Tag Archives: ISIS

Facing defeat in Mosul, Islamic State mounts diversionary attack to the south

Members of Iraqi federal police carry their weapons during fighting with Islamic State militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

MOSUL/TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State militants attacked a village south of Mosul, killing several people including two journalists, even as they were about to lose their last redoubt in the city to an Iraqi military onslaught, security sources said on Friday.

The assault on Imam Gharbi village appeared to be the sort of diversionary, guerrilla-style strike tactics Islamic State is expected to focus on as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces regain control over cities IS captured in a shock 2014 offensive.

Security sources said IS insurgents had infiltrated Imam Gharbi, some 70 km (44 miles) south of Mosul on the western bank of the Tigris river, on Wednesday evening from a pocket of territory still under their control on the eastern bank.

Two Iraqi journalists were reported killed and two others wounded as they covered the security forces’ counter-attack to take back the village on Friday. An unknown number of civilians and military were also killed or wounded in the clashes.

In Mosul, IS clung to a slowly shrinking pocket on the Tigris west bank, battling for every meter with snipers, grenades and suicide bombers, forcing security forces to fight house-to-house in densely-populated blocks.

The Iraqi military has forecast final victory this week in what used to be the de facto capital of IS’s “caliphate” in Iraq, after a grinding eight-month, U.S.-backed offensive to wrest back the city, whose pre-war population was 2 million.

But security forces faced ferocious resistance from roughly several hundred militants hunkered down among thousands of civilians in the maze of alleyways in Mosul’s Old City.

Air strikes and artillery salvoes continued to pound Islamic State’s last Mosul bastion on Friday, a Reuters TV crew said.

Mosul was by far the largest city seized by Islamic State in its offensive three years ago where the ultra-hardline group declared its “caliphate” over adjoining parts of Iraq and Syria.

ASYMMETRIC ATTACKS

Stripped of Mosul, IS’s dominion in Iraq will be reduced to mainly rural, desert areas west and south of the city where tens of thousands of people live, and the militants are expected to keep up asymmetric attacks on selected targets across Iraq.

Adhel Abu Ragheef, a Baghdad-based expert on jihadist groups, said Islamic State was likely to carry out “more of these raid-type attacks on security forces to try to divert them away from the main battle”, now in Mosul and then in other areas west of Mosul including near the Syrian border still IS control.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared the end of Islamic State’s “state of falsehood” a week ago, after security forces took Mosul’s mediaeval Grand al-Nuri mosque – although only after retreating militants blew it up.

Months of grinding urban warfare in Mosul have displaced 900,000 people, about half the city’s pre-war population, and killed thousands, according to aid organizations.

The United Nations predicts it will cost more than $1 billion to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul. Iraq’s regional Kurdish leader said on Thursday in a Reuters interview that the Baghdad central government had failed to prepare a post-battle political, security and governance plan.

The offensive has damaged thousands of structures in Mosul’s Old City and destroyed nearly 500 buildings, satellite imagery released by the United Nations on Thursday showed.

In some of the worst affected areas, almost no buildings appear to have escaped damage, and Mosul’s dense construction means the extent of the devastation might be underestimated, U.N. officials said.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Islamic State makes desperate stand in Mosul, commanders say

Military vehicle of Iraqi security forces are seen during fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 6, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters holding out in Mosul on a strip of land along the Tigris River are increasingly using suicide bombers in a desperate attempt to slow the steady advance of Iraqi forces, military commanders said on Thursday.

Iraqi forces pushing toward the al-Maydan and al-Shareen districts in the northern Iraqi city broke the militants’ defenses and have reached within 200 meters (yards) of the riverbank.

But they encountered stiff resistance from a few hundred militants lodged among thousands of civilians in the Old City’s maze of alleyways, particularly from foreign suicide bombers, Iraqi commanders said.

The military has predicted final victory this week after a grinding eight-month assault to oust Islamic State from the once two-million-strong city.

Mosul is by far the largest city ruled by Islamic State. It was here, three years ago, that the group declared the founding of its “caliphate” over parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Lieutenant General Sami Aridhi of the elite counter-terrorism service said Islamic State fighters were increasingly detonating explosives among civilians fleeing toward security forces and had even resorted to using women suicide bombers.

“They have begun to wait for the troops to reach them and then blow themselves up. They can’t do any more than that,” he told state television.

“They surge forward just to obstruct the troops, not to hold land or retain any other positions because God willing their end is clear to everyone and they are convinced that this is their end,” he said.

Once Mosul has gone, Islamic State’s territory in Iraq will be limited to areas west and south of the city where some tens of thousands of civilians live, and it is expected to keep up asymmetric attacks across the country.

Air strikes continued to rain down just beyond the frontline, and wounded soldiers, some displaying blast wounds, were evacuated.

Civilians interviewed on state TV said they had fled al-Maydan district, which is one of a handful of districts along the riverbank still in Islamic State hands.

Prime Minister Haider Abadi declared the end of Islamic State’s “state of falsehood” a week ago, after security forces took Mosul’s medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque.

Months of grinding urban warfare have displaced 900,000 people, about half the city’s pre-war population, and killed thousands, according to aid organizations.

The United Nations predicts it will cost more than $1 billion to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul, while Iraq’s Kurdish leader said on Thursday in a Reuters interview that the Baghdad government had failed to prepare a post-battle political, security and governance plan.

(Reporting By Stephen Kalin; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Mosul population ‘traumatized’ by conflict, infrastructure badly damaged

Destroyed building and cars in the Old City. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

By Stephanie Nebehay and Stephen Kalin

GENEVA/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – The population of Mosul has endured huge suffering in the war to retake the northern Iraqi city from Islamic State and trauma cases among civilians are sharply rising in the last stages of battle, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Wednesday.

The city’s basic infrastructure has also been hard hit, with six western districts almost completely destroyed and initial repairs expected to cost more than $1 billion, the United Nations said.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped among the shattered buildings in Islamic State’s final redoubt in Mosul’s Old City by the western bank of the Tigris river, MSF said.

Civilians who have managed to get medical treatment are suffering from burns and shrapnel and blast injuries, while many are in need of critical care and are under-nourished, MSF officials said.

But there is concern that only a small number of the civilians were getting the medical attention they required.

“Really, (there is) a huge level of human suffering,” Jonathan Henry, MSF emergency coordinator in west Mosul, told reporters in Geneva after spending six weeks in Iraq.

“This is a massive population that has been traumatized from a very brutal and horrific conflict,” he said.

Iraqi commanders have predicted final victory in Mosul this week after a grinding eight-month assault that has pushed Islamic State into a rectangle no more than 300 by 500 meters in the city whose population used to be 2 million.

International charity Save the Children said in a separate report that fighting and years of living under Islamic State have left Mosul’s children with dangerous levels of psychological damage.

Findings from focus group discussions with 65 children in a displacement camp south of Mosul found that children are so deeply scarred by memories of extreme violence they are living in constant fear for their lives, unable to show emotions, and suffering from vivid “waking nightmares”.

Displaced Iraqi civilians who fled from clashes. REUTERS/Stringer

Displaced Iraqi civilians who fled from clashes. REUTERS/Stringer

The loss of loved ones was the biggest cause of distress, with 90 percent reporting the loss of at least one family member through death, separation during their escape, or abduction, the report said.

Children said they had seen family members killed in front of them, dead bodies and blood in the streets, and bombs destroying their homes. Others shared stories of family members shot by snipers, blown up by landmines or hit by explosions as they fled.

The militants’ brutality and the U.S.-backed war to end their three-year rule has created an “extremely traumatic environment for people to flee from and to return to,” affecting their mental health on a large scale, MSF’s Henry said.

“The west (of the city) has been heavily destroyed. It’s really mass destruction … similar to the blitz of the Second World War, hospitals have been destroyed, neighborhoods are in ruins.”

The battles in the Old City’s maze of narrow alleyways is fought house-by-house in streets packed with civilians and planted with multiple explosive devices by the militants, who are also using drones and suicide bombings.

Shrapnel and blast injuries, broken bones from collapsed buildings and burns are the main type of wounds seen by the MSF team of surgeons in west Mosul, Henry said.

Half of the 100 war-wounded over the past two weeks at the MSF 25-bed hospital were women and children in need of critical care and many were malnourished, he said.

“But the most urgent patients we feel are not able to leave the conflict area.”

About 900,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, taking shelter in camps or with relatives and friends, according the aid group.

A tank of the Emergency Response Division fires at Islamic State militant in the old city of Mosul, Iraq July 5, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

A tank of the Emergency Response Division fires at Islamic State militant in the old city of Mosul, Iraq July 5, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Robin Pomeroy)

U.S. would consider no-fly zone in Syria if Russia agrees

FILE PHOTO: A general view shows damaged buildings in a rebel-held part of the southern city of Deraa, Syria June 22, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Faqir/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is prepared to discuss with Russia joint efforts to stabilize war-torn Syria, including no-fly zones, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday.

He added the United States wanted to discuss with Russia the use of on-the-ground ceasefire observers and the coordinated delivery of humanitarian aid to Syrians.

“If our two countries work together to establish stability on the ground, it will lay a foundation for progress on the settlement of Syria’s political future,” Tillerson said in a statement ahead of this week’s Group of 20 summit in Germany.

The statement made no mention of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s future. The United States largely blames Assad for the six years of civil war and has called on him to step down.

Tillerson also said Russia had an obligation to prevent the use of chemical weapons by Assad’s government.

Washington hit a Syrian air base with a missile strike in April after accusing the Assad government of killing dozens of civilians in a chemical attack. Syria denied it carried out the attack.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg this week, and Tillerson said Syria would be a topic of discussion.

Russia is Assad’s major ally and Moscow’s military support has helped the Syrian government turn the tide in a multi-sided war against Islamic State and Syrian rebels.

As the fight against Islamic State winds down, Tillerson said Russia has a “special responsibility” to ensure Syria’s stability.

He said Moscow needs to make sure no faction in Syria “illegitimately re-takes or occupies areas” liberated from Islamic State or other groups.

U.S.-backed forces have surrounded Islamic State’s stronghold in Syria, the city of Raqqa.

Tillerson lauded U.S. and Russia cooperation in establishing de-confliction zones in Syria and said it was evidence “that our two nations are capable of further progress.”

Speaking before he left Washington for Hamburg, Tillerson said:

“I think the important aspect of this is that this is where we’ve begun an effort to begin to rebuild confidence between ourselves and Russia at the military-to-military level but also at the diplomatic level.”

In March, Tillerson said the United States would set up “interim zones of stability” to help refugees return home in the next phase of the fight against Islamic State and al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.

Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute think-tank in Washington cautioned against a U.S. approach in Syria that relied on Russia.

“Russia is neither capable nor willing to give us what we want in Syria,” Lister said.

“Time and time again, the Obama administration placed its hopes in Russia as the sole guarantor of de-escalation, humanitarian aid and political progress, and time and time again the Obama administration was left disappointed,” he said. “Why do we think this time will be any different?”

Trump came into office in January seeking to improve ties with Russia that had soured during the Obama administration. But Trump is under pressure at home to take a hard line with Putin due to allegations that Russians meddled in the U.S. election and of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

(Reporting by Eric Beech and Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker)

Exclusive: Philippines’ Duterte proposed deal to end city siege, then backed out

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he delivers a speech during the 70th Philippine Air Force (PAF) anniversary at Clark Air Base in Angeles city north of Manila, Pampanga province, Philippines July 4, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Martin Petty

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was preparing to make a deal with Islamic State-inspired militants in the days after they laid siege to a southern city, but aborted the plan without explanation, an intermediary involved in the process said.

Agakhan Sharief, a prominent Muslim leader, told Reuters that after a band of Islamist fighters overran parts of Marawi City on May 23 and took hundreds of people hostage, he was approached by a senior Duterte aide to use his connections with the Maute militant group’s leaders to start back-channel talks.

Two other Marawi sources familiar with the matter confirmed the president had worked behind the scenes to hold talks with the Maute brothers, Omarkhayam and Abdullah.

However, the process was halted when Duterte in a May 31 speech declared he “will not talk to terrorists”.

It was not immediately clear what prompted Duterte’s about-face.

“The problem with our president, his mind is changing always,” said Sharief, a cleric who has had roles in various peace agreements on the long-restive southern island of Mindanao. “He announced he will no longer talk to terrorists and that made our negotiations cut.”

Duterte’s top peace adviser and his spokesman did not respond to separate requests for comment.

Despite his tough rhetoric and frequent promises to wipe out militants, Duterte has a reputation as a peace-broker, having dealt with separatist and Marxist rebellions during his 22 years as mayor of Davao City in Mindanao, an island of 22 million with a long history of unrest.

DUTERTE’S BIGGEST CRISIS

The battle for control of Marawi has been the biggest crisis of Duterte’s year-old presidency.

Fighters from the Maute group and others loyal to Islamic State have been holed up in the commercial district of the town through more than 40 days of air strikes, artillery bombardments and fierce street clashes with troops.

More than 400 people have been killed, including 337 militants, 85 members of the security forces, and 44 civilians. Some 260,000 residents have been displaced by a siege that has fanned regional fears that Islamic State is trying to establish a stronghold in Southeast Asia.

Marawi Mayor Majul Usman Gandamra confirmed that back-channel talks did start but said he was not privy to details.

He told Reuters the process failed because the rebels did not show good faith or reduce the intensity of attacks on government forces after Duterte offered them an olive branch.

“There was a window of opportunity,” he said. “But there was no show of sincerity.”

REBELS ‘CONVINCED’

Sharief, known locally as “Bin Laden” due to his resemblance to the late al Qaeda leader, would not reveal the identity of Duterte’s aide, whom he said was confidentially assigned to set up a meeting with the Maute clan.

He said the aide agreed that Sharief would accompany the Maute brothers’ influential mother, Farhana, by helicopter to meet Duterte in nearby Cagayan De Oro or Davao City.

Sharief said her sons who requested she represent them in talks with Duterte.

“He (Duterte’s aide) prepared everything that I needed. I told him that I need a chopper to get the mother of the Maute brothers to bring her to the president. He prepared that.”

“I called the Maute brothers and their mother … I told them, I convinced them.”

Sharief said the president was prepared to offer the Maute clan implementation of Sharia law in their hometown, Butig, if he achieves his goal of establishing a federal system in the Philippines.

The talks with the Maute group did not go ahead and the mother was arrested on June 9 elsewhere in the same province as Marawi. The Maute brothers’ father, Cayamora Maute, was apprehended three days earlier in Davao City.

The cleric said that the rebels would have taken Duterte’s deal to end the siege.

“They agreed, they supported this,” said Sharief, who last met with Abdullah Maute on June 25, when he led a group of emissaries into the heart of Marawi to free some hostages during the Eid al-Fitr Islamic holiday.

Sharief said he was against the radical ideology of Islamic State but reluctant to speak out against the Maute clan because he still hoped he could convince them to end the siege.

“I am a peacemaker,” he said. “I cannot negotiate anymore if I talk against them.”

(For a graphic on the battle for Marawi, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2sqmHDf)

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Editing by John Chalmers and Bill Tarrant)

Desperate civilians flee last Islamic State pocket in Mosul

Displaced Iraqi people who fled from Islamic State militants stand in line for a security check in Mosul, Iraq July 3, 2017. Picture taken July 3, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Shop-owner Adnan dragged himself from the rubble two days in a row after the houses he was sheltering in were bombed, one after the other, in the U.S.-led campaign to uproot the last Islamic State militants from Mosul.

“Daesh (Islamic State) forced us out of our home, so we moved to a relative’s house nearby. Yesterday the house was bombed,” he said after the army evacuated him on Monday. “We moved to my cousin’s house and this morning it was also bombed.”

Adnan, who has shrapnel lodged in his skull from an earlier mortar attack, said he survived, with others, by hiding in the houses’ underground cellars.

Thousands of people in the last patch of Mosul still controlled by the insurgents have been huddling for weeks in similar conditions, with little food and no electricity. They fear being bombed if they remain in place and being shot by snipers if they try to flee.

Iraqi forces have pushed Islamic State into a shrinking rectangle no more than 300 by 500 meters beside the Tigris river, but slowed their advance on Tuesday out of caution for an estimated 10,000 civilians trapped there alongside the militants.

Residents have been caught in the crossfire – and often intentionally targeted by Islamic State – since the offensive began more than eight months ago. Thousands have been killed and around 900,000 – around half of Mosul’s pre-war population – have been displaced.

Those in the historic Old City, the offensive’s final target, have been besieged and under fire for longer than those in any other part of Mosul, and the toll is apparent.

Children are emerging bone thin and severely dehydrated, elderly people are collapsing en route. In many cases there is nothing to eat besides boiled wheat.

At a mustering point less than a kilometer from the frontline, residents rattled off the latest prices of basic goods which they said had become prohibitively expensive in the past three months: a kilogram of lentils for 60,000 Iraqi dinars ($51), rice for 25,000 and flour for 22,000.

Mohammed Taher, a young man from the Makawi area of the Old City, said Russian-speaking IS fighters spread out across the neighborhood had impeded civilian movement.

“It was a prison,” he said. “Five days ago they locked the door on us. They said, ‘Don’t come out, die inside’. But the army came and freed us.”

A European medic at a field hospital said he has seen more severe trauma cases among civilians fleeing the fighting in the past week than he had in 20 years of service back home.

SCREENING

From the mustering point, camouflaged army trucks carry the evacuees across the Tigris river to a security screening center in the shadow of the Nineveh Oberoi Hotel, a former five-star hotel which Islamic State once used to house foreign fighters and suicide bombers.

More than 4,000 people have passed through that screening center since mid-May, said Lieutenant Colonel Khalid al-Jabouri, who runs the site. In that time, security forces have detained around 400 suspected IS members, he said.

“They are wanted so they cross with the civilians like they are one of them,” he told Reuters. “In order to relieve our country from these pigs, we have to check every person who comes and goes.”

Jabouri pointed out two middle-aged men who intelligence officers had pulled aside from among several dozen others for suspected links to Islamic State. One wore a traditional white robe and black headdress, the other had a shaved head and a bandage on one leg.

“That person is a Daesh member,” he said, pointing at the second man. “He crossed without papers but he is Daesh. He crossed wounded or pretending to be wounded.”

The number of Islamic State militants fighting in Mosul, by far the biggest city it has ever controlled, has dwindled from thousands at the start of the U.S.-backed offensive to a couple of hundred now, according to the Iraqi military.

The security forces rely on a list of names and witness testimonies to identify suspected Islamic State members. Even as the military offensive draws to a close, though, it is clear that some militants have managed to slip through the cracks.

Suspected militants are arrested on a daily basis in Mosul neighborhoods proclaimed “liberated” from Islamic State months ago, and several suicide attacks have already been carried out in those areas.

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Philippine top court upholds martial law in south as fighting drags on

Philippines army soldiers store seized combat weapons in bags after a news conference, as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group in Marawi city, Philippines July 4, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

By Manuel Mogato and Martin Petty

MANILA/MARAWI, Philippines (Reuters) – The Philippine Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld as constitutional President Rodrigo Duterte’s imposition of 60 days of military rule on a southern island, a ruling that would reinforce unity in the fight against militancy, his spokesman said.

Duterte placed the southern island of Mindanao under military rule on May 23, hours after hundreds of pro-Islamic State militants seized control of the predominantly Muslim town of Marawi, which is on the island.

Eleven members of the 15-member court bench ruled the president’s order valid. Three agreed with it but wanted to limit the area of martial law and one judge opposed it, said court spokesman Theodore Te. He did not elaborate.

Six weeks after the imposition of martial law on the island, government forces are still battling the rebels in the town.

Hundreds of people have been killed and alarm has spread across the region about the prospects of Islamic State establishing a Southeast Asian foothold in the troubled south of the predominately Christian Philippines.

“With the Supreme Court decision, the whole government now stands together as one against a common enemy,” presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in a statement.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he was hopeful the battle with the militants of the previously little-known Maute group would be over before the 60-day period of martial law ends, as the Philippines’ was getting more help from allies.

Two Australian P-3C Orion surveillance planes, manned by joint Australian and Philippine crews, have started flying over Marawi, to pinpoint the locations of the militants, Lorenzana said.

The aircraft will be in the Philippines for two weeks.

On Tuesday morning, clouds of smoke hung over the lakeside town as troops fired on militant positions with artillery and machine guns from helicopters.

Sporadic explosions were heard later in the day.

The army said it had captured another militant stronghold, a century-old college set up by Americans which the rebel leaders, brothers from the Maute family, had attended.

An army spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Jo-Ar Herrera, said troops had also recovered the body of a militant who was believed to be from Singapore, bringing to 11 the number of foreign fighters killed in the battle.

It was not clear why authorities believed the fighter was from Singapore. Herrera only said they had information.

More than 400 people, including 337 militants and 85 members of the security forces, have been killed in the fighting in Marawi. Forty-four civilians had also been killed, either in crossfire or executed by the militants, the military said.

(Reporting by Martin Petty; Writing by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S.-backed Syrian force battles Islamic State in Raqqa’s Old City

Syrian Democratic Forces fighters inspect a tunnel dug by Islamic State militants inside a house in Raqqa's al-Sanaa industrial neighborhood. REUTERS/Rodi Said

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said its fighters were waging fierce battles with Islamic State militants in the Old City of Raqqa on Tuesday after the U.S.-led coalition opened two small openings in its historic walls.

The SDF’s media office said four of its fighters were killed in fighting in the Old City. The coalition said on Monday the SDF fighters had breached the Old City after the coalition targeted two 25-meter sections of the 2,500-meter wall.

SDF fighters had seized an ancient palace, Qasr al-Banat, in the eastern part of the Old City, the SDF said in a statement.

An official in the SDF media office said Islamic State had heavily mined the old quarters of Raqqa with devices set off by motion sensor. Islamic State fighters were doing most of their fighting at night and not moving much in the daytime.

The coalition said Islamic State fighters were using the wall as a firing position and had planted “mines and improvised explosive devices at several of the breaks in the wall”, forcing it to open the new breaches in the wall.

“SDF fighters would have been channeled through these locations and were extremely vulnerable as they were targeted with vehicle-borne IEDs (car bombs) and indirect fire as well as direct fire from heavy machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and snipers as they tried to breach the Old City,” it said.

The SDF launched its assault to capture Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria, last month after gradually closing in on the city.

The official in the SDF media office, speaking to Reuters by phone, said the Raqqa assault was going to plan though Islamic State tactics including use of the new type of mine and drones that drop bombs had slowed down operations a little.

(Reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Iraq slows advance on last IS pocket in Mosul packed with civilians

Iraqi Federal Police members ride in a military vehicle during fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

By Maher Chmaytelli and Stephen Kalin

MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces slowed their advance on Tuesday through the last streets in Mosul controlled by Islamic State where militants and civilians are packed in densely together, a commander said.

While Iraqi commanders predicted final victory in Mosul this week, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced they had begun an assault on Islamic State’s Syrian redoubt in the Old City of Raqqa.

The Iraqi military has pushed insurgents into a shrinking rectangle no more than 300 by 500 meters beside the Tigris river in Mosul; but the resistance has been fierce.

The Rapid Response Division, an elite Interior Ministry unit, called in air strikes just 50 meters away from their targets, and the fighting got close enough at one point for the militants to toss a hand grenade at the troops.

It was from the pulpit of Mosul’s medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque that, three years ago, leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” over parts of Iraq and Syria. Forces retook the mosque on Thursday, prompting Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to declare an end to the group’s “state of falsehood”.

The number of Islamic State militants fighting in Mosul, by far the biggest city it has ever controlled, has dwindled from thousands at the start of the U.S.-backed offensive more than eight months ago to a couple of hundred now, according to the Iraqi military.

A commander from the Rapid Response Division estimated more than 10,000 civilians remained trapped inside the area under militant control, including people brought from other areas as human shields.

They are trapped with little food, water or medicine amid the Old City’s maze of narrow alleyways, according to residents who have managed to escape.

“The presence of civilians has affected the troops’ advance a lot. The directions from the commander-in-chief of the armed forces are to advance slowly to preserve civilians’ lives and this is what we are doing,” the officer said on state TV without being named.

“The area is small but the advance today is very good, relatively.”

He said the progress had also been slowed by a high number of improvised explosives planted in streets and buildings.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the offensive, which Iraq’s army and counter-terrorism service are also fighting in a multi-pronged attack.

TERRITORY SINKING FAST

With Mosul gone, the group’s territory in Iraq will be limited to a few areas west and south of the city where some tens of thousands of civilians live.

In neighboring Syria, a U.S-backed coalition force said it had fired on two small sections of the historic Rafiqah Wall in the Old City of Raqqa, allowing them to overcome Islamic State defenses.

“The portions targeted were 25-metre sections and will help preserve the remainder of the overall 2,500-meter wall,” the coalition said in a statement.

Iraqi authorities are planning a week of nationwide celebrations, to mark the end of the offensive, and Abadi is expected to visit Mosul to formally declare victory.

With its territory shrinking fast, Islamic State has been stepping up suicide attacks in the parts of Mosul taken by Iraqi forces and elsewhere, including a camp for displaced people west of Baghdad on Sunday.

Thousands of people have already fled the Old City this week, joining about 900,000 others, about half the city’s pre-war population, who have been displaced over months of grinding warfare.

Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is believed to be hiding near the Iraq-Syrian border, according to U.S. and Iraqi military sources.

The group has moved its remaining command and control structures to Mayadin, in eastern Syria, U.S. intelligence sources have said, without indicating if Baghdadi was also hiding in the same area.

Baghdadi has often been reported killed or wounded. Russia said on June 17 its forces might have killed him in an air strike in Syria. But Washington says it has no information to corroborate such reports and Iraqi officials are also skeptical.

(Writing by Stephen Kalin; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Islamic State counter attack causes fierce clashes in Syria’s Raqqa

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter sit as medics treat his comrades injured by sniper fired by Islamic State militants in a field hospital in Raqqa, Syria June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State mounted a fierce counter-attack against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of militias in the city of Raqqa on Friday, but there were divergent accounts of its success in regaining ground.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said the group had managed to regain control over most of Raqqa’s industrial district, but the SDF said fighting was limited to the edges of that area and the attack was repelled.

West of Raqqa, the Syrian army advanced on Friday, driving the group from its last territory in Aleppo province in a move that relieves pressure on an important government supply route, a Syrian military source said.

The SDF, a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab groups, took the industrial district this month in its biggest gain so far in Islamic State’s de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.

It said on Friday heavy clashes had taken place since late Thursday in east Raqqa, where the industrial district is located, in the areas of al-Rawdha, al-Nahdha and al-Daraiyah.

However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Islamic State had regained control over most of the industrial area in fierce fighting.

The SDF, on its social media feed, acknowledged there had been intense clashes but said the whole industrial district was still in its hands and the attack had been thwarted.

ARMY ADVANCE

The army took the last stretch of the Ithriya-Rasafa road, part of the highway from Hama to Raqqa, forcing Islamic State to withdraw from a salient it held to the north, the military source and the Observatory said.

Islamic State had used that salient, an area containing a range of hills and a dozen villages, to mount frequent attacks on a different road linking Ithriya to Khanaser, part of the government’s only available land route to Aleppo.

The capture of the Ithriya-Rasafa road also shortens the Syrian army’s route to its battlefront with Islamic State south of Tabqa, a possible route for its multi-pronged offensive to relieve the government’s enclave in Deir al-Zor.

Although Islamic State has withdrawn from the salient east of Khanaser, the army has not yet combed the entire area, the Syrian military source said.

On Thursday, the Observatory said the SDF had managed to take the last stretch of the Euphrates’ south bank opposite Raqqa, completely encircling Islamic State inside the city.

Since all Raqqa’s bridges were already destroyed, and the U.S.-led coalition was striking boats crossing the river, the city had already been effectively isolated since May.

Naser Haj Mansour, a senior SDF official, told Reuters on Thursday he thought it could be “maybe more than a month or a month and a half” before the group took the city. Previous SDF timescales for its war on Islamic State have proven optimistic.

Beyond Raqqa, Islamic State still retains most of the 200km (130 mile) stretch of the Euphrates valley flowing to the border with Iraq. The Syrian army still holds a big enclave in Deir al-Zor, the area’s largest city, on which it is slowly advancing from the direction of Palmyra.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams and Angus MacSwan)