Tag Archives: ISIS

U.S. adds to forces in Syria to expedite IS defeat in Raqqa: coalition

A U.S. fighter walks down a ladder from a barricade, north of Raqqa city, Syria, November 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S. Marines artillery unit has deployed to Syria in recent days to help local forces speed up efforts to defeat Islamic State at Raqqa and the campaign to isolate the city is going “very, very well”, the U.S.-led coalition said on Thursday.

Coalition spokesman U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian said the additional U.S. forces would be working with local partners in Syria – the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian Arab Coalition – and would not have a front line role.

The additional deployment comprises a total of 400 U.S. forces – both Marines and Army Rangers. It adds to around 500 U.S. military personnel already in Syria, Dorrian said.

The SDF, which includes the Kurdish YPG militia, is the main U.S. partner in the war against Islamic State insurgents in Syria. Since November it has been working with the U.S.-led coalition to encircle Raqqa, IS’s main urban bastion in Syria.

This week, the SDF cut the road between Raqqa and the jihadists’ stronghold of Deir al-Zor province – the last main road out of the city.

Islamic State is also being fought in Syria by the Russian-backed Syrian military, and by Syrian rebel groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner with Turkish backing in northern Syria and Jordanian backing in southern Syria.

Dorrian said the effort to isolate Raqqa was “going very very well” and could be completed in a few weeks. “Then the decision to move in can be made,” he said.

The additional forces had arrived in “the last few days”, he told Reuters by telephone.

The artillery will help “expedite the defeat of ISIS in Raqqa”, he said, using another acronym for Islamic State. The Marines were armed with 155-millimetre artillery guns. Asked if they had been used yet, Dorrian said he did not believe so.

“We have had what I would describe as a pretty relentless air campaign to destroy enemy capabilities and to kill enemy fighters in that area already. That is something that we are going to continue and intensify with this new capability.”

“We are talking about an additional 400 or so forces in total, and they will be there for a temporary period,” he said.

A Kurdish military source told Reuters the extra U.S. forces were deployed as part of a joint plan between the SDF and U.S.-led coalition to capture Raqqa, and further U.S. reinforcements were expected to arrive in the coming few days.

Dorrian said the Army Rangers were on a different mission to the Marines in a previously announced deployment near the city of Manbij to “create some reassurance” for U.S.-allied Turkey and U.S. partners in Syria – a reference to the SDF.

Turkey views the YPG as a threat to its national security and says the Kurdish militia maintains a presence in Manbij. The YPG denies this. Fearing deepening Kurdish influence in northern Syria, Turkey has been pressing Washington for a role in the final assault on Raqqa.

Dorrian said a possible role for Turkey “remains a point of discussion at military leadership and diplomatic levels”.

“We have always said we are open to a role for Turkey in the liberation of Raqqa and will continue that discussion to whatever logical end there is.”

(Writing by Tom Perry; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Iraq aims to drive Islamic State from west Mosul within a month

Displaced Iraqi people, who fled their homes during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, carry their belongings in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Ahmed Rasheed and John Davison

SULAIMANIYA/MOSUL (Reuters) – Iraqi forces aim to dislodge Islamic State militants from west Mosul within a month, despite grueling urban combat in densely populated terrain, the head of the elite Counter Terrorism Service told Reuters on Thursday.

As Iraqi forces advance deeper into west Mosul, they are facing increasingly stiff resistance from Islamic State militants using suicide car bombs and snipers to defend their last major stronghold in Iraq.

Their operation to retake the eastern bank of the city, launched in mid-October with support from a U.S.-led coalition, took more than three months. The offensive to recapture west Mosul got underway less than three weeks ago.

“Despite the tough fighting… we are moving ahead in persistence to finish the battle for the western side within a month,” Lieutenant General Talib Shaghati told Reuters at a conference in Sulaimaniya.

Smoke rises from clashes during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

Smoke rises from clashes during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

The few thousand militants still fighting in west Mosul are overwhelmingly outnumbered by a 100,000-strong array of Iraqi forces, but their ruthless tactics east of the Tigris river late last year enabled them to hold out much longer than the government’s initial optimistic predictions.

Mosul is by far the largest city which Islamic State has held in its cross-border, self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria. It has been losing ground in both countries, with three separate forces, backed by the United States, Turkey and Russia, advancing on its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

In Mosul, CTS forces recaptured the Moalimin and Silo districts on Thursday, according to the commander of the campaign Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah.

Inside the city, CTS are fighting alongside the Federal Police and the elite interior ministry Rapid Response force, which earlier this week recaptured the provincial government headquarters and the Mosul museum.

A federal police colonel said on Thursday there were skirmishes close to the museum, where the militants filmed themselves destroying priceless statues and sculptures in 2015.

“The frontline is just beyond it,” said Lieutenant Colonel Hammeed Habib of the Rapid Response forces. “There are snipers stationed in tall hotel buildings on a road beyond that line”.

A 5-months-old child suffering from dehydration, Batoul Bashir Ahmad, is carried by his mother, an Iraqi displaced woman who fled her home during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

A 5-months-old child suffering from dehydration, Batoul Bashir Ahmad, is carried by his mother, an Iraqi displaced woman who fled her home during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

The Iraqi army’s ninth division and Shi’ite paramilitary forces said on Wednesday they had cut the main road between the city and the Islamic State stronghold of Tal Afar to the west, tightening a noose around the city.

There is little doubt Iraqi forces will eventually prevail over the militants, who are both outnumbered and overpowered, but even if it loses Mosul, Islamic State is expected to revert to their insurgent tactics of old.

On Wednesday, bomb blasts ripped through a wedding party near Tikrit, which was recaptured by Iraqi forces in 2015, killing more than 20 people.

The jihadist group has lost most of the cities it captured in northern and western Iraq in 2014 and 2015. In Syria, it still holds Raqqa city as its stronghold, as well as most of Deir al-Zor province.

(Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Iraqi forces see off Islamic State attack, seize road out of Mosul

A displaced Iraqi man carries his granddaughter while fleeing his home, as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 8, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

By Isabel Coles and Ahmed Rasheed

MOSUL/SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces saw off an overnight Islamic State counter-attack near Mosul’s main government buildings and took full control on Wednesday of the last major road leading west to the militant-held town of Tal Afar, the military said.

Inside the city troops battled the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim fighters, who hid among the remaining civilian population and deployed snipers and suicide car bombs to defend their last major Iraq stronghold.

The U.S.-backed campaign to crush the militants saw Iraqi forces recapture the eastern side of the city in January, and launch their assault on the western half last month.

Fighting is expected to get tougher as Iraqi troops get push further into the more densely populated areas, including Mosul’s old city.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the group’s self styled-caliphate, which has spanned areas of northern Iraq and eastern Syria, from the Nuri Mosque in Mosul’s old city in June 2014.

Militants used car bombs in their nighttime counter-attack around the governorate building, Major General Ali Kadhem al-Lami of the Federal Police’s Fifth Division told a Reuters correspondent near the site. “Today we’re clearing the area which was liberated,” he said.

Military officials had said that Rapid Response troops, an elite interior ministry division, recaptured the provincial government headquarters on Tuesday, as well as the central bank branch and the museum where militants filmed themselves destroying priceless statues in 2015.

“The museum is completely empty of all artifacts. They were stolen, possibly smuggled,” Lami said. Reuters was not yet able to access the museum to verify.

Lami said most of the fighters that had fought around the governorate building were local but there were some foreigners.

“An order was issued for foreign fighters with families to withdraw with them. Those who do not have a family should stay and fight, whether foreign or local,” he said.

The few families remaining in the nearby Dawasa district said the militants had set some of their homes on fire as security forces advanced and that the militants had fought among themselves.

LAST ROAD FROM MOSUL

Later on Wednesday, the Iraqi military said the army and Shi’ite paramilitary forces had taken full control of the last major road leading west out of Mosul towards the town of Tal Afar, state TV reported.

The 9th Armored Division and two Shi’ite fighting groups had “isolated the right bank (western side of Mosul) from Tal Afar”, it said.

The road links Mosul to Tal Afar, another Islamic State stronghold 60 km (40 miles) to the west, and then to the Syrian border.

Shi’ite militias which are part of the Mosul campaign began to close in on Tal Afar late last year, after the offensive was launched, and said they linked up with Kurdish fighters nearby to encircle the jihadists.

A 100,000-strong force of Iraqi military units, Shi’ite forces and Kurdish fighters, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, have fought since October in the intensive Mosul campaign.

Losing Mosul would deal a fatal blow to the Iraqi part of Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate, which its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared from the city’s Nuri Mosque in 2014, and which has spanned large areas of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Iraq would continue hitting Islamic State targets in Syria, as well as in neighboring countries if they give their approval.

Abadi on Feb. 24 announced the first Iraqi air strike on Syrian territory, targeting Islamic State positions in retaliation for bomb attacks in Baghdad.

“I respect the sovereignty of states, and I have secured the approval of Syria to strike positions (on its territory),” Abadi told a conference in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya on Wednesday.

“I will not hesitate to strike the positions of the terrorists in the neighboring countries. We will keep on fighting them,” he said.

The ultra-hardline jihadist group has lost most cities it captured in northern and western Iraq in 2014 and 2015.

In Syria, it still holds Raqqa city as its main stronghold, as well as most of Deir al-Zor province, but is losing ground to an array of separate enemies, including U.S.-backed forces and the Russian-backed Syrian army.

The group has carried out bombings in Iraqi and Syrian cities as its caliphate has shrunk.

(Writing by John Davison in Erbil; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Dominic Evans)

Iraqi forces recapture Mosul government buildings, museum

Military vehicles of federal police are seen during a battle with Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Isabel Coles and John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces fighting to drive Islamic State from western Mosul on Tuesday recaptured the main government building, the central bank branch and the museum where three years ago the militants had smashed statues and artifacts.

The government buildings had been destroyed and were not used by Islamic State, but their capture still represented a symbolic victory in the battle over the militants’ last major stronghold in Iraq.

An elite Rapid Response team stormed the Nineveh governorate building and government complex in an overnight raid, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammadawi said.

They also seized a building that housed Islamic State’s main court of justice, known for its harsh sentences, including stonings, throwing people off building roofs and chopping off hands, reflecting Islamic State’s extreme ideology.

“They killed tens from Daesh,” Mohammadawi said, referring to Islamic State by one of its Arabic acronyms. The raid lasted more than an hour.

The militants looted the central bank when they took over the city in 2014 and took videos of themselves destroying statues and artifacts.

Illegal traffic in antiquities that abound in the territory under their control, from the sites of Palmyra in Syria to Nineveh in Iraq, was one of their main sources of income.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flew into to Mosul to visit the troops engaged in the fighting.

“Iraqis shall walk tall when the war is over,” he told state TV as he arrived there.

The breakthrough paves the way for the U.S.-backed forces to attack the militants in the old city of Mosul, the most complicated phase in the nearly five-month campaign due to the density of the population and the narrowness of the alleyways. The militants are dug in amongst civilians in the historic district.

It was from the Nuri Mosque in the old city that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared in 2014 a caliphate also spanning parts of neighboring Syria.

The old city lies on the western bank of the Tigris river that cuts Mosul in two. About 750,000 people were estimated by aid organizations to live in west Mosul when the offensive started on this side of the city on Feb. 19.

The Iraqi forces took the eastern half in January, after 100 days of fighting. They are backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition.

Defeating Islamic State in Mosul would crush the Iraqi wing of the self-declared caliphate, which also suffering setbacks in Syria.

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces cut the last main road out of the Islamic State capital there, Raqqa, on Monday. Islamic State is also fighting off the Russian-backed Syrian army as well as and Turkey and allied Syrian rebels.

The number of Islamic State fighters in Mosul was estimated at 6,000 at the start of the offensive on Oct. 17, by the Iraqi military who estimate several thousands have been killed since.

Lined up against them is a 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

Some of Islamic State’s foreign fighters are trying to flee Mosul, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler told Reuters at the Qayyara West Airfield, south of the city.

“The game is up,” Isler said. “They have lost this fight and what you’re seeing is a delaying action.”

SNIPER FIRE

Islamic State snipers continued to fire at the main government building after it fell into government hands, restricting the movements of the soldiers.

Rapid Response sharp-shooters were firing back from the building. One of them said four enemy snipers had been killed.

“The fighting is strong because most of them are foreigners and they have nowhere to go,” said the head of a sniper unit for the Rapid Response, al-Moqdadi al-Saeedi.

More than 40,000 people fled their homes in the past week, bringing the total number of displaced since the start of the offensive to more than 211,000, according to the United Nations.

Dozens more streamed out of the Mamoun district in southwestern Mosul toward U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) troops as machinegunfire rang out in the background.

U.S. special forces were also seen walking between buildings in the same area, some of them carrying assault rifles with scopes and silencers. Helicopters attacked targets just north of their positions as thick smoke filled the sky from various explosions.

Agencies say camps to accommodate them are nearly full even though the United Nations said last month that more than 400,000 people still in western Mosul could be displaced.

Several thousand have been killed and wounded in the fighting, both civilians and military, according to aid organizations.

(For map of Mosul click http://tmsnrt.rs/2fd0nGE)

(Writing by Maher Chmaytell; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Syrian army takes more villages from militants in northwest Syria

Rebel fighters pose for a picture in a damaged neighbourhood in the northern Syrian town of al-Bab, Syria March 4, 2017. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

AMMAN (Reuters) – The Syrian army has expanded its control over former Islamic State-held villages in northwest Syria, gaining more territory as it pushes back the jihadists from more pockets in Aleppo province, state media said on Saturday.

The army has made steady progress in recent weeks in eastern Aleppo countryside where it now occupies more villages, state-owned Ikhbariyah quoted a military source as saying.

The army’s gains follow a push to the south and east of the city of al-Bab, which was captured by Turkey-backed rebels late last month.

Earlier, rebels said they had thwarted a large assault by the Syrian army and Iranian-backed rebels on their remaining strongholds in the western Aleppo countryside near Rashdeen.

By taking Islamic State territory south of al-Bab, the army is preventing any possible move by Turkey and the rebel groups it supports to expand southwards. It is also moving closer to regaining control of water supplies for Aleppo.

Islamic State’s holdings in northwest Syria have been whittled away over recent months by successive advances by three different, rival forces: Syrian Kurdish groups backed by the United States, the Turkey-backed rebels, and the army.

Islamic State’s loss of al-Bab after weeks of bitter street fighting marks the group’s effective departure from northwest Syria, once one of its most fearsome strongholds, and an area of importance because of its location on the Turkish border.

Steady advances since 2015 by the Syrian Democratic Forces -the Kurdish-led alliance of U.S.-led armed groups – had already pushed Islamic State from much of the frontier by the middle of last year and have since then threatened its stronghold in Raqqa.

Turkey’s entry into Syria’s civil war via the Euphrates Shield campaign in support of rebel groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army was intended both to push Islamic State from the border and to stop Kurdish expansion there.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Clelia Oziel)

Twelve treated for chemical weapons agents in Mosul since March 1: U.N.

Iraqi special forces soldiers walk on a street during a battle with Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq March 3, 2017 REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Twelve people, including women and children, are being treated for possible exposure to chemical weapons agents in Mosul, where Islamic State is fighting off an offensive by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, the United Nations said on Saturday.

The U.N.’s World Health Organization has activated with partners and local health authorities “an emergency response plan to safely treat men, women and children who may be exposed to the highly toxic chemical,” the agency said in a statement.

It said all 12 patients had been received since March 1 for treatment which they are undergoing in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, east of Mosul.

Four of them are showing “severe signs associated with exposure to a blister agent”. The patients were exposed to the chemical agents in the eastern side of Mosul.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday that five children and two women were receiving treatment for exposure to chemical agents.

The ICRC statement did not say which side used the chemical agents that caused blisters, redness in the eyes, irritation, vomiting and coughing.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19. The eastern side remains within reach of the militants’ rockets and mortar shells.

Defeating Islamic State in Mosul would crush the Iraqi wing of the caliphate declared by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in 2014, over parts of Iraq and Syria.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, called for an investigation.

“This is horrible. If the alleged use of chemical weapons is confirmed, this is a serious violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime, regardless of who the targets or the victims of the attacks are,” she said in a statement.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Red Cross says seven treated for exposure to toxic agents near Mosul

Khatla Ali Abdullah, 90, is embraced as she flees her home as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants in western Mosul. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Five children and two women are receiving treatment for exposure to chemical agents near the Iraqi city of Mosul, where Islamic State is fighting U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday.

The ICRC “condemns in the strongest possible terms the use of chemical weapons during fighting around the Iraqi city of Mosul”, it said in a statement.

The organization said it did not know which side used the chemical agents that caused blisters, redness in the eyes, irritation, vomiting, and coughing.

The United States has warned that Islamic State could use weapons containing sulfur mustard agents to repel the offensive on the northern Iraqi city.

ICRC medical teams were supporting local medical teams treating the seven patients, who were admitted over the past two days to Rozhawa hospital in Erbil, east of Mosul, the organization said.

The ICRC had reinforced 13 medical centers in areas surrounding Mosul with capacity to treat gas attacks victims, ahead of the offensive that started in October.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19.

Defeating Islamic State in Mosul would crush the Iraqi wing of the caliphate declared by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in 2014, over parts of Iraq and Syria.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad and Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Iraqi forces in Mosul fight Islamic State counter-attack

An Iraqi special forces soldier fires as other soldiers runs across a street during a battle in Mosul, Iraq March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters launched a counter-attack against advancing U.S.-backed Iraqi forces in western Mosul during an overnight storm, as the battle for control of the militants’ last major urban stronghold in Iraq intensified.

Explosions and gun fire rang out across the city’s southwestern districts in the early hours of Thursday. The fighting eased in the late morning, although a Reuters correspondent saw an air strike and rebel mortar fire.

A senior Iraqi officer said Islamic State staged its attack on units from the elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) when the storm hampered air surveillance and on-the-ground visibility.

He said some militant fighters hid amongst displaced families to get close to the U.S.-trained troops.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19.

Defeating Islamic State in Mosul would crush the Iraqi wing of the caliphate declared by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in 2014, from Mosul’s grand old Nuri mosque.

Residents reported that civilians were killed in air strike on an Islamic State-run mosque on Wednesday, highlighting the perilous situation facing hundreds of thousands of Mosul residents as the allied forces step up their campaign.

The residents said the blast collapsed or damaged a number of neighboring houses, many of which are badly made and poorly maintained. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said he was not aware of an air strike on the Omar al-Aswad mosque.

The mosque was where Islamic State sent members of the Iraqi national police and armed forces to surrender their weapons and register in a militant database when the group seized control of the city in 2014. In return they received a pass to prevent their arrest and possible execution at militant check points.

QUEUES FOR FOOD

The Iraqi military believes several thousand militants, including many who traveled from Western countries, are hunkered down in Mosul among the remaining civilian population, which aid agencies estimated to number 750,000 at the start of the latest offensive.

The militants are using suicide car bombers, snipers and booby traps to counter the offensive waged by the 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

More than 28,000 civilians have been forced from their homes in western Mosul since the Feb. 19 offensive began, while the total number displaced since the battle for Mosul started in October exceeds 176,000, according to the United Nations.

On Thursday, more than a thousand more streamed out southern Mosul, the majority on foot. Some said the militants fired at them as they crossed a defensive trench.

One bearded man with a rod though his broken leg was carried by six men in a rug, while an old woman was pushed in a rickety fruit cart.

Nearby, a Humvee brought a family wounded in a mortar attack to a CTS clinic. Medics cleaned their wounds and wrapped them in blankets.

Many fleeing residents complained of hunger. One boy, Ali, held his baby sister as they queued for food handouts. He said they tried to flee on Wednesday but gave up when they came under Islamic State gunfire. On Thursday they managed to get out.

The Iraqi military is taking women and children to camps and screening men to make sure they are not Islamic State fighters. Hundreds of women and children gathered in one abandoned bus station in the open rain to receive food from the army and a local charity.

A counter-terrorism officer fired his pistol in the air to keep the growing crowd in line.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin in Mosul; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Richard Lough)

Syrian army to enter Islamic State-held Palmyra ‘very soon’: source

FILE PHOTO: Syrian army soldiers stand on the ruins of the Temple of Bel in the historic city of Palmyra, in Homs Governorate, Syria April 1, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian-backed Syrian government forces will enter the Islamic State-held city of Palmyra “very soon”, a Syrian military source said on Wednesday, as government forces seek to win back the city from the group for the second time in a year.

The army said on Wednesday it had captured an area known as the “Palmyra triangle” a few kilometers (miles) west of the city.

Backed by Russian air strikes, the Syrian army has advanced to the outskirts of Palmyra in the last few days. “The army’s entry to the city will begin very soon,” the military source told Reuters.

The Syrian government lost control of Palmyra to Islamic State in December, having first recaptured it with Russian air support last March. The group has razed ancient monuments during both of its spells in control of the UNESCO World Heritage Site – destruction the United Nations has condemned as a war crime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization that reports on the war, said government forces were expected to storm Palmyra at “any moment”. Russia has said its aircraft are supporting the army offensive in Palmyra.

Photos published on an Islamic State Telegram account on Wednesday showed the group’s fighters firing at the Syrian army with rockets and a tank. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the photos.

Islamic State first captured Palmyra from the government in 2015. During its first period in control of the site, the jihadists destroyed monuments including a 1,800-year-old monumental arch.

Most recently, Islamic State has razed the landmark Tetrapylon and the facade of Palmyra’s Roman Theater. Palmyra, known in Arabic as Tadmur, stood at the crossroads of the ancient world.

The government and its allies lost Palmyra as they focused on defeating Syrian rebel groups in eastern Aleppo. The rebel groups were driven from eastern Aleppo in December, the government’s biggest victory of the war.

(Reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut and Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Iraqi army controls main roads out of Mosul, trapping Islamic State

An Iraqi Special Forces soldier moves through a hole as he searches for Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Iraq.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Iraqi army units on Wednesday took control of the last major road out of western Mosul that had been in Islamic State’s hands, trapping the militants in a shrinking area within the city, a general and residents said.

The army’s 9th Armored Division was within a kilometer of Mosul’s Syria Gate, the city’s northwestern entrance, a general from the unit told Reuters by telephone.

“We effectively control the road, it is in our sight,” he said.

Mosul residents said they had not been able to travel on the highway that starts at the Syria Gate since Tuesday. The road links Mosul to Tal Afar, another Islamic State stronghold 60 km (40 miles) to the west, and then to Syria.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19.

If they defeat Islamic State in Mosul, that would crush the Iraq wing of the caliphate declared by the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014 from the city’s grand old Nuri Mosque.

The U.S.-led coalition effort against Islamic State is killing the group’s fighters more quickly than it can replace them, British Major General Rupert Jones, deputy commander for the Combined Joint Task Force said.

With more than 45,000 killed by coalition air strikes up to August last year, “their destruction just becomes really a matter of time,” he said on Tuesday in London.

The U.S. commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, has said he believes U.S.-backed forces will recapture both Mosul and Raqqa, Islamic State’s Syria stronghold in neighboring Syria, within six months.

The closing of the westward highway meant that Islamic State are besieged in the city center, said Lt General Abdul Wahab al-Saidi, the deputy commander of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), deployed in the southwestern side.

Units from the elite U.S.-trained division battled incoming sniper and anti-tank fire as they moved eastwards, through Wadi al-Hajar district, and northward, through al-Mansour and al-Shuhada districts where gunfire and explosions could be heard.

These moves would allow the CTS to link up with Rapid Response and Federal Police units deployed by the riverside, and to link up with the 9th Armored Division coming from the west, tightening the noose around the militants.

“Many of them were killed, and for those who are still positioned in the residential neighborhoods, they either pull back or get killed are our forces move forward,” Saidi said.

Two militants lay dead near the field command of the CTS, in the al-Mamoun district which looked like a ghost town. A few hundred meters away, a car bomb was hit by an airstrike.

STRAFING FROM ABOVE

The few families who remained in al-Mamoun said they were too scared to leave as the militants had booby-trapped cars.

Women cooked bread over outdoor ovens while men gathered on street corners as helicopters flew overhead strafing suspected militant positions further north.

One of two buses parked nearby had its roof shorn off. Residents buried a 60-year-old woman who was killed on Tuesday when she stepped on an explosive device while trying to flee.

Several thousand militants, including many who traveled from Western countries to join up, are believed to be in Mosul among a remaining civilian population estimated at the start of the offensive at 750,000.

They are using mortars, sniper fire, booby traps and suicide car bombs to fight the offensive carried out by a 100,000-strong force made up of Iraqi armed forces, regional Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

About 26,000 have been displaced from western Mosul, often under militant fire, according to government figures. The United Nations puts at more than 176,000 the total number of people displaced from Mosul since the offensive started in October.

Thousands more streamed out, walking through the desert toward government lines during the day, crossing over a deep trench which appears to have served as an Islamic State defense, some waving white flags.

Among them a boy shot in the leg was limping alongside a cart carrying an older woman, while another was pushed in a wheelchair. Old people asked why there was no cars or buses to pick them up and take them to the displaced people centers.

A man said he spent 11 days hiding in his house with no food, no water and no idea of what was happening outside.

“The archangel of death would have come for us if we stayed any longer,” he said.

Aid agencies put the number of killed and wounded at several thousands, both military and civilians.

Army, police, CTS and Rapid Response units forces attacking Islamic State in western Mosul are backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition, including artillery. U.S. personnel are operating close to the frontlines to direct air strikes.

Federal police and Rapid Response units are several hundred meters only from the city’s’ government buildings.

Taking those buildings would be of symbolic significance in terms of restoring state authority over the city and help Iraqi forces attack militants in the nearby old city center where the al-Nuri Mosque is located.

Military engineers started preparing a pontoon that they plan to put in place by the side of the city’s southernmost bridge, captured on Monday. Air strikes have damaged all of its five bridges.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Writing by Maher Chmaytelli, Editing by Angus MacSwan)