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Amnesty urges independent probe into atrocities, bombings in battle for Philippines Marawi city

MANILA (Reuters) – The war in the Philippine city of Marawi saw Islamist insurgents execute civilians or use them as human shields, while military air strikes killed non-combatants and may have been used in excess, an Amnesty International report said on Friday.

The investigation by the rights group on the bloody five-month battle was based on interviews with 48 witnesses from September until early November and called for an independent inquiry.

The conflict in Marawi, the only predominantly Muslim city in the mainly Catholic Philippines, was the country’s biggest and longest battle since World War Two. More than 1,100 people, mostly insurgents, were killed, including 166 soldiers and 47 civilians, according to the authorities.

At least 350,000 people were displaced and large parts of Marawi have been decimated by air strikes.

Witnesses described at least 10 separate incidents where at least 25 people were executed by the Muslim extremists because they were Christians. Amnesty described those as war crimes.

It also said 10 hostages may have been killed in a single bombing run by the armed forces, and said an independent inquiry should include an assessment as to whether the air strikes were proportionate to the threat.

“They must initiate a prompt, effective and impartial investigation into whether its bombings of civilian neighborhoods was proportional under international humanitarian law,” Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s crisis response director, said in a statement.

“The Philippine authorities must bring those responsible for torture and other violations to justice and ensure that the victims receive adequate reparations.”

Major-General Restituto Padilla, armed forces spokesman, said the military was aware of the report and would respond in full later. He said troops were given strict instructions to observe and respect international humanitarian law and human rights.

“We will not tolerate and condone these abuses and will act on them,” he told a regular news briefing on Friday.

The 34-page report, “The Battle of Marawi: Death and destruction in the Philippines”, quotes a survivor who said he was spared by rebels because he could recite the “shahada”, a statement of Islamic faith, but a Christian ambulance driver was shot dead because he could not do the same.

Other survivors said hostages were executed or physically abused, forced into labor and used as human shields.

Some hostages who escaped alleged they were detained and tortured by security forces who suspected them to be militants. Amnesty said it talked to eight men, including seven Christians, who said they were badly treated by the authorities.

“I was punched and kicked. They tied our hands and feet with electrical wire,” the report quoted one survivor as saying. “The military was angry because 13 of their men were killed.”

Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis praised the Philippine military for ending the war without a single credible human rights abuse allegation.

Amnesty noted that the military was responding to concerns about looting by soldiers but “must follow through on promises of compensation”.

(Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty and Michael Perry)

Iraqi forces recapture last Islamic State-held town

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces on Friday captured the border town of Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic State control, signalling the collapse of the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate.

Rawa’s capture marks the end of Islamic State’s era of territorial rule over a so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Iraqi forces “liberated Rawa entirely, and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings,” Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah said in a statement from the Joint Operations Command.

Syria’s army has also declared victory against Islamic State, but last week militants re-infiltrated Albu Kamal, near the border from Iraq, and are still fighting there, as well as in some villages and desert areas nearby.

All the forces fighting Islamic State in both countries expect a new phase of guerrilla warfare, a tactic the militants have already shown themselves capable of.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulated Iraq’s armed forces and people, saying Rawa was retaken in record time.

“Liberation of Rawa district in mere hours reflects the great strength and power of our heroic armed forces and the successful planning for battles,” he said in a statement.

A video issued by the military showed Iraqi forces sending a message to Rawa’s residents via radio which said: “Daesh has ended for good, and now the age of Iraq begins,” referring to the Sunni militant group by an Arabic acronym.

Another showed a convoy of military vehicles sporting Iraqi flags and blasting out the national anthem. State television played patriotic songs and aired footage of troops in Rawa.

“With the liberation of Rawa we can say all the areas in which Daesh is present have been liberated,” a military spokesman said.

Iraqi forces will now focus on routing the militants who fled into the desert and exert control over Iraq’s borders, the spokesman said.

Rawa borders Syria, whose army seized the last substantial town on the border with Iraq, Albu Kamal.

Albu Kamal shares a border crossing with al-Qaim in Iraq. The militants lost control of the border crossing earlier this month, dealing a critical blow to the organisation, which had long relied on the route to move its fighters and equipment.

The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is believed to be hiding in the stretch of desert which runs along the border of both countries.

SHRINKING CALIPHATE

Driven this year from its two de facto capitals — Iraq’s Mosul and Syria’s Raqqa — Islamic State was progressively squeezed into an ever-shrinking pocket of desert, straddling the frontier between the two countries, by enemies that include most regional states and global powers.

In Iraq, Islamic State faced the army and the Shi’ite paramilitary groups, backed both by the U.S.-led international coalition and by Iran.

Iraq has been carrying out its final campaign to crush the Islamic State caliphate while also mounting a military offensive in the north against the Kurds who held an independence referendum in September.

However, Islamic State’s defeat does not mean civilians are now safe, the International Rescue Committee said. Nearly 3.2 million people are unable or unwilling to return home after years of displacement and over 11 million are in need of vital humanitarian assistance, it said.

“Today marks a historic day for the people of Iraq. It is, however, vital that the international community does not view the end of (Islamic State) territorial control as the end of their responsibility to the Iraqi people who have endured years of conflict and face a long, difficult recovery,” the group’s Iraq Country Director Wendy Taeuber said in a statement.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein and Raya Jalabi; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Suicide bomb attack near Afghan political gathering kills nine

KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomb attack in the Afghan capital on Thursday near a gathering of supporters of an influential regional leader killed at least nine people and wounded many, the interior ministry said.

It was not clear if the politician, Atta Mohammad Noor, governor of the northern province of Balkh and a leader of the mainly ethnic Tajik Jamiat-i-Islami party, was at the meeting at the time of the attack.

Islamic State claimed responsibility, according to Amaq, its official news agency. The Taliban denied involvement.

“We are proud to be martyred because of our country and our rights. This gathering was for the sake of our country to raise our voice,” said witness Jan Mohammad.

The explosion was the latest in a wave of violence that has killed and wounded thousands of civilians in Afghanistan this year.

Political tensions are up as politicians have begun jockeying for position ahead of presidential elections expected in 2019.

A spokesman for the interior ministry said the bomber approached the hotel hosting the gathering in the Khair Khana district of Kabul, on foot. The dead included seven policemen and two civilians.

Media showed photographs, apparently from witnesses, which appeared to show about a dozen bodies. Reuters was unable to verify the photos.

The northern-based Jamiat-i-Islami was for years the main opponent of the Taliban, who draw their support largely from the southern-based ethnic Pashtun community.

In June, a suicide bomber attacked a meeting of Jamiat-i-Islami leaders, including Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

Abdullah, who is backed by Noor, and other ethnic minority leaders, formed a coalition government with President Ashraf Ghani after a disputed 2014 presidential election.

Ghani on Wednesday sacked the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, raising doubts over whether parliamentary and council ballots scheduled for next year will take place as planned.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi, Mirwais Harooni, Mohammad Aziz and Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi; Writing by Girish Gupta; Editing by Nick Macfie, Robert Birsel)

Kurdish YPG aims to conquer Syrian region, not fight Islamic State: Turkish minister

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Recent developments in Syria’s Raqqa show that the Kurdish YPG militia, backed by the United States, is more concerned about capturing territory than fighting Islamic State, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a speech on Thursday.

Turkey has expressed anger that a convoy of Islamic State fighters were allowed to withdraw from Raqqa last month as part of an agreement with the YPG, saying it was “appalled” by the United States’ stance on the issue. [nL8N1NK9RZ]

Ankara was also infuriated by Washington’s support for the Syria Kurdish fighters, seen by Turks as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union.

Turkish procurement of U.S. defence equipment is being delayed in the United States, according to the text of Cavusoglu’s speech, and Turkey is developing alternative solutions for this sector.

“We are unfortunately facing important delays in the procurement of defence equipment we urgently need in the fight against terror from the United States due to U.S. internal practices,” the text said, without elaborating.

“Evidently, as these periods are prolonged, we are developing alternative means to acquire the equipment and systems we require, primarily through our own national resources.”

Turkey recently completed the purchase of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, a defence deal that Turkey’s Western allies see as a snub to the NATO alliance as the weapon cannot be integrated into the alliance’s systems. [nL8N1NI0ED]

Ankara also said it was making agreements with the Franco-Italian EUROSAM consortium to develop, produce and use its own sources for air defence system. [nL5N1NE7DI]

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Philippines’ Duterte lauds China’s help at ‘crucial moment’ in Marawi battle

By Karen Lema and Martin Petty

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday heaped praise on visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang for what he said was China’s “critical” role in expediting the end of a five-month war with Islamist insurgents in a Philippine town.

Duterte credited China with supplying what he said was the rifle that on Oct. 16 killed Islamic State’s regional point man, Isnilon Hapilon, and said he would present that weapon to China as a mark of appreciation for its help in the war in Marawi City.

“I am going to return to you the rifle so that the Chinese people would know, it was critical, it is a symbol of the critical help,” Duterte told Li, the first Chinese premier to visit the Philippines in a decade.

There are doubts, however, about if it really was a Chinese sniper rifle that killed Hapilon, and uncertainty about whether the military has used any of the 6,100 guns Beijing has donated since June.

The Philippine defense minister recently said all those weapons were given to the police.

Hapilon was killed by members of the 8th Scout Ranger Company. “Scout Ranger Books”, a Facebook page of one of the ranger officers, gave a blow-by-blow account of the operation and said the shot that killed Hapilon came from a gun mounted on an armored vehicle.

Members of the unit also told media the shot came from a fixed weapon controlled remotely. Such weapons are typically 50-calibre machine guns.

“The arms you gave us, helped abbreviate, shorten the military fight there,” Duterte said.

On Friday, he said something similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He told him Russia had “helped us turn the tide and to shorten the war” by supplying weapons that Philippine soldiers used to kill militant snipers in Marawi.

The Russian arms were actually delivered two days after military operations were declared over.

The conflict was the biggest and longest battle in the Philippines since World War Two. More than 1,000 people, most of them rebel gunmen, were killed and 353,000 were displaced.

Duterte told Li China’s help came at “the crucial moment when we needed most and there was nobody to help us at that time”.

His remarks may not sit well with the United States and Australia, which from the early stages of the conflict were providing technical support to Philippine forces, including surveillance aircraft to pinpoint locations of militants.

Li said China would provide 150 million yuan ($22.7 million) to help with reconstruction in Marawi. He praised Duterte for last year putting aside festering disputes with China and visiting Beijing, a trip he said was an “ice-breaker”.

Philippine security analyst Renato De Castro said the information Duterte gave to Li was inaccurate, but consistent with his policy of “total appeasement” of China.

“I’m really surprised, I don’t know whether it’s flattery or an outright lie,” he told news channel ANC.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. to fight Islamic State in Syria ‘as long as they want to fight’: Mattis

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military will fight Islamic State in Syria “as long as they want to fight,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday, describing a longer-term role for U.S. troops long after the insurgents lose all of the territory they control.

As U.S.-backed and Russian-backed forces battle to retake the remaining pockets of Islamic State-held terrain, Mattis said the U.S. military’s longer-term objective would be to prevent the return of an “ISIS 2.0.”

“The enemy hasn’t declared that they’re done with the area yet, so we’ll keep fighting as long as they want to fight,” Mattis said, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon about the future of U.S. operations in Syria.

He also stressed the importance of longer-term peace efforts, suggesting U.S. forces aimed to help set the conditions of a diplomatic solution in Syria, now in its seventh year of civil war.

“We’re not just going to walk away right now before the Geneva process has traction,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed joint efforts to stabilize Syria as its civil war wanes, including with the expansion of a July 7 truce in the southwestern triangle bordering Israel and Jordan.

Mattis said he believed the southwestern zone was working, and spoke hopefully about additional areas in the future that might allow for more refugees to return home.

“You keep broadening them. Try to (demilitarize) one area then (demilitarize) another and just keep it going, try to do the things that will allow people to return to their homes,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.

He declined to enter into specifics about any future zones.

Russia, which has a long-term military garrison in Syria, has said it wants foreign forces to quit the country eventually.

Turkey said on Monday the United States had 13 bases in Syria and Russia had five. The U.S-backed Syrian YPG Kurdish militia has said Washington has established seven military bases in areas of northern Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition says it does not discuss the location of its forces.

One key aim for Washington is to limit Iranian influence in Syria and Iraq, which expanded during the war with Islamic State.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Erdogan swipes at Russia, U.S. missions in Syria

ANKARA/SOCHI (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan took swipes at U.S. and Russian interventions in Syria on Monday and said if countries truly believed a military solution was impossible, they should withdraw their troops.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump said in a joint statement on Saturday they would continue to fight against Islamic State in Syria, while agreeing that there was no military solution to the country’s wider, six-year-old conflict.

“I am having trouble understanding these comments,” Erdogan told reporters before flying to Russia for talks with Putin. “If a military solution is out of the question, then those who say this should pull their troops out.

“Then a political method should be sought in Syria, ways to head into elections should be examined… We will discuss these with Putin,” he said.

After more than four hours of talks with Putin in the southern Russian resort of Sochi, Erdogan said the two leaders had agreed to focus on a political solution to the conflict.

“We agreed that the grounds to focus on a political solution (in Syria) have been formed,” he said.

Putin said Russia would continue to work on Syria with Turkey and their efforts were yielding results: “The level of violence has definitely been reduced, favorable conditions are being created for the progression of a inter-Syrian dialogue.”

Neither leader went into more specific detail. Asked if the two discussed Erdogan’s earlier comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the talks were about more complex issues which could not be made public, according to RIA news agency.

Turkey has been annoyed by both Russian and U.S. missions in Syria. Before his trip to Russia, Erdogan said both Moscow, which backs President Bashar al-Assad, and Washington, which armed Syrian YPG Kurdish forces Ankara sees as allied to separatists fighting in southeastern Turkey, had set up bases.

“The United States said it would completely leave Iraq, but it didn’t. The world is not stupid, some realities are being told differently and practiced differently,” he said.

He said the United States had 13 bases in Syria and Russia had five. The YPG has said Washington has established seven military bases in areas of northern Syria. The U.S.-led coalition says it does not discuss the location of its forces.

Russia has been a strong supporter of Assad, whose removal Erdogan has demanded, and Moscow’s military intervention two years ago helped turn the conflict in the Syrian president’s favor.

Turkish troops have also fought in Syria to halt the advance of Kurdish YPG forces along its frontier.

“We attach great importance to the joint steps Turkey and Russia will take on (the) defense industry,” Erdogan said.

His remarks follow Turkey’s recently completed purchase of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, a defense deal that Turkey’s Western allies see as a snub to the NATO alliance.

The weapon cannot be integrated into NATO defenses.

Ankara says it is making agreements with the Franco-Italian EUROSAM consortium to develop, produce and use its own sources for air defense system.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay in ANKARA, Olesya Astakhova in SOCHI and Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; Writing by Dominic Evans and Jack Stubbs; Editing by Ralph Boulton and Peter Graff, William Maclean)

France frets over internal threat two years after Paris attacks

A white rose hangs near a commemorative plaque facing the 'Le Carillon' bar and 'Le Petit Cambodge' during a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the Paris attacks of November 2015 in which 130 people were killed, in Paris, France, November 13, 2017.

By Marine Pennetier

PARIS (Reuters) – Two years after militants killed 130 people in coordinated attacks across Paris, French officials say there remains an unprecedented level of “internal” threat from both within and outside the country.

With Islamic State losing ground in Iraq and Syria, hundreds of French citizens – and in some cases their children – have started to return to France, leaving the government in a quandary over how to deal with them.

For the first time as president, Emmanuel Macron will pay tribute on Monday to the victims of the mass shootings and suicide bombing that took place across Paris and in the city’s northern suburb of Saint-Denis on Nov. 13, 2015.

The attacks, the deadliest on French soil since World War Two, prompted the country to strike back, joining international military operations targeting IS and other Islamist militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.

There has also been the passage of more stringent French legislation, with the most recent law, effective this month, giving police extended powers to search properties, conduct electronic eavesdropping and shut mosques or other locations suspected of preaching hatred.

Conservative politicians say the regulations don’t go far enough, while human rights groups express alarm, saying security forces are being given too much freedom to curtail rights.

Macron – often parodied for his ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ policy pronouncements – has emphasized the need to balance security and liberty. While he has ended the state of emergency brought in after the attacks, heavily armed soldiers still patrol the streets of Paris daily, and barely a week goes by without a police operation to round up suspects.

“MORE DISAPPOINTED THAN SORRY”

According to the interior ministry, extraordinary measures have helped intelligence agencies thwart more than 30 attacks in the last two years. Last week, the police arrested nine people and another was apprehended in Switzerland in a coordinated counter-terrorism operation.

“What worries us are plans for terrorist attacks prepared by teams that are still operating in fighting zones in Syria and Iraq,” Laurent Nunez, head of France’s internal intelligence agency DGSI told French daily Le Figaro in a rare interview.

The risk of a home-grown attack also remains strong, with a risk of more attacks from isolated individuals using “low-cost” methods such as cars or knives to kill, he said.

The hypothesis of a car bomb attack or suicide bomber cannot be excluded either although his services had not uncovered any such plan, he said.

Of particular concern is what to do about hundreds of French citizens who went to fight with IS and may now seek to return home, now that the militant group has lost nearly all the territory its self-proclaimed caliphate ruled in Syria and Iraq.

“We know that the will of the jihadists to take action is intact,” Nunez said.

Visiting Abu Dhabi last week, Macron said those returning would be studied on “a case-by-case” basis.

“Some of them will be coming back (by their own means), others will be repatriated and some, in specific circumstances, will be facing trial with their families in the countries where they are currently, Iraq in particular,” he said.

“A majority doesn’t want to come back to France given the legal proceedings they face upon their return. But some women, widows, with their children, are inclined to travel back,” French prosecutor Francois Molins said. “We should not be naive. We are dealing with people who are more ‘disappointed’ than ‘sorry.'”

(This version of the story adds dropped words in first paragraph)

(Writing by Matthias Blamont, additional reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Luke Baker, Peter Graff and Richard Balmforth)

We’ll buy arms from Russia, Philippines’ Duterte tells Putin

DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte thanked Moscow on Friday for its “timely assistance” in defeating pro-Islamic State militants who took over a southern city for months, expressing his willingness to buy Russian weapons.

Duterte last month declared the liberation of Marawi City from Islamist militants after 154 days of fighting, which killed more than 1,100 people, including 165 soldiers, and displaced nearly 400,000 residents.

“I want to build a strong armed forces and a strong police and the reason is very important for you to know that we are eyeing – we are buying arms from Russia this time,” Duterte told Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam.

The Philippines was to buy more than 20,000 assault rifles from the United States, but some senators, concerned with Duterte’s human rights record and rising killings, blocked that sale.

But China and Russia, whose relations with the Philippines have vastly improved in recent months, donated a total of 11,000 assault rifles and trucks.

“Your timely assistance to my country helped us replenish the old arms and the spent bores that were fired repeatedly and we have a new stock,” he said, in transcripts sent to Manila by the presidential communications office.

Manila and Moscow signed a military deal on logistics, including a contract with a state-owned company for the supply of equipment, during the first-ever visit by a Russian defense minister to the Philippines last month.

The Philippines will have a 125 billion pesos ($2.44 billion) fund to modernize the military from 2018 to 2022 through a multi-year congressional allocation to upgrade its hardware, a senior military official told Reuters.

“We are looking at helicopters, small arms and equipment for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, but we are still discussing the specifics,” said the same military official who declined to be named because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

“We still prefer U.S. and Western equipment but they are very expensive. If the Russians and Chinese equipment can be comparable in quality, then they can be excellent alternatives.”

(Writing by Manuel Mogato in Manila; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Hezbollah media unit: Islamic State leader reported in Syrian town

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Hezbollah-run media unit said on Friday Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was reported to have been in the Syrian town of Albu Kamal during the Syrian army and its allies’ operation to clear it.

The military unit did not say what had happened to Baghdadi, give further details or identify its sources.

The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State said on Friday it had no “releasable information” on Baghdadi’s whereabouts.

Syria’s army declared victory over Islamic State on Thursday, saying its capture of the jihadists’ last town in the country marked the collapse of their three-year rule in the region.

But the army and its allies are still fighting Islamic State in desert areas close to Albu Kamal near the border with Iraq, the Syrian army said on Thursday.

On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State has taken back control of half of Albu Kamal.

The capture of the border town had sealed “the fall of the terrorist Daesh organization’s project in the region”, an army statement said on Thursday, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

An audio message purported to be from Baghdadi was released in September. Baghdadi declared himself caliph and heir to Islam’s historic leaders from the great medieval mosque in Iraq’s Mosul in 2014.

(This version of the story was refiled to clarify source in headline)

(Reporting by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry and Andrew Roche)

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