Tag Archives: ISIS

Boko Haram attack on Nigerian city of Maiduguri kills 14 people, say police

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – An attack by Boko Haram jihadists on the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri killed 14 people and wounded 24 others, police said on Thursday, the first official toll.

Maiduguri is the epicenter of the eight-year fight against Boko Haram which has been trying to set up an Islamic State in the northeast, and has been largely free of violence for the past two years.

The fighters attacked the city’s suburbs on Wednesday night with anti-aircraft guns and several suicide bombers, said Damian Chukwu, police commissioner of Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the capital.

“A total of 13 people were killed in the multiple explosions with 24 persons injured while one person died in the attack (shooting),” he told reporters.

Several buildings were set on fire but the military repulsed the fighters after an hour, he said.

Aid workers and Reuters witnesses reported explosions and heavy gunfire for at least 45 minutes in the southeastern and southwestern outskirts of the city. Thousands of civilians fled the fighting, according to Reuters witnesses.

The raid comes six months after President Muhammadu Buhari said Boko Haram had “technically” been defeated by a military campaign that had pushed many jihadists deep into the remote Sambisa forest, near the border with Cameroon.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram’s campaign to establish a caliphate in the Lake Chad

basin. A further 2.7 million have been displaced, creating one of the world’s largest humanitarian emergencies.

Despite the military’s success in liberating cities and towns, much of Borno remains off-limits, hampering efforts to deliver food aid to nearly 1.5 million people believed to be on the brink of famine.

(Reporting by Ola Lanre; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Iran attackers fought for Islamic State in Syria, Iraq: ministry

Members of Iranian forces take position during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017. Omid Vahabzadeh/TIMA

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran said on Thursday that gunmen and bombers who attacked Tehran were Iranian members of Islamic State who had fought in the militants’ strongholds in Syria and Iraq – deepening the regional ramifications of the assaults.

The attackers raided Iran’s parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini’s mausoleum on Wednesday morning, in a rare strike at the heart of the Islamic Republic. Authorities said the death count had risen to 17 and scores were wounded.

Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards have also said regional rival Saudi Arabia was involved, further fuelling tensions between Sunni Muslim power Riyadh and Shi’ite power Tehran as they vie for influence in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia dismissed the accusation.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said on Thursday five of the attackers who died in the assault had been identified as Iranians who had joined the hardline Sunni Muslim militants of Islamic State on its main battlegrounds in Iraq and Syria.

“They earlier left Iran and were involved in the crimes of the terrorist group in Raqqa and Mosul,” the ministry said, referring to Islamic State’s effective capital in Syria and a city it captured in Iraq.

“Last year, they returned to Iran … to carry out terrorist attacks in the holy cities of Iran,” the ministry added in a statement on state news agency IRNA.

The attacks were the first claimed by Islamic State inside the tightly controlled country, one of the powers leading the fight against the militants in neighboring Iraq and beyond that Syria.

Islamic State claimed responsibility and threatened more attacks against Iran’s majority Shi’ite population, seen by the hardline Sunni militants as heretics.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said earlier on Thursday it had arrested more suspects linked to the attacks, on top of six Iranians, including one woman, detained on Wednesday.

Militant attacks are rare in Tehran and other major cities although two Sunni militant groups, Jaish al-Adl and Jundallah, have been waging a deadly insurgency, mostly in remote areas, for almost a decade.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Third French death confirmed after London Bridge attack

Commuters walk past flowers and messages left outside Monument Underground station next to London Bridge. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

PARIS (Reuters) – A third French citizen has died following Saturday’s attack on London Bridge, President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, taking the overall death toll to eight.

“We have had the latest toll confirmed this morning, which is three people dead and eight injured on the French side,” said Macron, who was speaking during a joint news conference with Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

British police hunting for a Frenchman missing since Saturday’s attack said earlier that they had found a body in the River Thames.

The police said the formal identification of the body had not yet taken place but that the family of the missing Frenchman, 45-year-old Xavier Thomas, had been informed of the discovery. Macron did not disclose the victim’s identity.

Le Parisien newspaper named the second Frenchman to die in the attack as 36-year-old Sebastien Belanger, while the other French victim was 27-year old Alexandre Pigeard.

(Reporting by Richard Lough and Jean-Baptiste Vey in Paris, and Kate Holton in London; editing by John Irish)

Attackers bomb Iran parliament and mausoleum, at least 12 dead: Iranian media

Members of Iranian forces take cover during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

LONDON (Reuters) – Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Iran’s parliament and the Mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran on Wednesday morning, killing at least 12 people in a twin assault at the heart of the Islamic Republic, Iranian officials and media said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility and released a video purporting to show gunmen inside the parliament building and one man, who appeared wounded, on the floor.

The rare attacks were the first claimed by the hardline Sunni Muslim militant group inside the Shi’ite Muslim country. Iran is one of the powers leading the fight against Islamic State militants in neighbouring Iraq and, beyond that, Syria.

Attackers dressed as women burst through parliament’s main entrance in central Tehran, deputy interior minister Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

“One of them was shot dead and another one detonated his suicide vest,” he said.

About five hours after the first reports, Iranian news agencies said four people who had attacked parliament were dead and the incident was over.

At least 12 people were killed by the attackers, the head of Iran’s emergency department, Pir-Hossein Kolivand, was quoted as saying by state broadcaster IRIB.

“I was inside the parliament when shooting happened. Everyone was shocked and scared. I saw two men shooting randomly,” said one journalist at the scene, who asked not to be named.

Soon after the assault on parliament, another bomber detonated a suicide vest near the shrine of the Republic’s revered founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, a few kilometres south of the city, Zolfaghari said, according to Tasnim.

A second attacker was shot dead, he said.

Members of Iranian forces take cover during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

Members of Iranian forces take cover during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

THIRD ATTACK FOILED – MINISTRY

The Intelligence Ministry said security forces had arrested another “terrorist team” planning a third attack, without giving further details.

The attacks took place less than a month after the re-election of President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, whose landslide victory defeated candidates supported by the hardline clergy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is responsible for national security.

“The atmosphere is tense. It is a blow to Rouhani. How can four armed men enter the parliament, where a very tight security has always been in place,” said a senior official, who asked not to be named.

The Intelligence Ministry called on people to be vigilant and report any suspicious movement. Despite unconfirmed reports of a hostage situation, state television said parliament had resumed, and broadcast footage of what it said was the opening session proceeding normally.

“Some coward terrorists infiltrated one of the buildings of parliament. They were confronted. It was not a major issue. Our security forces have taken necessary steps,” parliament speaker Ali Larijani said in an open session broadcast live by state TV.

Attacks are highly rare in Tehran and other major cities though a Sunni militant group named Jundallah and its splinter group Ansar al Furqan have been waging a deadly insurgency, mostly in more remote areas, for almost a decade.

Iran’s restive Sistan and Baluchestan province, in the southeast on the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to the Balouch minority and has long been a hotbed of Sunni insurgents fighting the Shi’ite-led Islamic Republic.

Last year Iranian authorities said they had foiled a plot by Sunni militants to bomb targets in Tehran and other cities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Islamic State has often urged its fighters to attack Iranian targets and lambasted “heretic” Shi’ite Iran for helping the Syrian and Iraqi governments battle Islamic State, which considers Shi’ites to be infidels.

The video released by Islamic State’s news agency Amaq included an audio track of a man saying: “Oh God, thank you. [Gunshots]. Do you think we will leave? No! We will remain, God willing.”

A boy is evacuated during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017. Omid Vahabzadeh/TIMA via REUTERS

A boy is evacuated during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017. Omid Vahabzadeh/TIMA via REUTERS

(Writing and additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Man shot after attacking police outside Paris’ Notre Dame

French police stand at the scene of a shooting incident near the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

PARIS (Reuters) – French police shot and wounded a man who attacked officers with a hammer outside the Notre Dame cathedral on Tuesday and the Paris prosecutor’s office swiftly launched a counter-terrorism investigation.

Armed police cordoned off the site and the cathedral in central Paris that is visited by millions of tourists every year was locked down during the incident.

The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. It comes just three days after Islamist militants killed seven people in London in a knife and van attack.

“Situation under control, one policeman injured, the assailant was neutralized and taken to hospital,” Paris police said on Twitter.

Two police sources said the officers shot the assailant in the thorax after he had threatened them with a hammer and refused to stop. One policeman was hurt, according to one source.

Karine Dalle, a spokeswoman for the Paris diocese, told BFM TV 900 people were still inside the cathedral as police secured the area.

One holidaymaker inside Notre Dame wrote on Twitter: “Not the holiday experience wanted. Trapped in Notre Dame Cathedral after police shoot a man. We are with our 2 terrified children.”

France is under a state of emergency after a wave of militant attacks since early 2015 that have killed more than 230 people across the country.

It has soldiers patrolling its streets alongside police to protect tourist sites, government buildings and events.

Three women were arrested in September after police found a car laden with gas cylinders abandoned near Notre Dame cathedral in what the interior ministry at the time said was a likely planned imminent attack.

(Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva and Emmanuel Jarry; writing by John Irish; Editing by Richard Lough)

Two days from UK election, security dominates campaign after London attack

Pedestrians carry umbrellas as they walk past floral tributes to the victims of the recent attack at London Bridge and Borough Market, in central London, Britain June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville

By Estelle Shirbon and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) – Two days from a national election, Britain’s ruling Conservatives and opposition Labour Party battled to defend their records on security after an Islamist attack that killed seven people in London upended the campaign.

After police named two of the attackers and revealed that one was previously known to security agencies, Prime Minister Theresa May faced further questions about her record overseeing cuts to police numbers when she was interior minister.

The latest opinion poll, by Survation for ITV, had the Conservatives’ lead over Labour narrowing to just one point from six points in the same poll a week earlier.

However, the consensus among pollsters remains that May’s party, who have been in government since 2010, will win a majority.

In Britain’s third Islamist attack in as many months, three men rammed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge on Saturday evening before running into the bustling Borough Market area, where they slit throats and stabbed people.

The rampage followed a suicide bombing that killed 22 adults and children at a pop concert in Manchester two weeks ago, and an attack in March when five people died after a car was driven into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge.

One of the London Bridge attackers was 27-year-old Khuram Butt, a British citizen born in Pakistan. He was known to police and the domestic spy agency MI5 but, with resources scarce, had not been deemed enough of a threat to warrant close monitoring, police said.

Butt had appeared in a television documentary called “The Jihadis Next Door”, broadcast last year by Britain’s Channel 4, one of a group of men who unfurled an Islamic State flag in a park.

All three attackers were shot dead at the scene by officers within eight minutes of police receiving the first emergency call.

The Canadian Christine Archibald, a French national and a Briton were among the dead, while other French people, a Spaniard, Australians and a New Zealander were among the 48 who were injured in what May called “an attack on the free world”.

The family of 32-year-old Briton James McMullan said they believed he, too, had lost his life.

MINUTE’S SILENCE

A nationwide minute of silence was held at 11 a.m. (1000 GMT) to honor all the victims.

Before the recent attacks, Brexit and domestic issues such as the state of the health service and the cost of care for the elderly had dominated the election campaign.

When May called the election in April, her Conservatives led in opinion polls by 20 points or more.

But an announcement – made before the Manchester and London Bridge attacks – that they planned to make some of the elderly pay more for their care saw that lead start to shrink, to between one and 12 points now.

Security has become the number one issue and both main parties issued statements on Tuesday portraying their own positions on policing and intelligence as the most robust.

During a round of media interviews, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson faced a barrage of questions about whether there had been security failures and about past police cuts. He sought to deflect the pressure onto Labour, accusing them of weakness.

Asked about repeated criticism of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s response to the attack by U.S. President Donald Trump, Johnson said he did not think there was any reason to cancel Trump’s planned state visit to Britain.

As interior minister from 2010 to 2016, May oversaw a drop of 20,000 in the number of police officers in England and Wales, which Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said should never have happened and warranted her resignation.

The MI5 domestic intelligence service has seen its budget increased and has plans to expand its numbers to 5,000 officers from 4,000 over the next five years, MI5 chief Andrew Parker said last year.

Corbyn himself has faced repeated questioning over his own past views and actions on security matters.

He has been criticized for voting against counter-terrorism legislation and expressing reservations about police responding to attacks with “shoot-to-kill” tactics. Since the attack, he has said he fully supported the actions of the police.

Corbyn has also faced fierce criticism for past sympathies with the Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, a guerrilla group that waged a violent struggle to take Northern Ireland out of the UK.

“ALMOST EUPHORIC”

While the political debate raged, the investigation into Saturday’s attack continued, with police searching an address in Ilford, east London, in the early hours of Tuesday.

Police had arrested 12 people on Sunday in Barking, also in the east of the city, but said late on Monday all had been released without charge.

The second attacker who has been named was 30-year-old Rachid Redouane, who also went by the alias Rachid Elkhdar and claimed to be Moroccan or Libyan, police said. He and Butt both lived in Barking.

One of Butt’s neighbors, Ikenna Chigbo, told Reuters he had chatted with Butt – known locally as “Abz” – just hours before the attack on Saturday and said he appeared “almost euphoric”.

“He was very sociable, seemed like an ordinary family man. He would always bring his kid out into the lobby,” said Chigbo.

Police said they had to prioritize resources on suspects who were believed to be preparing an attack or providing active support for one. Butt did not fall into that category when they last investigated him.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Smout and William James; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Kevin Liffey)

Philippine troops find stash of banknotes as fighters pull back

A government soldier carries a box containing 52.2 million pesos ($1.06 million) cash seized from a vault in a house previously controlled by militants in the Marawi city, Philippines June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Jerome Morales

By Neil Jerome Morales

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Philippines troops found bundles of banknotes and cheques worth about $1.6 million abandoned by Islamist militants holed up in Marawi City, a discovery the military said on Tuesday was evidence that the fighters were increasingly penned in.

Fighters linked to Islamic State have been cornered in a built-up sliver of the southern lakeside town after two weeks of intense combat. The military said that over the past 24 hours it had taken several buildings that had been defended by snipers.

In one house they found a vault loaded with neat stacks of money worth 52.2 million pesos ($1.06 million) and cheques made out for cash worth 27 million pesos ($550,000).

“The recovery of those millions of cash indicates that they are running because the government troops are pressing in and focusing on destroying them,” Marines Operations Officer Rowan Rimas told a news conference in the town as helicopters on machinegun runs buzzed overhead.

Black smoke poured from an area near one of the town’s mosques and the lake after bombings by OV-10 attack aircraft and artillery fire from the ground.

The battle for Marawi has raised concerns that the ultra-radical Islamic State, on a back foot in Syria and Iraq, is building a regional base on the Philippine island of Mindanao.

Officials said that, among the several hundred militants who seized the town on May 23, there were about 40 foreigners from neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia but also from India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Chechnya.

The fighters prepared for a long siege, stockpiling arms and food in tunnels, basements, mosques and madrasas, or Islamic religious schools, military officials say. The Philippines is largely Christian, but Marawi City is overwhelmingly Muslim.

Progress in the military campaign has been slow because hundreds of civilians are still trapped or being held hostage in the urban heart of the town, officials have said.

“In a few days, we will we will be able to get everything, we will be able to clear the entire Marawi City,” armed forces Chief of Staff General Eduaro Año said in a radio interview.

‘MAYBE THEY WATCH WAR MOVIES’

Fighting erupted in Marawi after a bungled raid aimed at capturing Isnilon Hapilon, whom Islamic State proclaimed as its “emir” of Southeast Asia last year after he pledged allegiance to the group. The U.S. State Department has offered a bounty of up to $5 million for his arrest.

On Monday, President Rodrigo Duterte offered a bounty of 10 million pesos ($200,000) to anyone who “neutralized” Hapilon, and 5 million pesos for each of the two brothers who founded the Maute group, one of four factions that banded together to take the town.

Police on Tuesday arrested a man who identified himself as the father of the Maute brothers. He was in a vehicle along with other members of his family that was stopped at a checkpoint in Davao City, 260 km (160 miles) to the southeast.

“As a patriarch and the father of the Maute brothers … I guess he can still persuade his sons to stop the fighting in Marawi and once and for all surrender to the government,” regional military spokesman Brigadier General Gilbert Gapay told the news conference.

Armed forces chief Año said about 100 Maute militants were holding out in Marawi, and the military was checking a report that one of the brothers, Omarkhayam, had been killed in an air strike.

Duterte, who launched a ruthless campaign against drugs after coming to power a year ago, has said the Marawi fighters were financed by drug lords in Mindanao, an island the size of South Korea that has suffered for decades from banditry and insurgencies.

Jo-Ar Herrera, a military spokesman, said the discovery of the banknotes and cheques was evidence the militants had links to international terrorist groups. However, he said an investigation was needed to establish the facts.

It is possible that the money came from a bank that was raided on the first day of the siege. Herrera told Reuters last week that a branch of Landbank had been attacked and he had heard that one of its vaults was opened.

A four-hour ceasefire to evacuate residents trapped in the town was interrupted by gunfire on Sunday, leaving some 500-600 inside with dwindling supplies of food and water.

Officials say that 1,469 civilians have been rescued.

The latest numbers for militants killed in the battle is 120, along with 39 security personnel. The authorities have put the civilian death toll at between 20 and 38.

Asked to describe the fighting skills and training of the militants in the town, Major Rimas said: “They have snipers and their positions are well defended. Maybe they watch war movies a lot, or action pictures a lot so they borrowed some tactics from it.”

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

British police name third London Bridge attacker as Youssef Zaghba

People near the scene of the recent attack observe a minute's silence in tribute to the victims of the attack at London Bridge and Borough Market, in central London, Britain June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville

By Estelle Shirbon and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) – British police named the third of the jihadis who killed seven people in a knife and van attack in London as Youssef Zaghba, 22, believed to be an Italian national of Moroccan descent.

The fallout from the attack eclipsed all other subjects in the political campaign ahead of Thursday’s general election, with both the ruling Conservatives and opposition Labour Party battling to defend their records on security.

Police said Zaghba had not been a subject of interest for them or for the MI5 domestic intelligence agency.

Earlier, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera had reported that Zaghba had been stopped at an Italian airport because authorities believed he was on his way to Syria, and that Italian officials had warned British counterparts about him.

In Britain’s third Islamist attack in as many months, the three men rammed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge on Saturday evening before running into the bustling Borough Market area, where they slit throats and stabbed people.

Police had named the other two attackers as Khuram Butt, 27, a British national born in Pakistan, and Rachid Redouane, 30, who had claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan. Butt was previously known to security agencies and had appeared in a British TV documentary called “The Jihadis Next Door”.

As these details have emerged, Prime Minister Theresa May has faced questions about her record overseeing cuts to police numbers when she was interior minister.

The latest opinion poll on voting intentions, by Survation for ITV, had the Conservatives’ lead over Labour narrowing to just one point from six points in the same poll a week earlier.

However, the consensus among pollsters remains that May’s party, who have been in government since 2010, will win a majority.

“ATTACK ON THE FREE WORLD”

Saturday’s rampage followed a suicide bombing that killed 22 adults and children at a pop concert in Manchester two weeks ago, and an attack in March when five people died after a car was driven into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge.

All three of the London Bridge attackers were shot dead at the scene by officers within eight minutes of police receiving the first emergency call.

The first among the dead to be named were Christine Archibald, a Canadian and Britons James McMullan and Kirsty Boden. The 48 injured included people from Britain, France, Spain, Australia and New Zealand, in what May called “an attack on the free world”.

“As she ran towards danger, in an effort to help people on the bridge, Kirsty sadly lost her life,” said Boden’s family in a statement on Tuesday. She was a nurse.

A nationwide minute of silence was held at 11 a.m. (1000 GMT) to honour all the victims.

Before the recent attacks, Brexit and domestic issues such as the state of the health service and the cost of care for the elderly had dominated the election campaign.

When May called the election in April, her Conservatives led in opinion polls by 20 points or more.

But an announcement – made before the Manchester and London Bridge attacks – that they planned to make some of the elderly pay more for their care saw that lead start to shrink, to between one and 12 points now.

The polls have continued to narrow since the attacks took place.

Security has become the number one issue and both main parties issued statements on Tuesday portraying their own positions on policing and intelligence as the most robust.

(Additional reporting by Antonella Cinelli and Gavin Jones in Rome, Alistair Smout and William James; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

U.S.-backed Syrian force launches battle to capture Raqqa from Islamic State

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman Talal Silo speaks during a press conference in Hukoumiya village in Raqqa, Syria June 6, 2017.REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said and Tom Perry

HUKOUMIYA, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Tuesday it had launched a battle to capture Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto Syrian capital, piling pressure on the jihadists whose self-declared caliphate is in retreat across Syria and Iraq.

SDF spokesman Talal Silo told Reuters the operation started on Monday and the fighting would be “fierce because Daesh (Islamic State) will die to defend their so-called capital”.

The assault overlaps with the final stages of the U.S.-backed attack to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State. It follows months of advances to the north, east and west of Raqqa by the SDF, which includes Arab and Kurdish militias.

Islamic State captured Raqqa from rebel groups in 2014 and has used it as an operations base to plan attacks in the West. Silo said the assault had begun from the north, east and west of the city, which is bordered to the south by the River Euphrates.

The commander of the Raqqa campaign, Rojda Felat, told Reuters SDF fighters were attacking the al-Mishlab district at the city’s southeastern outskirts, confirming an earlier report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“The coalition has a big role in the success of the operations. In addition to warplanes, there are coalition forces working side by side with the SDF,” Silo said by phone from the Hukoumiya farms area, 10 km (6 miles) north of Raqqa, where the SDF later declared the start of the assault.

A Reuters witness at the location could hear the sound of heavy shelling and air strikes in the distance.

An Arab group in the SDF, the Syrian Elite Forces, which was established in February, had entered al-Mishlab with coalition air support, its spokesman Mohammed al-Shaker said by phone.

“The Syrian Elite Forces one or two hours ago entered the first quarter of Raqqa, which is al-Mishlab quarter, via the eastern front,” he said.

The U.S.-led coalition said the fight for Raqqa would be “long and difficult” but would deliver a “decisive blow to the idea of ISIS (Islamic State) as a physical caliphate”.

“It’s hard to convince new recruits that ISIS is a winning cause when they just lost their twin ‘capitals’ in both Iraq and Syria,” a coalition statement cited Lt. Gen Steve Townsend, the coalition commanding general, as saying.

“We all saw the heinous attack in Manchester, England,” said Townsend. “ISIS threatens all of our nations, not just Iraq and Syria, but in our own homelands as well. This cannot stand.”

“Once ISIS is defeated in both Mosul and (Raqqa), there will still be a lot of hard fighting ahead,” he said.

Security officials in the West have warned of increased threat of attacks such as last month’s Manchester suicide bombing and Saturday’s attack in London as Islamic State loses ground in Syria and Iraq. Both attacks were claimed by Islamic State.

AIR STRIKES

The Observatory said the SDF had captured some buildings in the al-Mishlab area, and that Islamic State fighters had withdrawn from parts of the district. The Observatory also said an attack was underway against a military barracks, Division 17, on the northern outskirts of Raqqa.

The U.S.-led coalition has said 3,000-4,000 Islamic State fighters are thought to be holed up in Raqqa city, where they have erected defenses against the anticipated assault. The city is about 90 km (56 miles) from the border with Turkey.

The SDF includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia.

Fighting around Raqqa since late last year has displaced tens of thousands of people, with many flooding camps in the area and others stranded in the desert.

The U.N. human rights office has raised concerns about increasing reports of civilian deaths as air strikes escalate.

The Raqqa campaign has “resulted in massive civilian casualties, displacement and serious infrastructure destruction” so far, it said in a May report. Islamic State militants have also reportedly been preventing civilians from leaving, it said.

The U.S.-led coalition says it tries to avoid civilian casualties in its bombing runs in Syria and Iraq and investigates any allegations.

The Raqqa campaign has been the source of tension between the United States and Turkey, which fears growing Kurdish influence in northern Syria and has lobbied Washington to abandon its Kurdish YPG allies.

The YPG has been the main partner for the United States in its campaign against Islamic State in Syria, where the group is also being fought in separate campaigns waged by the Russian-backed Syrian government and Free Syrian Army rebel groups.

The United States last week said it had started distributing arms to the YPG to help take Raqqa.

The SDF has said it will hand control of Raqqa to a civilian council from the city after its capture, echoing the pattern in other areas the SDF took from Islamic State.

Speaking alongside Silo at the news conference, an official with the Raqqa civilian council said it would take control of the city from the “liberating forces”.

The SDF and YPG control a swathe of northeastern Syria from the Iraqi border to the city of Manbij on the western banks of the Euphrates. The main Kurdish groups and their allies have established autonomous administration in the areas under their control, which they aim to preserve in any peace deal.

(Reporting by Rodi Said in Syria, Tom Perry and Ellen Francis in Beirut; Additional reporting by Mahmoud Mourad in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Kurdish YPG says ‘major operation’ on Syria’s Raqqa to start in days

FILE PHOTO: Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters hold up their weapons in the north of Raqqa city, Syria February 3, 2017. Picture taken February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S.-backed operation by Syrian forces to capture Islamic State’s Syrian “capital” of Raqqa will start in the next “few days”, the spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Saturday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition, has been encircling Raqqa since November in a multi-phased campaign to drive Islamic State from the city where it has planned attacks on the West.

The assault on Raqqa will pile more pressure on Islamic State’s self-declared “caliphate” with the group facing defeat in the Iraqi city of Mosul and being forced into retreat across much of Syria, where Deir al-Zor is its last major foothold.

“The forces reached the outskirts of the city, and the major operation will start … in the coming few days,” YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud told Reuters by phone.

He was confirming a report citing the spokeswoman for the Raqqa campaign, Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, as indicating a new phase to storm Raqqa would start in the “coming few days”. The remarks made in an interview with a local media outlet were circulated by an SDF-run Whatsapp group.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State said it would not comment on the timeline for the next phase of operations to retake the Syrian city, located on the River Euphrates some 90 km (56 miles) from the Turkish border.

The spokesman, Colonel Ryan Dillon, said the SDF were “advancing closer and closer every day”, having moved to within 3 km (less than two miles) of Raqqa to the north and east.

To the west, the SDF were less than 10 km (six miles) away, he said in an email interview.

The United States said on Tuesday it had started distributing arms to the YPG to help take Raqqa, part of a plan that has angered NATO-ally Turkey, which is worried by growing Kurdish influence in northern Syria.

Turkey views the YPG as the Syrian extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey since 1984 and is considered a terrorist group by the United States, Turkey and Europe.

The U.S.-led coalition has said some 3,000 to 4,000 Islamic State fighters are thought to be holed up in Raqqa city, where they have erected defenses against the anticipated assault.

The U.S.-led coalition has provided air support and special forces to help the SDF operations near Raqqa.

“The battle will not be easy,” Mahmoud said. “Of course (IS) has tunnels, mines, car bombs, suicide bombers, and at the same time it is using civilians as human shields.”

Once Raqqa falls, Deir al-Zor province in eastern Syria will be Islamic State’s last major foothold in Syria and Iraq.

“Daesh will resist because Raqqa is its capital and if Raqqa goes that means the entire caliphate is gone,” Mahmoud said.

(Reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Helen Popper)