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

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

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A second attacker was shot dead, he said.

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

THIRD ATTACK FOILED – MINISTRY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Estelle Shirbon and Kate Holton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MINUTE’S SILENCE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“ALMOST EUPHORIC”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philippine troops find stash of banknotes as fighters pull back

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

By Neil Jerome Morales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘MAYBE THEY WATCH WAR MOVIES’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Officials say that 1,469 civilians have been rescued.

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

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

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

British police name third London Bridge attacker as Youssef Zaghba

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

By Estelle Shirbon and Kate Holton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“ATTACK ON THE FREE WORLD”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Rodi Said and Tom Perry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AIR STRIKES

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

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

The SDF includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

100,000 children in extreme danger in Mosul, trapped behind Islamic State lines: U.N.

A displaced Iraqi man who fled from clashes, carries children in western Mosul, Iraq, June 3, 2017.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – About 100,000 children are trapped in extremely dangerous conditions in the remaining Islamic State-held enclave in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the United Nations said on Monday.

Children were being used as human shields by the insurgents or were caught in the crossfire of the battle, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement. Some had been forced to take part in the fighting. Hospitals and clinics had come under attack, it said. “We are receiving alarming reports of civilians including several children being killed in west Mosul,” UNICEF said. “Some were reportedly killed as they desperately tried to flee the fighting which is intensifying by the hour,”

A Reuters TV crew on Saturday saw the bodies of dozens of civilians, including children, lying in a frontline street, apparently killed while fleeing the enclave.

Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a new push on May 27 to capture the remaining Islamic State-held enclave in the city’s western side.

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 the militants are dug in the middle of civilians.

About 700,000 people, about a third of the pre-war population of Mosul, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps.

“Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure including hospitals, clinics, schools, homes and water systems should stop immediately,” UNICEF said.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Militants in Philippines city dug in for long siege

Soldiers stand guard along the main street of Mapandi village as government troops continue their assault on insurgents from the Maute group, who have taken over large parts of Marawi City, Philippines June 2,

By Neil Jerome Morales and Tom Allard

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Islamist militants who seized the Philippines town of Marawi two weeks ago have stockpiled weapons and food in mosques, tunnels and basements to prepare for a long siege, officials said on Monday.

Among the several hundred militants linked to the Islamic State group are fighters from Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya and Morocco.

The battle for Marawi City has raised concerns that the ultra-radical jihadist group is building a regional base on the island of Mindanao, at the southern end of the Philippines.

Parrying questions on why the fighters had been able to resist the Philippine army for so long, senior officers said the main problem was that 500-600 civilians were still trapped in the urban heart of the town.

President Rodrigo Duterte said on Saturday that Marawi City would be fully liberated within three days, but on Monday officials were more circumspect and gave conflicting estimates of how many combatants were holding out.

Major General Carlito Galvez, head of the military command in Western Mindanao region, said as many as 200 fighters from the Maute militant group and others were still inside the town, and had prepared in advance for a long standoff.

“… the Maute, even if they fight two months, they will not starve here,” he told a news conference about a kilometer from the fighting.

“There are underground tunnels and basements that even a 500-pounder cannot destroy.”

He said that, days before seizing the city of 200,000 people, the militants had placed supplies in mosques and madrasas, or Islamic religious schools. Although the Philippines is largely Christian, Marawi City is overwhelmingly Muslim.

Fighting had erupted on May 23 after a bungled raid aimed at capturing Isnilon Hapilon, whom Islamic State proclaimed as its “emir” of Southeast Asia last year after he pledged allegiance to the group. The U.S. State Department has offered a bounty of up to $5 million for his arrest.

The military said on Monday that Duterte had offered a bounty of 10 million pesos ($200,000) to anyone who “neutralized” Hapilon, and 5 million pesos for each of the two leaders of the Maute group.

CIVILIANS TRAPPED

Brigadier General Restituto Padilla told a news conference that the militants now held less than 10 percent of the city, but that meeting Duterte’s deadline was not easy.

“Complications have been coming up: the continued use of civilians, potential hostages that may still be in their hands, the use of places of worship … and other factors that complicate the battle because of its urban terrain,” he said.

Reuters correspondents saw military helicopters flying combat sorties over Marawi City and smoke rising from parts of town amid machinegun fire.

A four-hour ceasefire to evacuate residents was marred by gunfire on Sunday, leaving hundreds of civilians stuck in their homes.

Padilla said that 1,467 civilians had been rescued so far, and that the 500-600 still trapped were low on food and water.

“There are places that we use as passageways to enemy territory – when we reach those areas, sometimes we see old people who are weak, cannot move on their own, because of lack of food,” he said.

A presidential spokesman said 120 militants had died in the battle, along with 38 security personnel. The authorities have put the civilian death toll at between 20 and 38.

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

After the Marawi siege began, Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao, with support from allies in the Congress. On Monday, six opposition lawmakers challenged the move in a petition to the Supreme Court. ($1 = 49.4050 Philippine pesos)

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema in MANILA; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Southeast Asian nations step up cooperation as Islamic State threat mounts

By Kanupriya Kapoor and Fathin Ungku

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Southeast Asian nations plan to use spy planes and drones to stem the movement of militants across their porous borders, defense officials said at the weekend, as concerns rise over the growing clout of Islamic State in the region.

Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines said they will launch joint air patrols this month at their shared boundaries in the Sulu Sea, in addition to existing maritime patrols.

Authorities in the region have urged greater cooperation to counter the fallout from a raging battle with Islamic State-linked militants in the southern Philippines, the biggest warning yet that the ultra-radical group is building a base in Southeast Asia.

“Our open borders are being exploited by terrorist groups to facilitate personnel and material,” Le Luong Minh, Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) told the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual regional security forum in Singapore.

The region is home to 600 million people and includes Indonesia, which has the world’s highest number of Muslims. Authorities in both Indonesia and Malaysia, also Muslim-majority, have said thousands of their citizens are sympathizers of Islamic State and hundreds are believed to have traveled to Syria to join the extremist group.

Indonesian authorities blamed Islamic State for bombings last month that killed three police officers, the latest in a series of low-level attacks by the militants in the last 17 months.

In recent months, dozens of fighters from Indonesia and Malaysia have crossed from their countries to Mindanao in the southern Philippines, intelligence officials have said, easily passing through waters that have often been lawless and plagued by pirates. Mindanao is the one region in the largely Catholic Philippines to have a significant Muslim minority.

ASEAN made a joint pledge with the United States on the sidelines of the Shangri-La forum to help the Philippines overcome the militant assault in the city of Marawi.

“What featured quite strongly in the U.S.-ASEAN meeting was the pledge by both U.S. and ASEAN members that we stand ready to help the Philippines…whether it’s information, intelligence or otherwise,” said Singaporean Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen.

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis (5th L) poses for a picture with ASEAN defence leaders after a meeting on the sidelines of the 16th IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore June 4, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su

JOINT PATROLS, INTELLIGENT-SHARING

Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, with the assistance of neighboring Singapore, have carried out joint maritime patrols in the Sulu Sea since last year after a series of kidnappings by the pro-Islamic State Abu Sayyaf group.

“We decided at least these three countries, to avoid being accused of doing nothing…We’re doing joint maritime and air patrols,” said Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, adding that the air patrols will be launched on June 19.

“If we do nothing, they get a foothold in this region.”

Indonesian Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu told Reuters his country will consider deploying drones and surveillance planes at its borders with the Philippines.

The measures come amid concerns that fighters may try to escape the military offensive in the Philippines, and flee to neighboring countries.

“We believe the elements involved in the Marawi clashes may try to escape through the southern Philippines and head either for Malaysian or Indonesian waters,” said Malaysia’s counter-terrorism police chief, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay.

“This is one of their only ways out.”

Among other measures, Singaporean and Malaysian officials said monitoring and intelligence-sharing on specific individuals had been stepped up in the wake of the fighting in Marawi.

Singapore’s Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam on Sunday urged residents of the wealthy city-state to report friends or family suspected of being radicalised, according to local media.

Security experts have warned that Southeast Asian countries are vulnerable to the spread of Islamic State as it suffers setbacks in Syria and Iraq.

“We’re seeing that, as Islamic State is losing ground on the battlegrounds of the Middle East, they’re pushing their franchise overseas as energetically as they can,” said Nigel Inkster of London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“We’re seeing this in the southern Philippines but there are other countries in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, that are at risk.”

(Additional reporting by Greg Torode in Singapore and Rozanna Latiff in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Lincoln Feast)

‘Enough is enough’ PM May says after London attackers kill seven

By Guy Faulconbridge and Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain must be tougher in stamping out Islamist extremism after attackers killed at least seven people by ramming a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbing revelers in nearby bars.

After the third militant attack in Britain in less than three months, May said Thursday’s national election would go ahead. But she proposed regulating cyberspace and said Britain had been far too tolerant of extremism.

“It is time to say enough is enough,” the Conservative leader said outside her Downing Street office, where British flags flew at half-staff.

“We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are,” May said, adding that Britain was under attack from a new breed of crude copycat militants.

Islamic State, which is losing territory in Syria and Iraq to an offensive backed by a U.S.-led coalition, said its militants were responsible for the attack, the group’s media agency Amaq said in a statement monitored in Cairo.

One French national and one Canadian were among those killed. At least 48 people were injured in the attack. Australia said one of its citizens was among the injured.

Police shot dead the three male assailants in the Borough Market area near London Bridge within eight minutes of receiving the first emergency call shortly after 10 p.m. (2100 GMT).

Mark Rowley, head of counter-terrorism police, said eight officers had fired about 50 bullets to stop the attackers, who appeared to be suicide bombers because they were wearing what turned out to be fake suicide vests.

“The situation these officers were confronted with was critical: a matter of life and death,” Rowley said. “I am humbled by the bravery of an officer who will rush towards a potential suicide bomber thinking only of protecting others.”

A member of the public received non-critical gunshot wounds. Police did not release the names of the attackers.

London police arrested 12 people in the Barking district of east London in connection with the attack and raids were continuing there, the force said. A Reuters photographer saw another raid take place in nearby East Ham.

Less than two weeks ago, a suicide bomber killed 22 children and adults at a concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande in Manchester in northern England. In March, in a attack similar to Saturday’s, five people died after a man drove into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in central London and stabbed a policeman.

May said the series of attacks were not connected in terms of planning and execution, but were inspired by what she called a “single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism” that represented a perversion of Islam and of the truth.

She said this ideology had to be confronted both abroad and at home, adding that the internet and big internet companies provided the space for such extremism to breed.

Facebook said it wanted to make its social media platform a “hostile environment” for terrorists. Twitter also said it was working to tackle the spread of militant propaganda.

After the Manchester attack, Britain raised its threat level to “critical” – meaning an attack is expected imminently – but downgraded it back to “severe”, which means an attack is highly likely, on May 27.

HARROWING SCENES

Witnesses described harrowing scenes as the attackers’ white van veered on and off the bridge sidewalk, hitting people along the way, and the three men then ran into an area packed with bars and restaurants, stabbing people indiscriminately.

Accounts emerged of people trying to barricade themselves in a pub while others tried throwing tables and other objects to fend off the attackers.

One eyewitness said the attackers screamed “this is for Allah” as they stabbed people.

England’s health authority said on Sunday afternoon that 36 of those injured remained in hospital, of whom 21 were in a critical condition.

May made a private visit to staff and patients at King’s College Hospital, where some of the injured were being treated, a spokeswoman said.

The government announced that a nationwide minute of silence would be held at 1000 GMT on Tuesday to pay respect to the victims of the attack and flags would remain at half-mast on government buildings until Tuesday evening.

A Reuters photographer saw four women being removed from an apartment block in Barking, shielding their faces as they stepped into police vans.

Islamic State militants had sent out a call on instant messaging service Telegram early on Saturday urging its followers to carry out attacks with trucks, knives and guns against “Crusaders” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Islamist militants have carried out scores of deadly attacks in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the United States over the past two years.

“We believe we are experiencing a new trend in the threat we face as terrorism breeds terrorism,” May said.

“Perpetrators are inspired to attack not only on the basis of carefully constructed plots … and not even as lone attackers radicalized online, but by copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack.”

Police vans leave carrying a number of women who were detained after a block of flats was raided in Barking, east London, Britain, June 4, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

“TOLERANCE OF EXTREMISM”

May, who served as Britain’s interior minister from 2010 to 2016, said there was too much tolerance of extremism in Britain.

“While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is – to be frank – far too much tolerance of extremism in our country,” she said, urging Britons to be more robust in stamping it out in the public sector and in wider society.

Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Britain needed to have difficult conversations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states about the funding of Islamist extremism.

U.S. President Donald Trump, taking to Twitter on Sunday, urged the world to stop being “politically correct” in order to ensure public security against terrorism.

Most of the main political parties suspended election campaigning on Sunday, but May said this would resume on Monday. The anti-European Union UK Independence Party said it would not suspend its campaign because disrupting democracy was what the extremists wanted.

London Bridge is a transport hub and nearby Borough Market is a fashionable warren of alleyways leavened with bars and restaurants that is always bustling on a Saturday night.

The area remained cordoned off and patrolled by armed police and counter-terrorism officers on Sunday, with train stations closed. Forensic investigators could be seen working on the bridge, where buses and taxis stood abandoned.

At several points outside the cordon, people laid flowers and messages of grief and solidarity.

Ariana Grande and other music stars were giving a benefit concert at Manchester’s Old Trafford cricket ground on Sunday evening to raise funds for victims of the concert bombing and their families.

“Today’s One Love Manchester benefit concert will not only continue, but will do so with greater purpose,” Grande’s manager, Scooter Braun, said on Twitter after the London attack.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the official threat level in Britain remained at severe, meaning a militant attack is highly likely. It had been raised to critical after the Manchester attack, then lowered again days later.

“One of the things we can do is show that we aren’t going to be cowed is by voting on Thursday and making sure that we understand the importance of our democracy, our civil liberties and our human rights,” Khan said.

In tweets, Trump offered help to Britain but also leveled apparent criticism of Khan for saying there was no need to be alarmed. Khan had earlier said Londoners would see an increased police presence on the streets of the city and people should not be alarmed by that.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin were among those who sent messages of condolence and made statements of solidarity.

The Manchester bombing on May 22 was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated assaults on London’s transport network.

(Additional reporting by UK bureau, Dylan Martinez, Hannah McKay, William Schomberg, Elisabeth O’Leary, William James, Andy Bruce and Alistair Smout in London, Marine Pennetier in Paris, Steve Scherer in Rome, Polina Devitt in Moscow, Paul Carrel in Berlin, David Morgan in Washington and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; writing by Estelle Shirbon, Pravin Char and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Ralph Boulton and Angus MacSwan)

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

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

By Tom Perry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Helen Popper)

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