their diplomats. The BBC said one of its drivers, an Afghan, was killed driving journalists to work. Four journalists were wounded and treated in hospital.

Switzerland said the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation had several windows broken but the staff were safe.

Video shot at the scene showed burning debris, crumbled walls and buildings, and destroyed cars, many with dead or injured people inside. Blood streamed down the faces of walking wounded.

“FELT LIKE AN EARTHQUAKE”

At the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital a few blocks away, there were scenes of chaos as ambulances brought in wounded. Frantic relatives scanned casualty lists and questioned hospital staff for news.

“It felt like an earthquake,” said 21-year-old Mohammad Hassan, describing the moment the blast struck the bank where he was working. His head wound had been bandaged but blood still soaked his white dress shirt.

Another lightly wounded victim, Nabib Ahmad, 27, said there was widespread destruction and confusion.

“I couldn’t think clearly, there was a mess everywhere,” he said.

Frenzy erupted out outside the hospital as ambulances and police trucks began bringing in the bodies of those killed. Some bodies were burned or destroyed beyond recognition.

India and Pakistan condemned the blast.

“India stands with Afghanistan in fighting all types of terrorism. Forces supporting terrorism need to be defeated,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet. India said its embassy staff were safe.

Wednesday’s attack provided another clear demonstration that Ramadan, which began at the weekend, would provide little respite from the violence across Afghanistan.

Amnesty International demanded an immediate and impartial investigation.

“Today’s tragedy shows that the conflict in Afghanistan is not winding down but dangerously widening, in a way that should alarm the international community,” it said in a statement.

The explosion will add pressure to the fragile government of President Ashraf Ghani, which has faced mounting discontent over its inability to control the insurgency and provide security for Afghan citizens.

The Taliban have been stepping up their push to defeat the U.S.-backed government. Since most international troops withdrew at the end of 2014, the Taliban have gained ground and now control or contest about 40 percent of the country, according to U.S. estimates, though Ghani’s government holds all provincial centres.

U.S. President Donald Trump is due to decide soon on a recommendation to send 3,000 to 5,000 more troops to bolster the small NATO training force and U.S. counter-terrorism mission now totaling just over 10,000.

The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, told a congressional hearing this year that he needed several thousand more troops to help Afghan forces break a “stalemate” with the Taliban.

(Additional reporting by Josh Smith in Kabul, Kay Johnson in Islamabad, Sudip Kar-Gupta and Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Madeline Chambers and Michelle Martin in Berlin, Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara and Doug Busvine in New Delhi; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Nick Macfie and Sonya Hepinstall)

Civilians lack food, water, medicine as Mosul battle mounts: U.N.

A view of a part of western Mosul, Iraq May 29, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of civilians in parts of Mosul held by Islamic State are struggling to get food, water and medicine, the United Nations said, days into a new push by U.S.-backed Iraqi government troops to take the northern city.

Up to 200,000 people still live behind Islamic State lines in Mosul’s Old City and three other districts, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Lise Grande told Reuters late on Sunday.

She spoke a day after Iraq’s army said it had launched a new offensive to take the militant zones on the western side of the Tigris river.

Progress has been slow, an Iraqi government adviser told Reuters, also late on Sunday. “The fighting is extremely intense … the presence of civilians means we have to be very cautious,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

People who had managed to get out of the militant areas “report a dramatic situation including lack of food, limited water and severe shortages of medicines,” Grande said by phone.

“We know that there have been health facilities in these areas, but we don’t know whether they are still functioning.”

Government forces have been dropping leaflets over the districts telling families to flee – but many have remained fearing getting caught in the cross-fire.

“We have been informed by authorities that the evacuation is not compulsory … If civilians decide to stay … they will be protected by Iraqi security forces,” said Grande.

“People who choose to flee will be directed to safe routes. The location of these will change depending on which areas are under attack and dynamics on the battlefield,” she added.

The latest Iraqi government push is part of a broader offensive in Mosul, now in its eighth month. It has taken longer than planned as the militants are dug in among civilians, retaliating with suicide car and motorbike bombs, booby traps, snipers and mortar fire.

Its prime target is the medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque with its landmark leaning minaret in Mosul’s Old City, where Islamic State’s black flag has been flying since mid-2014.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” declared nearly three years ago by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a speech at the mosque.

About 700,000 people, about a third of the pre-war city’s population, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps.

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Islamic State mining Mosul to stop families fleeing as Iraqi forces advance

Displaced Iraqi people gather to be transported to a camp for displaced people during the battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq, May 17, 2017. REUTERS/ Alaa Al-Marjani

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State militants are planting bombs near front doors in Mosul to prevent civilians leaving, a federal police commander and witnesses said on Wednesday, as Iraqi forces make their final push against the jihadists after seven months of fighting.

Trapped in a shrinking area of the city, the militants are increasingly using the several hundred thousand civilians under their control as human shields to avoid being targeted or perhaps tarnish what Iraqi leaders describe as imminent victory.

Backed by a U.S.-led coalition, Iraqi forces have made rapid gains since opening a new front in northwest Mosul this month and have now dislodged Islamic State from all but about 12 square km (5 square miles) of the city.

The militants, however, still control the Old City, where they are expected to make their last stand in the densely populated, narrow streets that are impassible for armored vehicles, forcing Iraqi forces to advance on foot.

The Iraqi government is pushing to declare victory by the holy month of Ramadan – expected to begin on May 27 – even if pockets of resistance remain in the Old City, according to military commanders.

Lieutenant-General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi told state TV his elite Counter Terrorism Services (CTS) were advancing steadily in the Rifaie and Najjar districts, aiming to reach the western bank of Tigris river and complete the Old City’s encirclement.

“God willing the coming hours we will complete our assigned task,” he said on Wednesday.

The militants had deployed 30 suicide car bombs against his troops in Mosul over the past two days, he said.

In the Siha district, Assadi said, Islamic State had chained civilians by the hands and used them as human shields to move around. “We saw them moving with their weapons in the midst of the civilians but we did not strike them,” he said.

The civilians were unchained and released once the militants reached cover, Assadi said.

Hundreds if not more civilians have been killed under bombardment by the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi airforce during the Mosul campaign and the rest are eating weeds and boiled wheat grain to survive as food runs out.

Fearful of triggering bombs if they open the front door, civilians are fleeing through the same holes Islamic State knocked through interior walls to move around the city without being targeted from the sky.

The number of people fleeing Mosul has surged since the re-intensification of hostilities this month.

Nearly 10,000 people were displaced from the city on Tuesday, according to Iraqi government figures, joining an exodus of nearly 700,000 who have left Mosul since the start of the campaign last October.

Two civilians were killed when they returned to the Islah al-Ziraei district days after it was retaken by Iraqi forces when they accidentally triggered a bomb that Islamic State had planted to prevent them leaving their home.

(Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Families pour out of Mosul as Iraqi troops push into last militant-held areas

Displaced Iraqis get out of a military truck as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq May 10, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Isabel Coles

HAMMAM AL-ALIL CAMP, Iraq (Reuters) – Thousands more people are fleeing Mosul every day since Iraqi troops began their push into the last Islamic State-held areas of the city last week, with food and water running out and the fighting killing increasing numbers of civilians.

More than 22,000 people have fled Mosul since the U.S.-backed forces opened a new front in the northwest of the city on May 4 to try to finally dislodge the militants, the United Nations said on Wednesday, citing Iraqi government figures.

In the past two days alone, more than 11,000 people have passed through a screening site at the Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul.

Islamic State fighters are shooting people who try to escape, although some men have been allowed to go in exchange for taking militants’ families with them, said 40-year-old Umm Abdul Rahman, who fled the Musherfa district on Tuesday night.

One man waiting to be checked by security at Hammam al Alil had streaks of blood on his clothes from carrying a woman hit by an Islamic State sniper.

They join an exodus from Mosul of more than 600,000 people in the seven months since Iraqi forces began their offensive there. Roughly 400,000 of those are from the western side of the city which is bisected by the River Tigris.

The militants are now besieged in the northwestern corner, which includes the historic Old City center, the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, and its landmark leaning minaret where their black flag has been flying since June 2014.

About ten families, some forced out of other areas of Mosul as Iraqi forces advanced, were now crammed into every house in the northwest, Abdul Rahman said.

“There is no water, no food. The bombardment is continuous,” she said, and the militants were setting civilian cars and trucks on fire to create smokescreens.

People are surviving on ground wheat boiled in water, 31-year-old Qatra al-Nada Abdullah said, because Islamic State fighters were keeping any food or water that is left for themselves.

“Even wheat is scarce,” she said.

Islamic State fighters are forcing people from their homes to use them as fighting positions, 62-year-old Umm Mohammed said as she clutched a packet of cigarettes forbidden under the militants’ rule.

She and her family had burned everything, even their own shoes, to cook over after fuel ran out.

“We saw fear and hunger and death. I am an old woman and I have never seen anything like this.”

The Sunni Muslim militants seized Mosul in a shock offensive across northern and western Iraq in 2014 but have lost much of that territory to resurgent government forces in the past year. The campaign to recapture the city, Iraq’s second largest, began last October.

Defeat in Mosul, the militants’ last urban stronghold in the country, would still leave Islamic State in control of swathes of Syria and Iraqi territory near the Syrian border.

(Reporting by Isabel Coles; Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Louise Ireland)