Tag Archives: Islamic State

Philippines says some militants may have slipped out of embattled city

An armoured personnel carrier (APC) drives along the road of Amai Pakpak, as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group, who have taken over large parts of Marawi city, Philippines. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Simon Lewis

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – The Philippines military said on Friday that some of the Islamist militants who stormed Marawi City in the south of the country last month may have mingled with evacuees to slip away during the battle that has raged for nearly four weeks.

Brigadier General Restituto Padilla said security had been tightened in the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro and the authorities there were on the lookout for suspicious characters who might “attempt to sow some confusion or sow terror”.

“We’re not denying that there’s probably a few who may have slipped along with the evacuees from Marawi going to Iligan and Cagayan de Oro,” he told reporters in Manila, while OV-10 aircraft in Marawi pounded an area where militants have been holed up since May 23.

The military says that up to 200 fighters, most of them from local insurgent groups that have pledged allegiance to Islamic State but also some foreign fighters, are holding out, using civilians as human shields and mosques as safe havens.

The attempt by hundreds of well-armed militants to overrun and seal off the city has alarmed governments across Southeast Asia, which fear that Islamic State – losing ground in Iraq and Syria – is trying to establish a foothold in their region that could bring a rash of extremist violence.

The defense ministers and military chiefs of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines will meet in the Indonesian town of Tarakan, on Borneo island, on Monday to discuss the threat and agree on steps to coordinate better to confront terrorism.

A port town, Tarakan is just south of the Malaysian side of Borneo and looks out across the sea to Mindanao in the southern Philippines, a sprawling island that has been plagued by insurgencies and banditry for decades.

Philippines military spokesman Padilla told reporters that talk of fighters planning attacks in neighboring towns was based on “misinformation that’s being spread by the enemies” and in fact their capacity was severely reduced.

In a battle assessment on Friday, the military said those still in the town were also weakening.

“Enemy resistance continues to dwindle and enemy-held areas continues to get smaller as troops advance,” it said, but giving no indication of how long it might take to retake the town.

Previous deadlines to defeat the insurgents were missed.

More than 300 people have been killed in the battle for Marawi, according to official estimates, including 225 militants, 59 soldiers and 26 civilians.

A politician who has led rescue and relief efforts said on Thursday that residents fleeing Marawi had seen at least 100 dead bodies in an area where the fighting had been fierce. The military said it could not confirm that number.

(Additional reporting by Manny Mogato in MANILA; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Spirits high among Kurds in Syria as coalition battles for Raqqa

A Kurdish fighter from the People's Protection Units (YPG) fires a 120 mm mortar round in Raqqa, Syria, June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

By Michael Georgy

RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) – Kurdish fighter Habun Kamishli proudly recalled the cat and mouse game she played with an Islamic State suicide bomber in the Syrian town of Raqqa, where the militant group is likely to make its last stand.

“I was standing on a rooftop yesterday as our forces advanced. I noticed he was trying to sneak from one street to another to get into the building and kill us,” she said.

“Then I took a picture of his body with my phone. We are avenging the deaths of our fellow Kurds.”

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, made up predominantly of Kurdish fighters, has seized territory to the north, east and west of Raqqa. The city of about 200,000 has been the base of operations for Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on civilians across the globe.

The assault on Raqqa is likely to be a defining moment in the U.S.-led war on Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Along with the Iraqi army’s campaign to drive out Islamic State in Mosul, the other center of its self-proclaimed caliphate, it threatens to deal a major blow to the militants.

Spirits were high among Kurds on Thursday, as they identified Islamic State targets on an iPad and fired mortar rounds toward them.

Nearby, a Kurdish fighter listened to communications on a radio. Coalition aircraft had spotted militants in a car and were about to attack.

The mood along a Raqqa street was a far cry from the fear that took hold when the extremist Sunni militants group declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria and moved towards building a self-sufficient state.

Kurdish YPG militia flags hang on the walls of buildings beside names of fighters and women sang patriotic songs.

Shops taken over by the militants were abandoned, with just a few empty chocolate boxes left. Large billboards with the group’s original name Islamic State in Iraq and Syria felt like part of a bygone era.

Kurdish women commanders seemed confident of victory in the next few months.

“We have them surrounded on three sides and many can’t escape anymore,” said Samaa Sarya. “Some manage to escape on wooden boats along the river at night.”

The number of car bombs, a favorite Islamic State weapon, has fallen from about 20 to 7 a day. Coalition air strikes are exerting heavy pressure on Islamic State.

Still, dangers persist.  Minutes later, Sarya received word that a drone operated by Islamic State dropped a bomb on Raqqa, wounding 12 of her comrades.

Some Kurdish fighters estimate there could be as many as 3,000 militants left in Raqqa, where buildings are pockmarked from fighting.

The Syrians left, but foreign fighters stayed and were busy planting landmines and booby trapping houses, Kurdish fighters said. Islamic State snipers were highly effective, they said.

“Today our movements were delayed by snipers,” said Kurdish fighter Mostafa Sirikanu.

Gunfire could be heard as Kurdish militiaman Orkash Saldan pointed to a wall about 500 meters away.

“Daesh are just beyond that point,” he said, walking past a rocket Islamic State fired two days ago.

In a nearby building, where Islamic State had left behind mattresses and clothes, he pointed to a small teapot.

“You never know they could have put a bomb in that teapot or that television,” he said.

(Editing by Anna Willard)

On Boko Haram front line, Nigerian vigilantes amass victories and power

Members of the local militia, otherwise known as CJTF, sit in the back of a truck during a patrol in the city of Maiduguri, northern Nigeria June 9, 2017. Picture taken June 9, 2017. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye.

By Ed Cropley

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – His broken arm is in a bamboo splint, his torso pock-marked with shrapnel and his jaw wired together by a Nigerian army surgeon.

But 38-year-old vigilante Dala Aisami Angwalla is undaunted by two nearly fatal brushes in the last year with Boko Haram, one involving a landmine, the other an ambush, and is determined to rid northeast Nigeria of the jihadists.

It is a sentiment shared by thousands of other volunteer vigilantes who have been instrumental in checking Boko Haram’s progress but whose presence now casts a shadow over longer-term efforts to bring stability to the troubled Lake Chad region.

“Why do I do it? Because it’s my country,” the father-of-five told Reuters in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and epicenter of Boko Haram’s bloody, eight-year campaign to build an Islamic caliphate in the southern reaches of the Sahel.

“My children are OK. When I go out, they say ‘Go well, father. May God keep you safe,'” he said, fingering a charm around his neck that he believes keeps him from harm’s way.

Angwalla belongs to the 30,000-strong “Civilian Joint Task Force” (CJTF) now fighting on the front line of Nigeria’s struggle against Boko Haram after helping the military push the Islamists from towns across Borno in the last three years.

Despite a string of victories, the CJTF has drawn criticism.

Rights groups accuse its members of abuses ranging from extortion to rape and say their entry into the fray three years ago may be the reason for a sharp rise in Boko Haram violence against civilians.

CJTF leaders, who say 670 of its “boys” have been killed in action, say bar a “few bad people” its members are registered, impartial and professional.

FEAR OF ARMED GROUPS

The CJTF, most of whom are unemployed men, has asked the government to provide payment for its operations, a demand seen by political observers as ominous given the blurred lines in Nigeria between local politics and orchestrated violence.

With national elections in 2019 and the long-term illness of President Muhammadu Buhari pointing to a power vacuum, fears about organized armed groups are on the rise.

“In Nigeria in particular, vigilantism did much to turn an anti-state insurgency into a bloodier civil war, pitting Boko Haram against communities and leading to drastic increases in violence,” the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, said.

“In the longer term, vigilantes may become political foot soldiers, turn to organized crime or feed communal violence,” it said in a February report.

Few in Nigeria would question the significance of the CJTF’s role against Boko Haram, whose fighters have killed at least 20,000 people and displaced 2.7 million. Aid experts say 1.4 million are on the brink of famine after years without harvests.

Set up as a Sunni fundamentalist group influenced by the Wahhabi movement, Boko Haram has led a violent uprising since 2009. The group, whose name means ‘Western education is forbidden’, has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

CUTLASSES AND ARROWS

Building on Nigeria’s long-standing tradition of communal self-defense, the vigilante group was founded in Maiduguri in 2013 when groups of young men decided they had had enough of the Islamist militants living in their midst.

Their cutlasses, bows and arrows, and rudimentary shotguns were little match for Boko Haram’s modern weaponry, mostly captured in raids on Nigerian army and police positions, but their local knowledge was decisive.

Hundreds of suspected militants were detained by soldiers and police acting on CJTF tip-offs in raids that turned the tide against Boko Haram in Maiduguri, a city of a million established as a military outpost by British colonial authorities in 1907.

“Within one week, we secured the whole center of Maiduguri,” said Abba Aji Kalli, a 51-year-old accountant who is also CJTF’s state-wide coordinator. “The army were strangers but we live with Boko Haram in the same community, in the same neighborhood. We know who are the members of Boko Haram.”

Three years on, the CJTF forms the backbone of Borno’s anti-Boko Haram defenses, attracting the praise of Buhari, who in December declared the Islamist group “technically” defeated.

“They have been of tremendous help to the military because they are from there. They have local intelligence,” Buhari said.

CHEEK-BY-JOWL WITH BOKO HARAM

Now, most day-to-day security in Maiduguri and the refugee camps that surround it falls to black-clad CJTF members patrolling entrances to markets or sitting behind sandbag barricades with machetes, muskets and bows and arrows.

“Without the CJTF, there would be no security at all,” said Tijani Lumwani, head of the 40,000-strong Muna Garage refugee camp, hit by several suicide bombers in March. “They live in the community. We trust them. Without them, we would have no peace.”

Most CJFT vigilantes, including Angwalla, go unrewarded for their efforts, although 1,850 who have received paramilitary training are given a 15,000 naira per month ($48) stipend by the Borno government.

Around 450 have been incorporated into the main security forces and 30 into the intelligence services, group coordinator Kalli said, although he and his colleagues believe that is not enough and want more money and jobs to follow.

Buhari spokesman Femi Adesina said there would be “some sort of demobilization” for CJTF members but denied any obligation to provide jobs. “The CJTF was a voluntary thing. There was no agreement that ‘You do this, and the government will do that.'”

Borno state attorney general Kaka Shehu Lawal said the local government was investing heavily in agriculture and other industrial projects to create jobs for unemployed CJTF members who otherwise had the potential to become trouble-makers.

“We need them not to be idle because an idle man is the devil’s workshop,” Lawal said.

WHAT PRICE PEACE?

However, allegations of CJTF abuses have raised fears among diplomats and rights workers that the counter-insurgency effort has spawned a provincial militia the authorities may not be able to control.

Amnesty International researcher Isa Sanusi said he had credible reports of “widespread” abuses by CJTF guards in Borno, including extorting money from refugees seeking access to camps or sexual favors in exchange for food.

Kalli said a handful of culprits had been arrested.

Rights groups say that if the vigilantes fail to receive what they feel is due to them, they are likely to become another long-term source of instability. “They will come out of this crisis with some kind of entitlement that will make them think they are above the law,” Amnesty’s Sanusi said.

(Reporting by Ed Cropley, editing by Peter Millership)

Syrians say militants shoot escapees, air strikes kill civilians as Raqqa battle intensifies

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters walk along a damaged street in the Raqqa's al-Sanaa industrial neighbourhood, Syria June 14, 2017. Picture taken June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Michael Georgy

AIN ISSA, Syria (Reuters) – Islamic State militants in Raqqa are passing themselves off as civilians to try to avoid intensifying air strikes and shooting anyone caught trying to escape their Syrian bastion as U.S.-backed coalition forces close in, witnesses said.

At a camp for the displaced in the village of Ain Issa north of the city, people who arrived on Wednesday also said the air strikes supporting an assault by U.S.-backed forces had inflicted widespread destruction as the battle intensified.

United Nations war crimes investigators said the air campaign had killed at least 300 civilians in the city, captured by Islamic State in 2014 in the chaos of Syria’s civil war.

The escapees said the air strikes had flattened rows of apartment blocks along a main road but many of them had already been abandoned by residents fleeing Islamic State’s reign of terror and the assault on the town, which began last week.

“The coalition strikes destroyed a four-story apartment building. I saw 10 people trapped underneath,” said Abu Hamoud. “They used phosphorus.”

Human Rights Watch expressed concern on Wednesday about the use of incendiary white phosphorous weapons by the U.S.-led coalition, saying it endangers civilians when used in populated areas.

The coalition is backing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias who spent months moving to surround Raqqa in northern Syria in preparation for the assault to recapture the city.

Hassan Kirfou, said an airstrike hit the mosque where he works just a few hours after he closed it for the night, and two other mosques were hit.

“I saw three dead teenagers on top of each other outside the Nour mosque,” he said. “I don’t know why they shot these areas. As far as I know there were only a few Daesh (Islamic State) snipers left there.”

Much of the damage from air strikes was inflicted on Seif al-Dawla street, one of the main arteries of the town. “My uncle and two cousins were killed. Their house was destroyed,” Kirfou said.

The pressure on Islamic State, which is on the brink of losing the other center of its self-proclaimed caliphate, the Iraqi city of Mosul, is taking a heavy toll on the group, people who arrived at Ain Issa in the last few days said.

“They have started using microphones to tell people: ‘Don’t go to the infidels, stay with Islam’,” said Abdul Razak Crais, standing near rows of white tents as people lined up for food.

“They poured gasoline on the cars of anyone who tried to escape then lit a match and burned the vehicles. I saw them haul people out of their cars and shoot them with AK-47s.”

The coalition estimates that 3,000-4,000 Islamic State fighters are holed up in Raqqa, the administrative headquarters of Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on civilians across the globe.

Residents who fled say the militants have been laying landmines on streets, booby trapping houses and digging tunnels in preparation for battle.

“They take over people’s houses and create big holes in their walls so they can move back and forth during fighting,” said Thaier Ibrahim.

Others at the camp said militants were hiding weapons and riding cars with civilians to avoid air strikes.

Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of a U.N. Commission of Inquiry, said civilians were now extremely vulnerable: “As the operation is gaining pace very rapidly, civilians are caught up in the city under the oppressive rule of ISIL, while facing extreme danger associated with movement due to excessive air strikes.”

About 10,000 civilians have fled to the SDF-run Ain Issa camp about 60 km (40 miles) north of Raqqa with hundreds more arriving each day, Medecins Sans Frontieres has said.

Conditions have deteriorated because of the grueling summer heat. But people like Mohamed Nahaf took the risk of getting shot to escape Islamic State and a battle for the city that could take months.

“They cut off all roads. We had to pay a smuggler $200 to get us out,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Iraqi forces repel Islamic State counter-attack in west Mosul – police

Civilians are handed out sacs of wheat and sugar in western Mosul, Iraq June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces repelled a major counter-attack by Islamic State fighters at dawn on Wednesday in a district south of the Old City of Mosul, their remaining enclave in the city, a police commander said.

Dozens of IS fighters were killed in the operation to push back the militants, many of whom wore suicide vests, the commander told Reuters.

Residents said the militants seized a number of blocks in the Danadan district of the northern Iraqi city before being driven out in fierce clashes.

“Terrorists came from the Old City and attacked our forces using mortars and sniper shots. They managed to temporarily seize some buildings but we forced them to retreat after shelling their positions,” said a federal police officer.

A Reuters visuals team heading to Mosul from the northern side reported intense artillery fire in the morning.

Another federal police officer said an operation was still underway to chase some Islamic State militants who might still be hiding in some buildings.

In an online statement, Islamic State said it killed 40 of the federal police forces deployed in west Mosul and destroyed eight military vehicles.

Iraqi forces on Tuesday reported progress in the U.S.-backed campaign to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul, announcing the capture of Zanjili, a district just north the city’s historic center.

The Islamic State-held enclave in Mosul has shrunk to two districts along the western banks of the Tigris river – the densely populated Old City center and the Medical City.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Philippine politician says residents report scores of bodies in embattled city

Smoke comes from a burning building as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group, who have taken over large parts of Marawi city, Philippines June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Neil Jerome Morales and Simon Lewis

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – A Philippines politician said on Thursday residents fleeing besieged Marawi City had seen scores of dead bodies in an area where intense fighting has taken place between security forces and Islamist militants over the past three weeks.

“Dead bodies, at least 100, scattered around the encounter area,” Zia Alonto Adiong, a politician in the area who is helping in rescue and relief efforts, told reporters, referring to accounts he had received from fleeing residents.

The military said it could not confirm the report.

The army has said 290 people have been killed in the more than three weeks of fighting, including 206 militants, 58 soldiers and 26 civilians.

Lieutenant Colonel Jo-Ar Herrera, a military spokesman, said troops were advancing toward the commercial center of Marawi City, which is held by the militants who have sworn allegiance to Islamic State.

“We intend to finish the fight as soon as possible. Our tactical commanders are doing their best,” Herrera said.

But troops still faced up to 200 fighters, many of whom had taken up sniper positions, he said.

“The battlefield is very fluid,” he said.

Earlier, the military said it had arrested a cousin of the top militant commanders leading the Islamists in their fight against the government.

The man, Mohammad Noaim Maute, alias Abu Jadid, was arrested at a checkpoint near the coastal city of Cagayan de Oro just after dawn, Herrera said.

Herrera had earlier identified him as a brother of Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute, who head the Maute gang that is at the forefront of the battle for Marawi City.

Marawi is about 100 km (60 miles) south of Cagayan de Oro, but it was not clear whether Mohammad was coming from the embattled city.

Most of the seven Maute brothers, including Omarkhayam and Abdullah, are believed to be in Marawi.

Their parents were taken into custody last week in separate cities.

Brigadier-General Gilbert Gapay, spokesman for the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command, said Mohammad Noaim Maute was a suspected bomb-maker for the group.

He said Maute was holding a fake student card of the Mindanao State University, based in Marawi, when stopped at the checkpoint. He was not armed.

Police said Maute, an Arabic-language teacher, readily admitted his identity when questioned.

(Additional reporting by Manny Mogato; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Mosul Old City residents spend hungry and fearful Ramadan under IS rule

Displaced Iraqi family from Mosul eat a simple meal for their Iftar, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at a refugee camp al-Khazir in the outskirts of Erbil, Iraq June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – For Salam, a resident in the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul, the holy fasting month of Ramadan this year is the worst he’s seen in a lifetime marked by wars and deprivations.

“We are slowly dying from hunger, boiling mouldy wheat as soup” to break the fast at sunset, the 47 year-old father of three said by phone from the district besieged by Iraqi forces, asking to withhold his name fearing the militants’ retribution.

The only wish he makes in his prayers is for his family to survive the final days of the self-proclaimed caliphate declared three years ago by IS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from a nearby mosque.

The eight-month old U.S.-backed campaign to capture Mosul, IS’s de-facto capital in Iraq, reached its deadliest phase just as the holy Muslim month started at the end of May, when militants became squeezed in and around the densely populated Old City.

Up to 200,000 people are trapped behind their lines, half of them children, according to the United Nations.

Hundreds have been killed while trying to escape to government-held lines, caught in the cross-fire or gunned down by Islamic State snipers. The militants want civilians to remain in areas under their control to use them as human shields.

Many bodies of the dead remain in the street near the frontlines. Four of them are relatives of Khalil, a former civil servant who quit his job after IS took over Mosul.

“Daesh warned us not to bury them to make them an example for others who try to flee,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Those who decide not to run the risk of fleeing are living in fear of getting killed or wounded in their homes, with little food and water and limited access to healthcare.

“Seeing my kids hungry is real torture,” said Salam, who closed his home appliances shop shortly after the start of the offensive as sales came to a complete stop.”I wish the security forces would eliminate all Daesh fighters in a flash; I want my family to have normal life again.”

Where food can be found, the price has risen more than 20-fold. A kilo of rice is selling for more than $40. A kilo of flour or lentils is $20 or more.

The sellers are mainly households who stockpiled enough food and medicine to dare sell some, but only to trusted neighbors or relatives, or in return for items they need. If militants find food they take it.

Residents fill water from a few wells dug in the soil. The wait is long and dangerous as shelling is frequent.

“The well-water has a bitter taste and we can smell sewage sometimes, but we have to drink to stay alive,” said Umm Saad, a widow and mother of four, complaining that the militants are often seen with bottled water and canned food.

“We have been under compulsory fasting even before the start of Ramadan,” she said. “No real food to eat, just hardened old bread and mouldy grains.”

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war city’s population, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps. But in areas still held by the militants escape has become harder than ever.

“Fleeing is like committing suicide,” said Khalil, the ex-civil servant, who lives near the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, the offensive’s symbolic focus, where Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph.

IS’s black flag has been flying over its landmark leaning minaret since June 2014, when the Iraqi army fled in the face of the militants, giving them their biggest prize, a city at least four times bigger than any other they came to control in both Iraq and neighboring Syria.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; editing by Peter Graff)

Revenge for Sinjar: Syrian Kurds free Islamic State slaves

Noura Khodr Khalaf, 24, a Yazidi woman who was recently freed from Islamic State, stands with her children in a centre belonging to the Kurdish-led administration in Qamishli, Syria June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said and Ellen Francis

QAMISHLI, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State militants enslaved Noura Khalaf for three years, dragging her from her small Iraqi village across their territory in Syria. They bought and sold her five times before she was finally freed with her children last week.

Khalaf is one of many Yazidi women that Kurdish fighters in northern Syria have set out to free from Islamic State in covert operations, a female Kurdish militia commander told Reuters.

They have dubbed the operation “revenge for the women of Sinjar”, the homeland of Iraq’s ancient Yazidi minority which Islamic State overran in the summer of 2014.

The militants slaughtered, enslaved and raped thousands of people when they rampaged through northern Iraq, purging its Yazidi community. They abducted Yazidi women as sex slaves and gunned down male relatives, witnesses and Iraqi officials say. Nearly 3,000 women are believed to be still in captivity.

Nisreen Abdallah, a commander in the YPJ militia, said around 200 women and children from northern Iraq have been freed in various parts of Syria so far.

The Kurdish YPG militia and its all-female YPJ brigade rescued them in what she described as covert operations into IS territory that began last year. Abdallah declined to divulge more details for security reasons.

The Syrian militias launched this mission as part of their U.S.-backed offensive on Raqqa, Islamic State’s base of operations in Syria, she said.

With the YPG at its forefront, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias began pushing into Raqqa last week, after advancing on the city since November.

“Since then, we have been working to liberate the Yazidi women held captive by Daesh,” Abdallah said. In the case of Khalaf, she said Kurdish fighters made contact with her and drew up “an appropriate plan” to free her unharmed.

CODE WORD

Noura Khalaf said she had been living with her children as the slave of an Islamic State militant in Syria’s Hama province for a year, when an unidentified man smuggled them out in the YPG-coordinated operation.

The plan took shape thanks to IS rules forbidding fighters from taking mobile phones to the frontlines, she said. The jihadist holding Khalaf left his at home, allowing her to call her brother who in turn asked the YPG for help.

“Abu Amir used to leave his phone at home when he went to the frontline,” said 24-year-old Khalaf. “I had memorized my brother’s number.”

Khalaf was eventually told to await contact from a man who would come to rescue her. He uttered a pre-agreed code word, so she would know it was safe to leave with him.

“I’m happy to be staying here,” she said, speaking to Reuters in the Syrian city of Qamishli in the Kurdish-controlled northeast. She will soon return to the Sinjar mountain region. “After I rest here, I will go meet my brother,” she said.

After Islamic State kidnapped Khalaf with her four children in 2014, they bussed her around northern Iraq, including Mosul, along with dozens of women from her hometown of Kojo in Sinjar. “I still don’t know what happened to my husband,” she said.

At one point in her captivity, militants kept her in an underground jail in Raqqa, she said, and at another, they held her in a prison in Palmyra.

“They took us to an underground market for selling women, where they displayed us for Islamic State members and each one picks the girl he likes,” she said. Fighters forced her to serve and cook for them, some beating and raping her repeatedly.

Now, Khalaf and her children are staying at a shelter run by the women’s council of the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria.

Abdallah, the YPJ commander, said they deliver the women to their relatives in northern Iraq by coordinating with a Yazidi committee around Sinjar.

Two months earlier, Kurdish fighters also rescued Khalaf’s seven-year-old daughter, who had been sold off near Raqqa, and sent her to relatives in Sinjar, she said.

“We will also send Noura, through the women’s council. So she will see her daughter again,” Abdallah said.

“Those who are freed have been away from their relatives, living among Daesh for years…in alienation and degradation,” Abdallah said. “They have psychological complexes and they need care.”

The beliefs of the Yazidi community, which Islamic State regards as devil-worship, combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. Mass Yazidi graves have been found since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces seized Sinjar in 2015.

(Reporting by Rodi Said in Syria, Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff)

Philippines says U.S. troops near besieged Marawi, but not fighting

Damaged buildings and houses are seen at Moncado Colony village after intense fighting between government troops against insurgents from the Maute group, who have taken over large parts of Marawi city, Philippines, June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Neil Jerome Morales and Simon Lewis

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – U.S. troops are on the ground near Marawi City in the southern Philippines, but are not involved in fighting Islamist militants who have held parts of the city for more than three weeks, a Philippines military spokesman said on Wednesday.

The Philippines military has previously said the United States was providing technical assistance to end the occupation of parts of Marawi City by fighters allied to the Islamic State group, but it had no boots on the ground.

“There are some U.S. personnel who are operating equipment to provide information on situation awareness to our troops,” Brigadier General Restituto Padilla told a news conference.

“I do not know the exact number and the specific mission. They are allowed to carry rifles for self-defense. But they are not allowed to fight, they only provide support,” he said.

It was not clear how close to the battle zone the U.S. troops were. They were from a contingent of Special Forces based in the southern city of Zamboanga, the Philippines military has said previously.

The U.S. embassy in Manila did not respond to a request for comment.

A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was providing a P-3 surveillance plane as well as intelligence gathering from a drone. That drone, however, crashed on Saturday after it lost communication links with its operator, the official said.

On Wednesday, government forces attacked rebel positions in Marawi with bombs, tank fire and helicopter gunships, and plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the battered city. Some sniper shots could be heard.

Fighting died down in the afternoon when heavy rain fell.

It was the 23rd day of fighting in Marawi, and there was no sign that it would end any time soon.

“There will be no more deadlines,” said Padilla, referring to a promise by the military to clear the city by June 12, the country’s independence day. “It may take some time.”

In Washington, a security official who is familiar with the region said the battle in Marawi appeared to be locked in a stalemate.

“At the very least, it is not at all clear that government forces are presently winning or even gaining significant ground,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Islamic State demonstrated significant determination and success in capturing and holding Mosul in Iraq and their effort in Marawi is of a similar notable quality.”

HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS

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

Another Philippines military spokesman said troops had gained a significant advantage by taking control of eight high-rise building in the battle zone where the militants had set up snipers and machine-gun posts.

“This is very important,” Colonel Edgard Arevalo told reporters.

“We are in the final stage of our operation in Marawi. But we have to be very careful with our actions because there are still civilians in the area, they still have hostages and there are still people trapped in the firefight.The military said 290 people had been killed, including 206 militants, 58 soldiers and 26 civilians.

About 100 militants are in the besieged area, the military has said. There are also an estimated 300-600 civilians trapped or being held hostage in the city.

Islamic State’s news agency, Amaq, said its fighters controlled two-thirds of the city.

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

“The truth is probably somewhere in between,” said the U.S. security official.

The Philippines has been fighting twin insurgencies from Maoist-led rebels and Muslim separatists in the south for nearly 50 years.

Critics say military action is not enough to bring peace to a region that has long suffered from political neglect and poverty.

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in MANILA, Idrees Ali and Mark Hosenball in WASHINGTON; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Iraqi armed forces announce progress in Mosul campaign, say district north of old city captured

Displaced Iraqi residents flee their homes due to fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, near the Old City in western Mosul, Iraq June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces on Tuesday reported progress in the U.S.-backed campaign to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul, announcing the capture of a district just north the city’s historic center.

With the loss of the Zanjili neighborhood, the enclave still held by Islamic State in the northern Iraqi city has shrunk to two districts along the western banks of the Tigris river – the densely populated Old City center and the Medical City.

Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a new push on May 27 to capture the remaining enclave, where up to 200,000 people are trapped.

The Mosul offensive started in October with air and ground support from a U.S.-led international coalition. It has taken much longer than expected as Islamic State is fighting in the middle of civilians, slowing the advance of the assailants.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and Syria by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a speech from a historic mosque in the old city.

In Syria, Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-air strikes are besieging Islamic State forces in the city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in that country.

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of Mosul, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Hugh Lawson)