Tag Archives: Islamic State

Islamic State kills villagers as fighting with Syrian army rages near highway

Brooklyn man sentenced to 15 years prison over Islamic State support

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State attacked a village near the main road between Aleppo and Homs on Thursday, killing many residents, Syrian state media and a war monitor said.

The jihadist group has lost large swathes of territory recently in Syria after expanding rapidly in 2014 and 2015, and is under assault from a U.S.-backed coalition of Arab and Kurdish militias as well as by the army, backed by Russia.

However, it still mounts occasional counter attacks including a swift advance in December to capture Palmyra, which it held for several weeks before the army retook the city.

The insurgents said on a social media feed it had captured the village of Aqarib al-Safi, but the government-run SANA news agency reported that the attack had been repulsed.

SANA said Islamic State fighters had killed 20 people in the village before the army and allied militia drove them away. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that clashes were still going on there and in the village of al-Saboura.

The Observatory said that at least 34 people, including both civilians and fighters on both sides, had been killed and that dozens had been injured.

Many of the people who live in that part of Syria belong to the Ismaili sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, and would be regarded by Islamic State as infidels. In 2015, Islamic State killed 46 civilians in a nearby town, the Observatory said.

The Observatory, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said that at least 15 of those killed were civilians, five of them children, and that three of them died in execution-style killings.

The villages are north of al-Salamiya close to the only road still useable between Aleppo and other parts of Syria held by the government.

The army and its allies hold the road and a small strip of land on each side, with Islamic State controlling the eastern area and Syrian rebel groups, including hardline Islamists, the western area.

The Observatory said the attack was the most violent so far this year by Islamic State on the road.

Syria’s civil war began in 2011 after mass protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad and has killed hundreds of thousands of people, driven half the country’s population from their homes and dragged in world powers.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Islamic State mining Mosul to stop families fleeing as Iraqi forces advance

Displaced Iraqi people gather to be transported to a camp for displaced people during the battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq, May 17, 2017. REUTERS/ Alaa Al-Marjani

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State militants are planting bombs near front doors in Mosul to prevent civilians leaving, a federal police commander and witnesses said on Wednesday, as Iraqi forces make their final push against the jihadists after seven months of fighting.

Trapped in a shrinking area of the city, the militants are increasingly using the several hundred thousand civilians under their control as human shields to avoid being targeted or perhaps tarnish what Iraqi leaders describe as imminent victory.

Backed by a U.S.-led coalition, Iraqi forces have made rapid gains since opening a new front in northwest Mosul this month and have now dislodged Islamic State from all but about 12 square km (5 square miles) of the city.

The militants, however, still control the Old City, where they are expected to make their last stand in the densely populated, narrow streets that are impassible for armored vehicles, forcing Iraqi forces to advance on foot.

The Iraqi government is pushing to declare victory by the holy month of Ramadan – expected to begin on May 27 – even if pockets of resistance remain in the Old City, according to military commanders.

Lieutenant-General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi told state TV his elite Counter Terrorism Services (CTS) were advancing steadily in the Rifaie and Najjar districts, aiming to reach the western bank of Tigris river and complete the Old City’s encirclement.

“God willing the coming hours we will complete our assigned task,” he said on Wednesday.

The militants had deployed 30 suicide car bombs against his troops in Mosul over the past two days, he said.

In the Siha district, Assadi said, Islamic State had chained civilians by the hands and used them as human shields to move around. “We saw them moving with their weapons in the midst of the civilians but we did not strike them,” he said.

The civilians were unchained and released once the militants reached cover, Assadi said.

Hundreds if not more civilians have been killed under bombardment by the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi airforce during the Mosul campaign and the rest are eating weeds and boiled wheat grain to survive as food runs out.

Fearful of triggering bombs if they open the front door, civilians are fleeing through the same holes Islamic State knocked through interior walls to move around the city without being targeted from the sky.

The number of people fleeing Mosul has surged since the re-intensification of hostilities this month.

Nearly 10,000 people were displaced from the city on Tuesday, according to Iraqi government figures, joining an exodus of nearly 700,000 who have left Mosul since the start of the campaign last October.

Two civilians were killed when they returned to the Islah al-Ziraei district days after it was retaken by Iraqi forces when they accidentally triggered a bomb that Islamic State had planted to prevent them leaving their home.

(Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Turkish MPs elect judicial board under new Erdogan constitution

FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends the Roundtable Summit Phase One Sessions of Belt and Road Forum at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake on May 15, 2017 in Beijing, China REUTERS/Lintao Zhang/Pool/File Photo

By Gulsen Solaker and Daren Butler

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish lawmakers elected seven members to a reshaped judicial authority on Wednesday, part of a constitutional overhaul backed by a referendum last month that considerably expands the powers of President Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan says the changes are vital to ensure stability in Turkey, which is battling Kurdish and Islamist militants and experienced an abortive coup last year blamed by Ankara on a U.S.-based cleric who had many supporters in the judiciary.

But opposition parties and human rights groups say the reforms threaten judicial independence and push Turkey toward one-man rule. Some of Turkey’s NATO allies and the European Union, which it aspires to join, have also expressed concern.

The two largest opposition parties, who say the April 16 referendum was marred by possible fraud, boycotted the overnight vote in parliament appointing seven members to a redesigned, 13-strong Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) – all candidates of the ruling AK Party and its nationalist MHP ally.

The council oversees the appointment, promotion, transfer, disciplining and dismissal of judges and prosecutors.

The judiciary had previously appointed most of the HSK members but following the referendum parliament now picks seven and Erdogan a further four. The other two members of the board are the justice minister and ministry undersecretary.

“The vote has further politicized the judiciary, turning it into a totally AKP and MHP judiciary,” Filiz Kerestecioglu, a deputy from the pro-Kurdish HDP, told Reuters, saying it had decided not to participate because the process was illegitimate.

“SPIRIT OF THE REFERENDUM”

The other main opposition party, the secularist CHP, echoed that criticism.

“The party judiciary era has begun. This structure may be a complete disaster for Turkey,” CHP lawmaker Levent Gok told Reuters, accusing the ruling party of seeking to create a judiciary that was biased and dependent on it.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim defended the vote.

“There’s no problem. It conforms to the spirit of the referendum,” the Anadolu state news agency quoted him saying.

The judicial and constitutional changes come amid a continued crackdown on suspected supporters of the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen blamed by Ankara for last July’s failed coup.

The HSK has already expelled 4,238 judges and prosecutors in purges targeting Gulen followers, roughly a quarter of the national total. Gulen, who has lived in the United States for decades, denies any role in the coup attempt.

Ankara says the HSK changes will prevent the judiciary falling under the control of specific groups such as the Gulenists, who Erdogan accuses of infiltrating state institutions over many years.

A CHP deputy said last month the vast majority of newly appointed judges had AKP links. The Justice Ministry rejected the allegation as slander and said the judges’ selection process complied fully with regulations.

The Venice Commission, a panel of legal experts from the Council of Europe, a rights body to which Turkey belongs, warned in March ahead of Turkey’s referendum that the proposed constitutional shakeup represented a “dangerous step backwards” for democracy. Ankara rejected the criticism.

The overhaul of the HSK is the second of the changes backed by the referendum to take effect. Another change, allowing the president to be a member of a political party, came into force this month when Erdogan rejoined the AK Party and he is set to regain the party leadership at a special congress on Sunday.

The remaining changes approved in the referendum will be implemented after a parliamentary election due in November 2019. They will enable the president to draft budgets, declare a state of emergency and issue decrees without parliamentary approval.

(Writing by Daren Butler; editing by Ralph Boulton and Gareth Jones)

Iraq says battle for Mosul nearly won as forces close in on Old City

Displaced Iraqis flee during clashes between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq, May 16, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces have dislodged Islamic State from all but 12 square km of Mosul, a military spokesman said on Tuesday, after planes dropped leaflets into the city telling civilians the battle was nearly won.

Seven months into the U.S.-backed campaign, the militants now control only a few districts in the western half of Mosul including the Old City, where Islamic State is expected to make its last stand.

The Iraqi government is pushing to declare victory by the holy month of Ramadan, expected to begin on May 27, even if pockets of resistance remain in the Old City, according to military commanders.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition backing Iraqi forces said the enemy was completely surrounded in the city and its fighters and resources were being destroyed.

“The enemy is on the brink of total defeat in Mosul,” U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian told a news conference in Baghdad.

With the help of advisers and air strikes by the coalition, Iraqi forces have made rapid gains since opening a new front in the northwest of Mosul earlier this month, closing in on the Old City.

The Old City’s warren of densely packed houses and alleys is the most complex battleground and home to the al-Nuri mosque from which Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria in 2014.

“We reassure everyone that … in a very short time, God willing, we will declare the liberation and clearing of west Mosul and raise the Iraqi flag over … the Old City,” said spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool.”

Outnumbered, the militants have snipers embedded among the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in west Mosul. Many people have been killed by militants or heavy bombardments.

The leaflet dropped over Mosul also ordered civilians to immediately stop using any vehicle to avoid being mistaken for militants who have fought back against Iraqi forces with suicide car bombs and motorcycle bombs.

“Our airforce and Iraqi military planes will strike any vehicle that moves on the streets of these districts from the evening of May 15 until their liberation,” read a copy of the leaflet seen by Reuters. “The decisive hour has approached”.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

U.S. plan to arm Kurdish militia casts shadow over Trump-Erdogan talks

FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends the Roundtable Summit Phase One Sessions of Belt and Road Forum at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake on May 15, 2017 in Beijing, China REUTERS/Lintao Zhang/Pool/File Photo *** Local Caption *** Aung San Suu Kyi

By Orhan Coskun and Daren Butler

ANKARA (Reuters) – Angered by a U.S. decision to arm Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria, Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan heads to Washington this week for talks with Donald Trump seeking either to change the president’s mind or to “sort things out ourselves”.

Trump’s approval of plans to supply the YPG as it advances toward the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, just days before his first meeting with Erdogan, has cast a shadow over Tuesday’s planned talks between the two NATO allies.

Ankara, a crucial partner in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, considers the YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast for three decades and is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and United States.

Washington sees the YPG as distinct from the PKK and as a valuable partner in the fight against Islamic State.

“If we are strategic allies we must take decisions as an alliance. If the alliance is to be overshadowed we’ll have to sort things out for ourselves,” Erdogan told reporters on Sunday, according to the pro-government Sabah newspaper.

Erdogan was speaking during a visit to China, ahead of his trip to Washington for his first meeting with Trump.

Turkey had hoped that Trump’s inauguration would mark a new chapter in ties with Washington after long-running tensions with the Obama administration over Syria policy and Ankara’s demands for the extradition of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Erdogan blames Gulen supporters for a failed coup attempt last July and has conducted a large-scale crackdown on them, drawing criticism from Washington. Gulen, who has denied involvement in the coup, remains in the United States.

Erdogan welcomed Trump’s election victory last November and said he hoped it would lead to “beneficial steps” in the Middle East. When Erdogan narrowly won sweeping new powers in an April referendum, Trump rang to congratulate him, unlike European politicians who expressed reservations about the vote.

DYNAMITE

But hopes for rapprochement took a hit last week. The decision to arm the YPG was “tantamount to placing dynamite under Turkey-USA relations”, a senior Turkish official said.

“Just as it was being said that relations (which were) seriously harmed during the Obama period are being repaired, Turkey moving apart from one of its biggest allies would be an extremely bad sign,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

Erdogan portrays U.S. support for the Kurdish militia – instead of Syrian Arab rebels – as a leftover policy from the Obama administration, which he said had wrongly accused Turkey of doing too little in the fight against Islamic State.

“It is a slander of the Obama administration. Unfortunately now they have left the Syria and Iraq problem in Trump’s lap,” Erdogan said in China.

Erdogan will tell Trump that backing a Kurdish force to retake Arab territory held by Islamic State will sow future crises, and that other forces in the region including Kurdish Iraqi leaders also oppose the YPG, the Turkish official said.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said after talks in London last week with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that Trump’s meeting with Erdogan would be an opportunity to “correct the mistake” of support for the YPG.

“Now we will conduct the final talks,” Erdogan said. “After that we will make our final decision.”

The United States sees few alternatives to supporting the YPG, which forms a major part of the Syrian Democratic Forces advancing on Raqqa, if it is to achieve the goal of crushing Islamic State in Syria.

Erdogan did not spell out what actions Turkey might take if Washington does press ahead with its plans.

Officials have suggested it could step up air strikes on PKK bases in northern Iraq, or YPG targets in Syria. It could also impose limits on the use of its Incirlik air base as a launchpad for the air campaign against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

But that would hamper operations against jihadis who also menace Turkey and have claimed responsibility for attacks including the bombing of Istanbul airport in June 2016.

“Naturally (Turkey) would have to consider the aftermath of closing the Incirlik base to (U.S.) use,” said Soli Ozel, a lecturer at Turkey’s Kadir Has university.

“It will not be very easy to put relations back on track,” Ozel said. “I think ultimately a formula will be found. I think neither side wants to cut relations.”

(Additional reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Trump, in tweets, defends his sharing of information with Russians

FILE PHOTO: A combination of file photos showing Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attending a news conference in Moscow, Russia, November 18, 2015, and U.S. President Donald Trump posing for a photo in New York City, U.S., May 17, 2016. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev/Lucas Jackson/File Photos

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his decision to disclose information to Russian officials during a White House meeting last week, saying he had an “absolute right” to share “facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety.”

The president took to Twitter to counter a torrent of criticism, including from his fellow Republicans, after reports that he had revealed highly classified information about a planned Islamic State operation.

Two U.S. officials said Trump shared the intelligence, supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during a meeting last Wednesday.

The disclosures late on Monday roiled the administration as it struggled to move past the backlash over Trump’s abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating the president’s ties to Russia.

The turmoil overshadowed Republican legislative priorities such as healthcare and tax reform and laid bare sharp divisions between the White House and U.S. intelligence agencies, which concluded late last year that Russia had tried to influence the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor.

Russia has denied such meddling, and Trump bristles at any suggestion he owed his Nov. 8 victory to Moscow.

“As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety,” Trump said on Twitter. “Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.”

Trump weighed in personally the morning after his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, issued statements saying no sources, methods or military operations were discussed at the Russian meeting.

McMaster said the story, initially reported by the Washington Post, was false.

The U.S. officials told Reuters that while the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement.

Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations “very, very troubling.”

“Obviously, they’re in a downward spiral right now,” he said on Monday, “and they’ve got to come to grips with all that’s happening.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Patricia Zengerle, Jeff Mason, Mark Hosenball; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Lisa Von Ahn)

Purported Boko Haram fighter says group plans to bomb Nigerian capital – video

By Ahmed Kingimi

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – A man purporting to be a Boko Haram fighter said the Islamist militant group plans to bomb Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, in a video seen by Reuters on Saturday.

“More bombs attacks are on the way, including Abuja that you feel is secured,” said the man in the video, which was obtained by Sahara Reporters, a U.S.-based journalism website, and Nigerian journalist Ahmad Salkida.

Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video. The man spoke in the Hausa language widely used in northern Nigeria and held a rifle while flanked by four other armed men.

Nigeria’s state security agency, the Department of State Services (DSS), in April said it had thwarted plans by Boko Haram militants linked to Islamic State to attack the British and U.S. embassies in Abuja.

About 82 girls were freed last Saturday in exchange for Boko Haram commanders after being held captive for three years. They were among about 270 kidnapped by the jihadist group from the town of Chibok in northeast Nigeria in April 2014.

In a second video seen by Reuters, one of a group of four females covered in full-length Muslim veils claiming to be among the abducted girls said she did not want to return home.

“We don’t want to reunite with our parents because they are not worshipping Allah, and I urge you to join us,” she said, holding a rifle and speaking in the Hausa. She added: “We have not been forcefully married to anybody. Marriage is based on your wish.”

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the authenticity of the video.

Mediator and lawyer Zannah Mustapha said some of the abducted girls refused to be released, fuelling fears that they have been radicalised.

Boko Haram has killed about 20,000 people and forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes since 2009 in an insurgency aimed at creating a state adhering to strict Islamic laws in the northeast of Africa’s most populous nation.

The militant group also carries out cross-border attacks in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Boko Haram controlled a swathe of land in northeast Nigeria about the size of Belgium until the start of 2015.

The army has retaken much of the territory that had been lost to the group, but large parts of the northeast, particularly in Borno state, remain under threat from the militants.

(Additional reporting by Angela Ukomadu in Lagos, Garba Muhammad in Kaduna and Ardo Abdullahi in Bauchi; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Grant McCool and Bill Trott)

Iraq’s Shi’ite paramilitaries squeeze Islamic State toward Syria border

Debris is seen on a street controlled by Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State fighters in north west of Mosul. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq’s Shi’ite paramilitaries launched an offensive on Friday to drive Islamic State from a desert region near the border with Syria as security forces fought the militants in the city of Mosul.

Spokesman Karim al-Nouri said the target of the operation was the Qairawan and Baaj areas about 100 km west of Mosul, where U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are advancing in their campaign to rout the militants from city.

Seven months into the Mosul campaign, Islamic State has been driven from all but a handful of districts in the city’s western half including the Old City, where it is using hundreds of thousands of civilians as human shields.

The paramilitaries have been kept on the sidelines of the battle for the city of Mosul itself, but have captured a vast, thinly populated area to the southwest, cutting Islamic State supply routes to Syria.

Islamic State is losing territory and on the retreat in both Iraq and Syria.

The Iraqi military said in a statement its air force was supporting the operation by the paramilitary groups known collectively as Hashid Shaabi or Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF).

Unlike regular Iraqi security forces, the PMF does not receive support from the U.S.-led coalition, which is wary of Iran’s influence over the most powerful factions within the body.

Officially answerable to the government in Baghdad, the PMF were formed when Islamic State overran around one third of Iraq including Mosul nearly three years ago and Iraqi security forces disintegrated.

Nouri said PMF control over the border would assist Syrian government forces when they push toward the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa.

On Friday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said their assault on Raqqa, the militants’ biggest urban stronghold, would begin soon and that they were awaiting weapons including armored vehicles from the U.S.-led coalition

The PMF is not officially involved in Syria, but tens of thousands of Iraqi Shi’ite militiamen are fighting there on behalf of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which is backed by Iran.

(Reporting by Isabel Coles; Editing by Richard Lough)

U.S.-backed Syrian forces expect Raqqa assault soon, await weapons

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) officials hold a press conference in the town of Tabqa, after capturing it from Islamic State militants this week, Syria May 12, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said

TABQA, Syria (Reuters) – The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Friday their attack to capture Raqqa city from Islamic State would begin soon and the U.S.-led coalition would supply them with weapons including armored vehicles for the assault.

The SDF, an alliance of militias including Arab groups and the Kurdish YPG militia, has been waging a campaign to isolate and ultimately capture Raqqa city since November, with backing from the U.S.-led coalition.

While the U.S.-led coalition has already supplied weapons to Arab fighters in the SDF, the White House this week authorized for the first time arming its most powerful element – the Kurdish YPG – to help in the Raqqa assault, infuriating Turkey.

SDF commander Abdul Qader Hevdeli declined to say when exactly the assault on Raqqa would begin, but said it would be soon during a news conference in the town of Tabqa, which the SDF captured this week from IS after weeks of fighting.

“I can’t specify exactly, I believe entering and storming the city will happen at the start of the summer,” he said.

“At the start of entering (Raqqa), of course, as (the U.S.-led coalition) promised us, there will be support in the form of specialized weapons, armored vehicles or others,” he said.

He said that weapons the White House has approved for the YPG had yet to arrive. “I believe these weapons or this support will arrive soon,” he said.

The capture of Tabqa and its nearby dam on the Euphrates river marked a major milestone in the SDF campaign against IS. The SDF said in a statement Tabqa would be turned over to a civilian council once fully secured.

It also said the authority that oversees the hydroelectric Tabqa dam would remain “a national Syrian institution that will serve all the regions of Syria without exception”.

(Additional reporting by Beirut bureau; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Richard Lough)

Iraqis dig their own wells in battle-scarred Mosul

Iraqi security personnel stand guard during the inaugration of a water treatment plant on the outskirts of Qaraqosh, Iraq, May 7, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

(This May 11 story has been refiled to correct U.N. to U.N. Development Program and adds government in paragraph 11.)

By Ahmed Aboulenein

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – The families start queuing every day near the well in Mosul’s Karaj al-Shamal neighborhood, filling their large plastic containers with sulphurous, nearly undrinkable water.

As the battle to clear out Islamic State drags on around them, the residents of the wrecked city in northern Iraq have given up waiting for the government or international aid groups and started digging their own water out of the rubble.

They don’t always hit the cleanest sources.

“We have no water, no electricity, no salaries, and no food. What are we supposed to do? Eat grass?” says 56-year-old Fasla Taher, as she take her containers home to the nine orphans and two widowed daughters under her care.

Shaker Mahmoud, a carpenter and day laborer, says he helped dig the well, funded by a local benefactor. The same unnamed donor has paid for five others in the area and local charities have dug some more.

Families try boiling the water to make it safer to drink, but the smell and the taste linger. “It is not fit to drink. I took it to a lab once and they said it was 15-25 percent sulfur,” says Mahmoud.

The supply is still invaluable for washing – at least 10 children had died in the area because of unsanitary conditions since the fighting started.

Islamic State militants overran the city in 2014, taking it as their biggest base in Iraq and triggering counter-attacks that have destroyed large parts of the infrastructure, including the water pipes.

A government offensive that started in October has cleared the militants out of the eastern side of the city. But the ultra-conservative militants are holed up in the Old City on the western side of the Tigris river and fighting seems to have stalled.

WATER TREATMENT

The United Nations Development Program and the government this week also reopened a water sanitation plant, part of a program that they hope will supply all re-taken areas in three months – still a long wait for the residents.

“It’s now been weeks, months really, since there has been safe drinking water here and that is why the opening of this water treatment plant is just so important today,” Lise Grande, UNDP Resident Representative for Iraq, told Reuters on Sunday.

About another 25 other plants are in line for repairs.

Beyond Mosul itself, officials say it will take $35 billion to restore all facilities in surrounding Nineveh province, though the central government in Baghdad has not yet made funds available.

Back in Karaj al-Shamal, the residents are still doing the work for themselves, as they wait for their own treatment plant to be repaired.

Progress has been slow. Soon after Islamic State quit their area, locals pooled money to repair their pipeline, only to watch it destroyed in an air strike the same day the work finished.

So they resorted to their own wells, and queuing up outside with their large plastic containers.

“This is all set up by generous people. The state is not involved,” Mahmoud says.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Andrew Heavens)