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Florida airport shooting suspect indicted on 22 criminal counts

law enforcement walk at ft. lauderdale airport

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – A federal grand jury has indicted on 22 criminal counts an Iraq war veteran suspected of killing five people in a mass shooting at a Florida airport this month, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday.

Esteban Santiago, 26, is accused of opening fire in the baggage claim area of the Fort Lauderdale airport on Jan. 6. The charges against him include multiple counts of violence at an airport resulting in death and injury, as well as firearms crimes.

If convicted, he could be punished by life imprisonment or death. The U.S. Attorney General has not decided whether to seek a death sentence, the prosecutors office said.

The indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in Broward County, Florida, where the attack occurred, prosecutors in the U.S. Southern District of Florida said in a news release.

Authorities said Santiago aimed at victims’ heads and bodies until he ran out of ammunition and was taken into custody. Five people were killed in the attack and six others wounded.

The indictment accuses Santiago of “substantial planning and premeditation to cause the death of a person.”

The attack was the latest in a series of deadly U.S. mass shootings, some inspired by Islamist militants, others carried out by loners or the mentally disturbed.

Santiago had a history of erratic behavior. Authorities have said they were investigating whether mental illness played a role in the shooting.

Court records show he is being represented by a public defender. A representative answering calls for the office said it had no immediate comment.

An arraignment hearing in Santiago’s case is scheduled in federal court in Fort Lauderdale on Monday.

A private first class in the National Guard who served in Iraq from 2010 to 2011, Santiago traveled from Alaska to Florida on a one-way airline ticket with a handgun and ammunition in his checked luggage, according to authorities.

Upon arrival, he claimed his gun case and loaded the weapon in a men’s bathroom, investigators said in a criminal complaint. He opened fire on the first people he saw after leaving the restroom, it said.

Santiago told investigators he was inspired by Islamic State and had previously chatted online with Islamist extremists, according to FBI testimony presented in court.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and James Dalgleish)

Eight held in Austrian police raids linked to Islamic State

VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian police took eight people into custody on Thursday in raids linked to potential connections with the militant group Islamic State, prosecutors in the city of Graz said.

Around 800 police officers took part in the raids in Vienna and Graz “due to suspected participation in a terrorist organization (‘IS’),” they said in a statement, adding that the coordinated action had been planned for some time.

The statement gave no more details, but a spokesman said the people taken into custody included three Austrian nationals with a migrant background, two Bosnians and a Syrian. The nationalities of the other suspects were not immediately known.

“There was no acute danger” and no indications of a concrete attack, the spokesman said, adding that the detentions were not connected to the arrest of an Austrian teenager last week on suspicion of planning an Islamist attack in Vienna.

That suspect, a 17-year-old with Albanian roots, was arrested on Friday after tip-offs from unspecified foreign countries. Austria alerted Germany to a related suspect, a 21-year-old who was arrested in the western German city of Neuss on Saturday. A boy thought to be 12 has also been held in Austria.

German authorities have been on high alert since a Tunisian failed asylum seeker rammed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin on Dec. 19, killing 12 people.

Police in Vienna have also been on heightened alert since Friday’s arrest and have increased patrols at transport hubs and busy public places.

(Reporting by Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich in Vienna and Michael Shields in Zurich; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Prosecutor urges Arizona man’s conviction for Islamic State support

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal prosecutor on Wednesday urged jurors to convict an Arizona man who she said played a vital role in helping a New York college student travel to Syria, where he died fighting for Islamic State.

In her closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Negar Tekeei told a federal jury in Manhattan that Mohammed El Gammal, 44, was a “steadfast and enthusiastic supporter” of Islamic State who in an online message had said he was “with the State.”

Tekeei said the Egyptian-born Phoenix resident shared his support in encrypted messages with Samy Mohammed El-Goarany, a 24-year-old student at Baruch College in Manhattan, who like El Gammal had become “obsessed” with Islamic State.

She said El Gammal, settled in his American life, decided to guide the student toward his goal, traveling to New York in October 2014 to vet El-Goarany before putting him in touch with a friend in Istanbul who helped him get to Syria.

“It was the defendant who paved the way for that,” she said.

But Sabrina Shroff, El Gammal’s lawyer, said he did not know about El-Goarany’s plan, saying the student misled people into believing he was planning to do humanitarian work in Syria and followed steps in an Islamic State manual to join it.

While El Gammal was not shy in his views, Shroff said no evidence existed showing he took any actions. She also said El Gammal’s friend in Turkey belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood and would not have helped El-Goarany join Islamic State.

“Samy, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the only terrorist in this case,” she said.

El Gammal is one of more than 100 people to face U.S. charges since 2014 in cases related to Islamic State, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq and has claimed responsibility for bombings and shootings of civilians in other countries.

According to prosecutors, El-Goarany ultimately flew to Istanbul from New York in January 2015, and sometime after arrived in Syria, where he received religious and military training and fought with Islamic State.

Prosecutors said that in November 2015, an unidentified person via an instant messaging platform contacted El-Goarany’s brother to report that he had been killed fighting in Syria.

In a photograph of the hand-written note shown to jurors, El-Goarany wrote that “if you’re reading this then know that I’ve been killed in battle and am now with our Lord Insha’Allah.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Islamic State fighters redeploy in west Mosul after Iraqi forces take east

grenades left by Islamic State at children's school

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters have taken up sniper positions in buildings on the west bank of the Tigris river ahead of an expected government offensive into that side the city, locals said on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday his forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, and the commander of the campaign to retake Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq has said preparations to cross the Tigris are under way.

IS fighters have moved in recent days into Mosul’s main medical complex made up of a dozen buildings located between two of the city’s five bridges – positions that can be used for observation and sniper fire, local residents told Reuters.

The tallest is seven storeys, one resident said, asking not to be identified as the militants execute those caught speaking with the outside world.

Some 750,000 people live in western Mosul, according to the United Nations which has voiced grave concerns for civilians in an area beyond the reach of aid organizations.

It took 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of regional Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries, backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition, almost 100 days to retake eastern Mosul in what has become the biggest battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Taking the west side – the location of Mosul’s Grand Mosque where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” in 2014 – could prove even tougher as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists are expected to put up a fierce fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area but the narrow streets could also deprive them of one of their most effective weapons: suicide-car bombs.

The group released drone footage on Wednesday of cars driving at high speed into clusters of army Humvees and armored vehicles before blowing up.

In some cases, Iraqi soldiers can be seen running away as the car bombs speed toward them. The recordings also show munitions dropped from the drones.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside Mosul at 5,000-6,000 at the start of the battle, and have said 3,300 have been killed in the fighting.

More than 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the start of the offensive in Mosul, which had a pre-war population of about 2 million, U.N. officials say. Aid agencies estimate the dead and wounded – both civilian and military – at several thousand.

“The reports from inside western Mosul are distressing,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande said on Tuesday.

“Prices of basic food and supplies are soaring … Many families without income are eating only once a day. Others are being forced to burn furniture to stay warm.”

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Islamic State fighters redeploy in west Mosul after Iraqi forces take east

By Maher Chmaytelli

The tallest is seven storeys, one resident said, asking not to be identified as the militants execute those caught speaking with the outside world.

Some 750,000 people live in western Mosul, according to the United Nations which has voiced grave concerns for civilians in an area beyond the reach of aid organizations.

The group released drone footage on Wednesday of cars driving at high speed into clusters of army Humvees and armored vehicles before blowing up.

In some cases, Iraqi soldiers can be seen running away as the car bombs speed toward them. The recordings also show munitions dropped from the drones.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside Mosul at 5,000-6,000 at the start of the battle, and have said 3,300 have been killed in the fighting.

“The reports from inside western Mosul are distressing,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande said on Tuesday.

“Prices of basic food and supplies are soaring … Many families without income are eating only once a day. Others are being forced to burn furniture to stay warm.”

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Hundreds of police trained by Turkey start work in northern Syria

By Khalil Ashawi

JARABLUS, Syria (Reuters) – A new Syrian police force trained and equipped by Turkey started work in a rebel-held border town on Tuesday, a sign of deepening Turkish influence in northern Syria, where it has helped drive out Islamic State militants in recent months.

Casually referred to as the “Free Police”, in reference to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) alliance of moderate rebel groups which Turkey backed in its campaign against Islamic State along the Turkish border, many of the first 450 recruits are former rebel fighters.

The new, armed security force is made up of regular police and special forces, who wear distinctive light blue berets. They are Syrians, but received five weeks of training in Turkey. Some wore a Turkish flag patch on their uniforms at the inauguration ceremony on Tuesday.

It operates out of a newly opened police station in the Syrian border town of Jarablus but hopes to expand into other areas freed from Islamic State militants by Turkey-backed rebels, officials said.

FSA fighters took Jarablus from Islamic State in August, the first town to fall to Turkey’s “Operation Euphrates Shield”. That operation has steadily ousted the jihadists from the Syria-Turkish border, while also preventing Kurdish militias gaining ground in their wake.

Turkey-backed rebels now control a more than 100-km stretch along the Syria-Turkish border.

Turkey has long supported rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a complex, multi-faceted conflict. The war has divided Syria into a patchwork of areas controlled by Kurdish militias, Islamic State and various rebel groups.

The Police and National Security Force is a sign of a deepening Turkish influence in north Syria, with the new police cars and station having both Turkish and Arabic writing on them.

“Our mission is to maintain security and preserve property and to serve civilians in the areas liberated (from Islamic State),” police force head General Abd al-Razaq Aslan told Reuters.

Aslan said Turkey had provided material and logistical support that would make the new security forces highly effective.

The opening ceremony was attended by the governor of Gaziantep, a Turkish city near the border. It has become a hub for opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the nearly six-year conflict.

Governor Ali Yerlikaya said Turkey will continue to support areas taken from Islamic State militarily and by providing other services.

(Writing by Lisa Barrington in Beirut, reporting by Khalil Ashawi in Jarabus, northern Syria, editing by Larry King)

U.N. ‘racing’ to prepare emergency aid ahead of battle for western Mosul

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it is “racing against the clock” to prepare emergency aid for hundreds of thousands of endangered civilians in Mosul with an Iraqi army offensive looming to oust Islamic State from the western half of the city.

Iraqi officials said on Monday government forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, 100 days after the start of their U.S.-backed campaign to retake Iraq’s second largest city from IS insurgents who seized it in 2014.

U.N. officials estimate 750,000 people remain in Mosul west of the Tigris River that flows through the last remaining major urban center held by Islamic State in Iraq, after a series of government counter-offensives in the country’s north and west.

The west side could prove more complicated to take than the east as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles, allowing IS militants to hide among civilians.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists are expected to put up a fierce fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area of Mosul.

“We are racing against the clock to prepare for this,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande told Reuters. Humanitarian agencies were setting up displaced people camps accessible from western Mosul and pre-positioning supplies in them, she said.

“The reports from inside western Mosul are distressing,” she said in a separate statement. “Prices of basic food and supplies are soaring…Many families without income are eating only once a day. Others are being forced to burn furniture to stay warm.”

Government forces on Tuesday finished clearing the last eastern pocket held by militants – the northern suburb of Rashidiya, Major General Najm al-Jubbouri, commander of the northern front, told the local Mosuliya TV channel.

“The northern units completed the liberation of Rashidiya, the last stronghold of Daesh on the left bank,” he said, using one of the Arabic acronyms for Islamic State.

IS LAUNCHED “CALIPHATE” FROM MOSUL IN 2014

It was from Mosul’s Grand Mosque, on the western side, that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” under his rule in 2014, spanning large tracts of Iraq and Syria.

Mosul has been the largest city under IS control in either country, with a pre-war population of about two million.

A U.S.-led coalition is providing air and ground support to Iraqi forces in the battle that began on Oct. 17, the biggest in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

More than 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of regional Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries known as Popular Mobilisation are participating in the offensive.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside Mosul at 5,000-6,000 at the start of operations three months

ago, and say 3,300 have been killed in the fighting since.

Military preparations to recapture western Mosul have begun, with Popular Mobilisation militia preparing an operation in “the next two-three days” to pave the way for the main offensive on the western bank of the Tigris, the overall campaign commander, Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Yarallah, told Mosuliya TV.

Popular Mobilisation is a coalition of predominantly Iranian-trained Shi’ite groups formed in 2014 to join the fightback against Islamic State. It became an official part of the Iraqi armed forces last year.

More than 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the start of the offensive, U.N. officials say. Medical and humanitarian agencies estimate the total number of dead and wounded – both civilian and military – at several thousand.

Islamic State has “continued to attack those fleeing or attempting to flee areas that are controlled by it”, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in Geneva on Tuesday, and was also shelling districts retaken by the army.

The militants blew up a landmark hotel in western Mosul on

Friday in an apparent attempt to prevent advancing Iraqi forces

from using it as a base or a sniper position once fighting shifts west of the Tigris. The Mosul Hotel, shaped like a stepped pyramid, stands close to the river.

State television said the army had set up temporary bridges across the Tigris south of the city limits to allow troops to cross in preparation for the offensive on western districts.

Mosul’s five permanent bridges across the Tigris have

been damaged by U.S.-led air strikes, and IS blew up two.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Tom Miles in Geneva; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Bomb classes and gun counts: trauma of Mosul children under Islamic State

schoolchildren heading for schools after registering and receiving school bags

By Girish Gupta

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Schools in the east of the Iraqi city of Mosul are seeking to return to a semblance of normality after two years under Islamic State rule when they were either shuttered or forced to teach a martial curriculum that included lessons in bombmaking.

Around 40,000 students – most of whom have been kept at home by their parents since the militants captured Mosul in 2014 – will attend around 70 schools in the coming weeks after the buildings have been checked for unexploded bombs.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have retaken most eastern districts of the city and are preparing to push into the western part of Mosul, the largest city held by Islamic State across its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Teachers and parents told Reuters about the jihadists’ brand of education received by those children who have attended school over the past two years, including many children of militants. This included chemistry lessons on bombmaking and maths classes devoted to tallying up weapons caches, they said.

“In math, my six-year-old son was counting rifles. In other classes, he was being taught about suicide bombing,” said Mishwan Yunis, a 41-year-old water ministry worker whose son attends Kufa Boys’ School.

“He lost two very important years of his life. He should have been in the third grade; now he goes back to first.”

The northern city is coming back to life with markets and shops reopening and people selling once-prohibited goods such as cigarettes openly on the streets yet the damage of battle is everywhere – and fighting rages just a few kilometers away.

At Kufa Boys’ School, children run around the concrete yard wearing new bright blue school bags provided by UNICEF, in the shadow of neighboring buildings reduced to rubble.

One schoolyard in the area has been turned into a cemetery covered with dozens of freshly dug graves.

Yet a return to normality will not be easy for children, who bears the scars of living in the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq and the bitter battle for the city since late last year when Iraqi forces launched the biggest ground operation in the country since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

They could face psychological hurdles, as might their teachers, many of who told Reuters they had been threatened with being hung from their schools’ walls if they did not continue teaching under Islamic State.

“Our role is bigger now than it was two or three years ago because you need to deal with the children’s psychological state before you can teach them,” said Omar Khudor Ali, headteacher of nearby Badayel Boys’ School.

“For us to do this we need better coordination between the teachers themselves and the entire education system.”

“I need to make them forget Islamic State and be free again,” said a teacher at the adjacent Badayel Girls’ School who asked that her name not be revealed for fear of retaliation by Islamic State, fighting Iraqi forces across a nearby river.

(Editing by Pravin Char)

Iraqi forces claim recapture of eastern Mosul after 100 days of fighting

a military vehicle in the battle of mosul

By Maher Chmaytelli and Saif Hameed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi officials said on Monday government forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, 100 days after the start of their U.S.-backed campaign to dislodge Islamic State militants from the city.

The deputy parliament speaker announced the capture of the east of the city, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, after a meeting with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

“We completed the total liberation of the left bank of Mosul and this is a gift to the Iraqi people,” said Sheikh Humam Hamoudi in a statement.

The army on Sunday entered Rashidiya, the last district under the control of the militants on the east bank of the Tigris, said military spokesman Brigadier-General Yahya Rasool.

Mopping-up operations were still under way on Monday to flush out remaining militants in a pocket in this northeastern district, he said in a statement.

A resident of Rashidiya said the army had stormed the area after air strikes destroyed a tank and car bomb the militants had been preparing to attack the advancing forces.

A resident of Zanjali, a district on the west side of Mosul, said Islamic State fighters “have arrived from the left bank and are trying to find houses on the right bank”, fleeing from the government forces’ advance. The resident asked not to identified as the militants kill those caught speaking with the outside world.

Iraqi forces launched a campaign on Oct. 17 to retake Mosul from the hardline Sunni group, which captured the city in 2014, declaring from its Grand Mosque a “caliphate” that also spanned parts of Syria, ruled by its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

MILITANTS CORNERED

The defense ministry had earlier on Monday issued a statement announcing the complete takeover of eastern Mosul, adding that Abadi would be making a formal announcement later. The statement was later removed from the ministry’s website.

A U.S.-led coalition is providing air and ground support to the Iraqi forces.

The west side of Mosul could prove more complicated to take than the east as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles.

The militants are expected to put up a tough fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area of the northern Iraqi city.

Mosul had a pre-war population of nearly 2 million, and about 750,000 people are estimated to live in western Mosul. More than 160,000 have been displaced since the start of the offensive, according to the United Nations.

The battle for Mosul, involving 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite militiamen, is the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside the city at 5,000 to 6,000 at the start of operations three months ago, and says 3,300 have been killed in the fighting since.

The militants blew up a landmark hotel in western Mosul on Friday in an apparent attempt to prevent advancing Iraqi forces from using it as a base or a sniper position when fighting moves west of the Tigris.

The Mosul Hotel, shaped as a stepped pyramid, stands close to the river.

State TV said the army had set up temporary bridges across the Tigris south of Mosul to allow troops to cross in preparation for the offensive on the western bank.

The city’s five permanent bridges across the Tigris have been damaged by U.S.-led air strikes and Islamic State blew up two.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Iraqi general’s tour suggests tough fight ahead in west Mosul

destroyed buildings as a result of the battle of mosul

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL (Reuters) – Residents of east Mosul held up their children and took selfies with Iraqi counter-terrorism commander Lieutenant General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi after his men cleared Islamic State fighters from their neighbourhoods.

But his tour on Saturday of homes once occupied by the militants was a reminder of the dangers ahead as security forces prepare to expand their offensive against the Sunni militants into west Mosul.

Flanked by bodyguards in the Mohandiseen neighbourhood, Saadi got a firsthand view of Islamic State’s meticulous planning and reign of terror as he moved from house to house, greeted by locals as a hero.

In one home were a set of instructions on how to make bombs. A large bucket was filled with screws that were packed into explosives to kill and maim. Beside the leaflets were a pair of industrial rubber gloves, wires and detonators.

Nearby a thick book described how to use Russian machine guns. Militants were also well-versed on how to employ anti-tank missiles.

The battle for Mosul, involving 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite militiamen, is the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Iraqi security forces have retaken most of east Mosul, with the help of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes which flattened rows of buildings in Iraq’s second-largest city.

The next phase, expected to kick off in a few days, could prove more difficult.

Western Mosul has many narrow streets and alleyways that tanks and other large armoured vehicles cannot pass through.

Jihadists are expected to put up a much tougher fight to hold on to their last stronghold in Iraq.

“We expect to enter the west in the next few days,” said Saadi, shortly after tearing down an Islamic State poster in anger.

Mosul, the largest city held by Islamic State across its once vast, self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has been occupied by the group since its fighters drove the U.S.-trained army out in June 2014.

Its fall would mark the end of the caliphate but the militants are widely expected to mount an insurgency in Iraq and inspire attacks in the West.

DRONES, TORTURE CHAMBER

The group’s determination and organisation were evident in several homes toured by Saadi.

Laminated guides on the range of various weapons could be found on the floor or on tables.

One house was clearly dedicated to the production of small drone aircraft used for both surveillance and attacks. Several lay scattered on the floor.

A document with Islamic State logos asked detailed questions about the type of drone mission, either bombing, an explosive aircraft, spying or training.

There was section on who will manage the aircraft’s power on any particular mission and a checklist on structural integrity.

Islamic State ruled eastern Mosul with zero tolerance for dissent, routinely shooting or beheading anyone branded an opponent to their radical ideology.

Saadi’s men were tipped off Islamic State had converted a villa on the street he was standing on into a prison and torture chamber. People were held on the top floor in rooms with steel bars.

“We were told that the neighbours would hear screaming from the house,” said Saadi. “They imprisoned anyone that challenged them. Anyone who refused to fight for them.”

Across town, overlooking the Tigris River dividing east and west, the former Ninewah Oberoi Hotel offered another glimpse into Islamic State, which changed its name to Hotel of the Inheritors.

“It was a place for them for the gatherings of the foreigners (fighters) and suicide bombers,” said

Saadi, standing on the hotel’s rooftop. “Five stars … in order to encourage them.”

Gunshots rang out, and explosions could be heard, a precursor to the upcoming campaign in west Mosul.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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