The Jim Bakker Show

After Islamic State defeat, broken Iraq farmers weigh heavy losses

Workers repair a house after it was damaged during clashes in the town of Basheeqa, Iraq, February 8, 2017.

By Michael Georgy and Maha El Dahan

QARAQOSH, Iraq/ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Sami Yuhanna was making a decent living as a wheat farmer until a jihadist put a gun to his head and declared his land in Iraq’s Nineveh province the property of Islamic State.

An army offensive has cleared the militants from the eastern half of the provincial capital, Mosul, and nearby towns and villages like Qaraqosh, home to Yuhanna’s fields.

But the terror and mismanagement that characterized their two-year rule after seizing Iraq’s agriculture heartland has devastated farmers and exacerbated the country’s food security problem.

Yuhanna, who used to sell about 100 tonnes of wheat per year, now lives in a small trailer and drives a taxi in the Kurdish capital of Erbil to barely survive. He is still haunted by the day armed militants arrived.

“They just took over everything I owned,” he said.

Farmers fear the agriculture sector could take years to recover, with tractors missing, unexploded mines in the fields and farm compounds damaged by airstrikes on the militants, who sold commodities like wheat to finance their operations.

Nineveh was Iraq’s most productive farming region before the arrival of Islamic State, producing around 1.5 million tonnes of wheat a year, or about 21 percent of Iraq’s total wheat output, and 32 percent of barley.

An estimated 70 percent of farmers fled when Islamic State took over, and those who stayed — either to join the movement or out of fear — faced heavy taxation.

As a Christian, Yuhanna was particularly vulnerable to the Sunni extremists, who tried to build a self-sustaining caliphate and killed anyone opposed to their radical ideas.

“The people that turned on me we were all from this area. I knew every one of them. They joined Daesh,” said Yuhanna, using an acronym for the group.

Reuters was not able to obtain official figures for agricultural output during Islamic State rule because the government had no access to areas under jihadist control.

Haider al-Abbadi, head of the General Union of Farmers Cooperatives, told Reuters in a telephone interview that he estimated output fell to around 300,000 tonnes, based on accounts of how much of the grain farmers had sold.

“Islamic State used to surround farmers in general and prevent them from going out into the fields and farming their land because they were scared they would escape or that they would go and join the government forces,” Abbadi said.

“This season it will be difficult to see an improvement. The only hope is that the farmers might be able to market their produce to the government again. I don’t expect the wheat crop to be more than 500,000 tonnes this season.”

Fadel El Zubi, Iraq Representative for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agreed the outlook is dire.

“It is extremely important to support farmers as their situation in newly retaken areas is characterized by extreme difficulties that is disabling them to start planting for this season 2016-2017,” Zubi said in written answers to Reuters.

“Seeds, fertilizers, fuel, electricity, sustainable agricultural equipment, as well as irrigation channels and wells and other essential supplies, are not available to enable farmers to restore their usual farming.”

The militants seized 1.1 million tonnes of wheat that was in government silos, according to Zubi. In addition, about 40 percent of agricultural machinery was sold as parts or smuggled into neighboring countries to raise money for militant activities, Abbadi said.

FOOD SECURITY

Ensuring food security has consistently been one of the central government’s biggest — and most pressing — challenges.

Even late dictator Saddam Hussein was cautious when it came to food. A rationing program for flour, cooking oil, rice, sugar and baby milk formula, the Public Distribution System (PDS), was created in 1991 to combat UN-imposed economic sanctions.

Impoverished Iraqis continue to depend on the system, which has become corrupt and wasteful over the years as well as severely curtailed in conflict zones.

The FAO estimates there are around 2.4 million people in Iraq who do not have access to nutritious food that meets their dietary needs.

Islamic State set itself apart from militant groups like Al Qaeda by holding territory and attempting to create an administration that could deliver basic services in order to win public support. But the group failed in areas such as farming.

For one thing, the militants did not match government prices, farmers said. While the state used to pay double the market price for commodities such as wheat, for example, Islamic State paid below the global average.

“They were paying farmers around $200 a ton while the government used to pay up to $600 a ton,” Zubi said.

Ghanem Hussein used to work 100 donhums (250,000 square meters) of wheat and barley crops below mountain ranges. When the jihadists showed up, his planting shrunk to 10 donhums because he didn’t fully cooperate with them.

“They did not buy anything from us. I just grew enough to feed my animals. Total destruction,” said Hussein, throwing seeds by hand on a small plot of land around his house in the village of Omar Khabshi.

He now fears for the safety of his children because dogs that ate corpses left on roadsides by fighting are biting people in his village.

NO HOPE

Islamic State’s failure to meet the basic needs of Iraqis would likely undermine any bid to make a comeback in the country as it tries to recover from losses in Syria and Libya, farmers said.

But the government is not offering much hope either, they said, with most of its resources directed at driving the militants out of Mosul.

Farmer Abdel Hakim Ali, 45, used to sell 50-100 tonnes of wheat and barley annually to state-run silos before Islamic State arrived. He and other farmers have contacted the government to see if the old arrangements could be revived.

Parts of a bulldozer are seen at a farm in the town of Basheeqa, Iraq, February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

“They said to wait because the budget is weak,” said Ali. “The state is failing. This is our government. They said wait for God’s mercy.”

This is a familiar story to farmers. When Islamic State took over Mosul in June 2014, farmers in the region had still not received government payments for the wheat they had sold that year.

Kadhum al-Bahadli, the government’s advisor on agricultural affairs, said efforts were underway to pay and compensate farmers and offer loans for seeds despite low oil prices and deteriorating state finances.

“The government has already put plans to compensate Mosul farmers for the wheat delivered to silos before the occupation of Daesh. They should be patient as the process is complicated and needs more time.”

Aref Hassan, head of a farmers association in Basheeqa with 1,100 members, showed Reuters photographs of a town once surrounded by green fields that was reduced to rubble in the effort to dislodge jihadists.

Only a few families have returned.

Hassan walked through an olive grove, despairing at the sight of one tree after another burned by militants in an apparent bid to create smoke to evade airstrikes.

Reviving the grove could take a decade, he said. For now, there are more pressing concerns.

“There are still mines and improvised explosive devices on a lot of land so farmers can’t work,” he said.

“We hope that international organizations and demining organizations will clean up the farming areas. The farmer cannot go back to his land until these farms are cleared.”

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Kremlin says Turkey provided intel for ‘friendly fire’ strikes

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian air strikes that accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers in Syria were launched based on coordinates provided to Russia by the Turkish military, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

The Turkish military has said the “friendly fire” incident occurred during an operation against Islamic State, highlighting the risk of unintended clashes between the numerous outside powers in a complex war.

“Unfortunately, our military, while carrying out strikes on terrorists, was guided by coordinates given to them by our Turkish partners, and Turkish servicemen should not have been present on those coordinates,” Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told a conference call with reporters.

“It was a lack of coordination in providing coordinates, that is how I would formulate it,” said Peskov.

Speaking with reporters in the city of Afyon, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said it was important that President Vladimir Putin had expressed his condolences to his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan.

“From our side the issue is being investigated. Initial information shows this was an accident … and an undesired incident as a result of incorrect information, coordinates,” Kurtulmus said in televised comments.

“It has been understood that closer coordination is required, both with the coalition and with Russia.”

(Reporting by Christian Lowe in Moscow and Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Islamic State shifts to Libya’s desert valleys after Sirte defeat

Libyan man checking building used by Islamic State

By Aidan Lewis

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – Islamic State militants have shifted to desert valleys and inland hills southeast of Tripoli as they seek to exploit Libya’s political divisions after defeat in their former stronghold of Sirte, security officials say.

The militants, believed to number several hundred and described as “remnants” of Islamic State’s Libya operation, are trying to foment chaos by cutting power and water supplies and to identify receptive local communities, the officials said.

They are being monitored through aerial surveillance and on-the-ground intelligence, but Libyan officials said they cannot easily be targeted without advanced air power of the kind used by the United States on Jan. 19, when B-2 bombers killed more than 80 militants in a strike southwest of Sirte.

For more than a year, Islamic State exercised total control over Sirte, building its primary North African base in the coastal city. But it struggled to keep a footing elsewhere in Libya and by December was forced out of Sirte after a six-month campaign led by brigades from the western city of Misrata and backed by U.S. air strikes.

The jihadist group lost many of its fighters in the battle and now has no territory in Libya, but fugitive militants and sleeper cells are seen to pose a threat in a country that has been deeply fractured and largely lawless since the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

The threat is focused south of the coastal strip between Misrata and Tripoli, arcing to the southeast around the town of Bani Walid and into the desert south of Sirte, said Ismail Shukri, head of military intelligence in Misrata.

One group of 60-80 militants is operating around Girza, 170 km (105 miles) west of Sirte, another group of about 100 is based around Zalla and Mabrouk oil field, about 300 km southeast of Sirte, and there are reports of a third group present in Al-Uwaynat, close the Algerian border, he said.

Some fighters were based outside Sirte before last year’s campaign, some fled during the battle and some have arrived from eastern Libya where they have been largely defeated by rival armed factions.

“They work and move around in small groups. They only use two or three vehicles at a time and they move at night to avoid detection,” said Mohamed Gnaidy, an intelligence official with forces that conducted the campaign in Sirte.

Those forces published pictures in the wake of last month’s U.S. strike showing hideouts dug into the sand, temporary shelters camouflaged with plastic sheeting and branches, stocks of weapons and satellite phones.

“This area is very difficult so it’s hard for our forces to deal with them,” said Shukri, pointing to satellite images of steep rocky banks and tracks in the sand southwest of Sirte. “The only solution to eliminate them in this area is through air strikes.”

ATTACKS ON INFRASTRUCTURE

Mohamed Gnounou, a Misrata-based air force spokesman, said the militants had been monitored for 45 days ahead of the U.S. strike. “It confirmed a large number of individuals who were preparing something new in this place, as well as developing a strategy to head to new areas.” The areas included rural districts near the coastal cities of Al Khoms and Zliten, between Misrata and Tripoli, and the region around the southern city of Sabha, he said.

Islamic State fighters had received logistical help from civilians and had paid some of them to help cut off power and water supplies, including by sabotaging a water link to Tripoli in the Great Man-made River system built by Gaddafi, and attacking electricity infrastructure near the southern city of Sabha, where there have been long blackouts in recent weeks, said Gnounou.

“Daesh (Islamic State) destroyed more than 150km of electricity pylons in the south between Jufra and Sabha. These acts fuel crisis and frustration in Libya, as well as giving an opportunity for gold diggers who smuggle through the open borders and make easy money from Daesh,” he said.

Sirte suffered extensive damage during the battle against Islamic State. Military officials from Misrata say they have the city secured and some residents have begun to return to central neighborhoods.

But they also complain about a lack of support from the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli and are nervous about military advances by forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Haftar to the east and south of Sirte.

Haftar, who has rejected the GNA, was on the opposite side to Misrata’s brigades in a conflict that flared up across Libya in 2014, just as Islamic State was gaining strength.

Both sides accuse the other of using Islamic State to their advantage, while waging separate campaigns against jihadists.

“The support we are getting is not equivalent to the risk we face or the sacrifice we have made,” said Shukri. “We need the political authorities, the (GNA) to continue the next step.”

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Russia halted Syrian army, rebel clash in northern Syria: sources

rebel fighters gather around truck carrying food

By Laila Bassam and Humeyra Pamuk

BEIRUT/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Russia intervened to halt a clash between Syrian government forces and Turkey-backed Syrian rebels in northern Syria, sources on both sides said on Friday, the first confrontation between them as both sides fight Islamic State in the area.

Islamic State is under attack from separate campaigns in northern Syria by Russian-backed government forces and Turkey-backed rebels. The clash on Thursday near the IS-held city of al-Bab underlined the risk of the parallel offensives igniting new fighting between the government and its rebel enemies.

Russia and Turkey have backed opposing sides in the war but recently started cooperating over Syria, brokering a truce between government forces and rebels and working together to try to revive peace talks.

Rebel officials said the clash took place in a village southwest of al-Bab. An official in a military alliance fighting in support of the Syrian government confirmed a clash had taken place. “The Russians intervened to control the situation,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

President Bashar al-Assad is supported in the war by the Russian military and an array of Iranian-backed militias.

Two rebel officials accused the government forces of provoking the incident. One of them said the government forces had moved towards their positions in tanks. “Rebels shot to warn them not to get any closer, but the tank responded and a clash erupted,” said the first rebel official.

“Later on Russia intervened to calm down the situation,” said the rebel official. “This whole incident felt like a test.”

A second rebel official, a commander in the al-Bab area, added: “They opened fire. Fire was returned.”

Both rebel officials said an armored vehicle had been captured from the government forces.

There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Russian air strikes accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers on Thursday in northern Syria. It was not immediately clear whether the confrontation described by the sources had taken place in the same area as the air strike.

Turkey and its FSA rebel allies have carved out a de facto buffer zone in northern Syria in territory captured from Islamic State since August in their “Euphrates Shield” operation. They have been battling to capture al-Bab since December, but escalated their attack this week, seizing the city’s outskirts.

The Syrian army meanwhile mounted its own, rapid advance towards the city in the last few weeks, advancing to within a few kilometers (miles) of its southern outskirts.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said earlier this week that clashes with the Syrian forces had been avoided thanks to international coordination, including between Turkey and Russia.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had called Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and expressed his condolences over the air strike, blaming the incident on poor coordination between Moscow and Ankara.

The Kremlin spokesman said on Friday the air strikes were based on coordinates provided to Russia by the Turkish military..

(Writing and additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Turkish-led forces advance into outskirts of Syrian city

Syrian forces gather to fight Islamic State

By Humeyra Pamuk and Tom Perry

ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels backed by the Turkish military have captured the outskirts of the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab in northern Syria, the Turkish government and rebel sources said on Wednesday.

The advance threatens an important Islamic State stronghold, whose fall would deepen Turkish influence in an area of northern Syria where it has created a de facto buffer zone.

Syrian government forces have also advanced on al-Bab from the south, bringing them close to their Turkish and rebel enemies in one of the most complex battlefields of the six-year-old conflict.

But Turkey said international coordination was under way to prevent clashes with the Syrian forces.

“The al-Bab operation must be completed immediately in the period ahead … In recent days our special forces and the Free Syrian Army (rebels) have made serious progress,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference.

In a sign of Turkish momentum and confidence, the government said its next target would be the Syrian city of Raqqa, de facto capital of the embattled Islamic State group which has also been partly dislodged from its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.

The U.S. military, which is leading an international coalition against Islamic State, said it expected Raqqa to be “completely isolated” in the next few weeks.

COORDINATION WITH RUSSIA

Al-Bab has been a major target of a Turkish offensive launched in northern Syria last August to drive Islamic State away from the border and prevent further gains by U.S.-backed Kurdish militia that are also fighting the jihadist group. The city is just 30 km (20 miles) from the Turkish border.

A Free Syrian Army rebel commander speaking to Reuters from the southeastern outskirts of al-Bab said Syrian government planes and helicopters were visible to the west of his position, saying there was now an “indirect frontline” between the sides.

But an official in a military alliance backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the city was being left to Turkish control, in what appeared to be part of a de facto deal with Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said clashes with the Syrian forces had been avoided.

“As a result of coordination between coalition forces, the Turkish air force and Russia, necessary measures are being taken to prevent any unpleasant incidents or clashes,” Yildirim said.

Assad has been backed in the war by the Russian air force and an array of Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias. The Syrian army advance towards al-Bab is aimed at preventing deeper Turkish advances and safeguarding the city of Aleppo, 50 km (30 miles) to the southwest.

“PROGRESS IS FAST”

The Turkish military said in a statement that 58 Islamic State militants had been killed in air strikes, artillery fire and clashes. Four Turkish soldiers had been killed and at least a dozen wounded. The advancing forces had captured strategic hilltops around al-Bab, the army said.

A Syrian rebel fighter reached by Reuters said he was speaking from inside al-Bab where he said Islamic State lines were collapsing. “Praise God, the progress is fast,” he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization that reports on the war, cautioned that it was not yet clear if Islamic State had collapsed entirely in the city. It said at least six people had been killed and 12 more wounded in the latest shelling there.

The organization says Turkish bombardment has killed scores of people since December. Turkey says it has been careful to avoid civilian casualties.

Islamic State is being fought by three separate military alliances in northern Syria, including the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces which incorporate the Kurdish YPG militia.

U.S. support for the YPG has angered Turkey, which views it as an extension of a Kurdish militia that is waging an insurgency in Turkey.

A spokesman for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey had presented a detailed plan to drive Islamic State out of Raqqa and discussions on the issue were under way.

Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told broadcaster NTV there had been better coordination with the U.S.-led coalition on air strikes in the last 10 days and Ankara’s priority was to establish a safe zone between the Syrian towns of Azaz and Jarablus, which are just over the border.

The safe zone is an important goal for Ankara because it would mean that civilians displaced by the conflict could be provided for in Syria, rather than crossing into Turkey.

Turkish sources said Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed in a phone call overnight to act jointly against Islamic State in al-Bab and Raqqa.

The White House said in a statement that Trump spoke about the two countries’ “shared commitment to combating terrorism in all its forms” and welcomed Turkey’s contributions to the fight against Islamic State, but it gave no further details.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam, Suleiman al-Khalidi, Nevzat Devranoglu, Gulsen Solaker, Ece Toksabay and Orhan Coskun; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Dominic Evans)

Islamic State links to Philippine militants ‘very strong’: minister

By Martin Petty and Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines is certain of “very strong” links between Islamic State and home-grown militants and is concerned about regional repercussions from tension between China and the new U.S. administration, Manila’s defense minister said on Thursday.

Intelligence from various sources had shown Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines had been communicating with Islamic State, and funds were being transferred via mechanisms commonly used by Filipino workers in the Middle East, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told Reuters.

“Before, what we suspected was the ISIS group would come here but now we are certain that the connections are very strong between home-grown terrorists here and ISIS in the Middle East,” he said in an interview, referring to Islamic State.

“Also there’s quite an amount of money being sent here from the Middle East.”

He said communications via social media, telephone and text messages had been intercepted and funds were being transferred that were difficult to detect due to the large numbers of Filipinos who regularly remit income from places like Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states.

He said there was no indication governments of those countries were involved.

The Philippines did not consider ties with longtime ally the United States to be strained, he said, despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s fierce rebukes of Washington.

Some statements about China by advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump were “very troubling”, he said, adding that an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with the United States would make U.S. troops based temporarily in the Philippines “magnets for retaliation” if things turned hostile.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

“We are concerned if war breaks out and it is near us we will be involved whether we like it or not,” he said, adding that if a conflict looked likely, the Philippines would consider scrapping the EDCA, to avoid a repeat of World War Two, when his country was badly affected.

There were no signs of any new Chinese reclamation in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, he said, and he had been given assurances repeatedly by China’s ambassador that it would not do any dredging in the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

Despite warming ties with Beijing, the Philippines still “would like to know more the thinking of China” regarding its end-game in building artificial islands equipped with military hardware, he said.

The Philippines was in no rush to pressure China to abide by last year’s ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which largely rejected Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea.

After the Philippines won the award, the United States had wanted it to push China to comply, Lorenzana said, but it had offered no guarantees of support.

“If we assert our right, our award, it was never going to do any good for us,” he said. “Would the Americans have backed us?”

He said internal security threats were growing and his ministry would next year request a doubling of its budget, or more, to address them.

The army’s involvement in Duterte’s war on drugs, following his decision to suspend police from the campaign, would be limited to assisting the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) on a case-by-case basis in hostile situations.

“They go there if they are asked by PDEA and they need firepower, then we will assist, that’s our job, that’s all,” he said.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

Islamic State-linked group claims rocket attack on Israeli resort

FILE PHOTO: An Islamic State flag is seen in this picture

GAZA (Reuters) – An Islamic State-affiliated group claimed responsibility for firing rockets on Thursday towards Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, an attack that Israel said caused no damage or casualties.

The Sinai Province group said it fired “a number of Grad rockets against gatherings of Zionist occupiers” in Eilat.

In an apparently unrelated incident several hours after the rockets were fired, two Palestinians were killed along Gaza’s border with Egypt when a tunnel beneath the frontier was bombed, Gaza’s Health Ministry said, blaming Israel. An Israeli military spokeswoman said she had no information about an Israeli strike.

Israel’s military said that of the rockets launched from the Sinai towards Eilat one landed harmlessly in an open area and the others were intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system.

“What is coming is graver and more bitter,” Sinai Province said on Telegram, an encrypted instant messaging system used by ISIS to communicate with followers.

Islamic State-linked groups waging an insurgency against Egypt in the Sinai have claimed responsibility for past rocket attacks in the Eilat area.

Egypt, which has destroyed some 2,000 smuggling tunnels on the Gaza border, has accused the Palestinian enclave’s Islamist ruling movement, Hamas, of aiding Islamic State-linked militants in the Sinai. Hamas denies the allegation.

The Israel-Gaza border has been largely quiet in recent months, but on Monday a Palestinian rocket launched from the enclave drew several Israeli strikes against Hamas targets.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Maayan Lubell and Omar Fahmy; Editing by Nick Macfie and Richard Lough)

Erdogan, Trump agree to act jointly against Islamic State in Syria: Turkish sources

WASHINGTON/ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed in a phone call overnight to act jointly against Islamic State in the Syrian towns of al-Bab and Raqqa, both controlled by the militants, Turkish presidency sources said on Wednesday.

The two leaders discussed issues including a safe zone in Syria, the refugee crisis and the fight against terror, the sources said. They also said Erdogan had urged the United States not to support the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

Trump spoke about the two countries’ “shared commitment to combating terrorism in all its forms” and welcomed Turkey’s contributions to the fight against Islamic State, the White House said in a statement, but it gave no further details.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of U.S.-backed militias, started a new phase of its campaign against Islamic State in Raqqa on Saturday.

Turkey, a NATO ally and part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, has repeatedly said it wants to be part of the operation to liberate Raqqa but does not want the YPG, which is part of the SDF alliance, to be involved.

Erdogan’s relations with former U.S. President Barack Obama were strained by U.S. support for the YPG militia, which Ankara regards as a terrorist organization and an extension of Kurdish militants waging an insurgency inside Turkey.

The Turkish army and Syrian rebel groups it supports are meanwhile fighting Islamic State in a separate campaign around al-Bab, northeast of the city of Aleppo. Ankara has complained in the past about a lack of U.S. support for that campaign.

The offices of both leaders said Trump had reiterated U.S. support for Turkey “as a strategic partner and NATO ally” during the phone call on Tuesday.

The Turkish sources said new CIA Director Mike Pompeo would visit Turkey on Thursday to discuss the YPG, and battling the network of U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey accuses of orchestrating a July coup attempt.

Turkey has been frustrated by what it sees as Washington’s reluctance to hand over Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.

There was no immediate confirmation from Washington of Pompeo’s visit.

(Reporting by Washington newsroom, Tulay Karadeniz and Humeyra Pamuk in Ankara; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Louise Ireland)

Islamic State suspected of killing six Afghan Red Cross workers: officials

By Bashir Ansari

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Islamic State gunmen were suspected of killing at least six Afghan employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Wednesday as they carried supplies to areas in the north of the country hit by deadly snow storms, government officials said.

Another two employees were unaccounted for after the attack in Afghanistan’s Jowzjan province, ICRC said, but the aid group did not know who was responsible or why the convoy was targeted.

“This is a despicable act. Nothing can justify the murder of our colleagues and dear friends,” the head of the ICRC delegation in Afghanistan, Monica Zanarelli, said in a statement.

The aid workers were in a convoy carrying supplies to areas hit by snow storms when they were attacked by suspected Islamic State gunmen, Lotfullah Azizi, the Jowzjan provincial governor, told Reuters.

“Daesh is very active in that area,” he said, using an alternate name for Islamic State, which has made limited inroads in Afghanistan but has carried out increasingly deadly attacks.

A storm dumped as much as two meters (6.5 feet) of snow on many areas of Afghanistan over the weekend, according to officials, killing more than 100 people.

Three drivers and five field officers were on their way to deliver livestock materials to those affected by the snow storms when they were attacked, the ICRC statement said.

“These staff members were simply doing their duty, selflessly trying to help and support the local community,” ICRC president Peter Maurer said.

SEARCH OPERATION

Jawzjan police chief Rahmatullah Turkistani said the workers’ bodies had been brought to the provincial capital and a search operation launched to find the two missing ICRC employees.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said his group was not involved in the attack and promised that Taliban members would “put all their efforts into finding the perpetrators”.

Last month, a Spanish ICRC employee was released less than a month after he was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in northern Afghanistan.

That staff member was traveling with three Afghan colleagues between Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz on Dec. 19 when gunmen stopped the vehicles.

The other Afghan ICRC staff were immediately released.

In a recent summary of its work in Afghanistan last year, the ICRC said increasing security issues had made it difficult to provide aid to many parts of the country.

“Despite it all, the ICRC has remained true to its commitment to the people of Afghanistan, as it has throughout the last 30 years of its continuous presence in the country,” the statement said.

Zanarelli said it was still not clear how the deadly attack might change ICRC operations.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Josh Smith in Kabul; Editing by Nick Macfie and Ken Ferris)

Air strikes hit Syria’s rebel-held Idlib, around 30 dead: residents, monitor

AMMAN (Reuters) – At least 30 people died in air strikes on the rebel-held Syrian city of Idlib on Tuesday, in some of the heaviest raids there in months, witnesses and rescue workers said.

Around eight attacks by what witnesses believed to be Russian jets wounded scores of people and leveled several multi-storey buildings in residential areas of the northwestern city, they added.

Russia’s Defense Ministry later said media reports that its planes had bombed Idlib were not true, Interfax news agency reported.

Two rescue workers said the death toll was at least 30. The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 26 people were killed and casualties were expected to rise as rescue workers searched for bodies under the rubble.

Video footage by activists on social media showed civilians, including young children, being treated in a main city hospital where the injured had been rushed for treatment.

“We are still pulling bodies from the rubble,” said Issam al Idlibi, a volunteer civil defense worker.

The extent of the damage and the debris bore the hallmarks of a Russian attack, two witnesses said.

Russian planes have targeted a number of towns and villages in the area since entering the Syrian conflict in September 2015 to back ally President Bashar al-Assad.

But activists and residents also said there had been a reduction of Russian strikes in Idlib province since a Turkish-Russian brokered cessation of hostilities late December.

Planes from the U.S.-led coalition have also launched a number of attacks in the rural province, a major stronghold of jihadists, many of them formerly affiliated to al Qaeda.

Idlib’s population has been swollen by thousands of Syrian fighters and their families evacuated from villages and towns around Damascus and Aleppo city, which was retaken by the government in recent months.

Separately, at least four people were killed in air strikes by unknown jets in the town of Arbin in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, northeast of the capital. The Syrian army and pro-government militias have been seeking in recent days to gain new ground there.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

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