Tag Archives: Islamic State

U.S. expects I.S. to wield chemical weapons in Monsol

A fighter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holds an ISIL flag and a weapon on a street in the city of Mosul

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States expects Islamic State to use crude chemical weapons as it tries to repel an Iraqi-led offensive on the city of Mosul, U.S. officials say, although adding that the group’s technical ability to develop such weapons is highly limited.

U.S. forces have begun to regularly collect shell fragments to test for possible chemical agents, given Islamic State’s use of mustard agent in the months before Monday’s launch of the Mosul offensive, one official said.

In a previously undisclosed incident, U.S. forces confirmed the presence of a sulfur mustard agent on Islamic State munition fragments on Oct. 5, a second official said. The Islamic State had targeted local forces, not U.S. or coalition troops.

“Given ISIL’s reprehensible behavior and flagrant disregard for international standards and norms, this event is not surprising,” the second official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity, and using an acronym for Islamic State.

U.S. officials do not believe Islamic State has been successful so far at developing chemical weapons with particularly lethal effects, meaning that conventional weapons are still the most dangerous threat for advancing Iraqi and Kurdish forces – and any foreign advisers who get close enough.

Sulfur mustard agents can cause blistering on exposed skin and lungs. At low doses, however, that would not be deadly.

Roughly 5,000 U.S. forces are in Iraq. More than 100 of them are embedded with Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces involved with the Mosul offensive, advising commanders and helping them ensure coalition air power hits the right targets, officials said. Still, those forces are not at the front lines, they added.

Iraqi security forces advance in Qayara, south of Mosul, to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq

Iraqi security forces advance in Qayara, south of Mosul, to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, October 18, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer

HUMAN SHIELDS

The fall of Mosul would signal the defeat of the ultra-hardline Sunni jihadists in Iraq but could also lead to land grabs and sectarian bloodletting between groups that fought one another after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

U.S. President Barack Obama estimated on Thursday that perhaps 1 million civilians were still in Mosul, creating a challenge for Iraq and its Western backers trying to expel the group through force.

“If we aren’t successful in helping ordinary people as they’re fleeing from ISIL, then that makes us vulnerable to seeing ISIL return,” Obama told reporters in Washington.

The International Organization for Migration’s Iraq chief, Thomas Weiss, said on Tuesday he expected Islamic State militants to use Mosul residents as human shields and lent his voice to concerns about the dangers of chemical agents.

The IOM had not managed to procure many gas masks yet, despite those risks, Weiss said from Baghdad.

“We also fear, and there has been some evidence that ISIL might be using chemical weapons. Children, the elderly, disabled, will be particularly vulnerable,” Weiss said.

Attacking Iraqi forces are still 12 to 30 miles (20 to 50 km) from the city itself and U.S. officials believe that Islamic State is most likely to use chemical weapons later in the campaign, in what could be a difficult, protracted battle.

The leader of Islamic State was reported to be among thousands of hardline militants still in the city, suggesting the group would go to great lengths to repel the coalition.

American officials believe some of Islamic State’s best fighters are in Mosul.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Islamic State said to use Mosul residents as human shields

Peshmerga forces advance in the east of Mosul to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul,

By Ahmed Rasheed and Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD/ERBIL (Reuters) – Residents of Mosul said Islamic State was using civilians as human shields as Iraqi and Kurdish forces captured outlying villages in their advance on the jihadists’ stronghold.

The leader of Islamic State and one of its main explosives experts were reported to be among thousands of the hardline militants still in Mosul, suggesting the group would go to great lengths to fend off any ground attack within the city limits.

With the attacking forces still between 20 and 50 km (12-30 miles) away, residents reached by telephone said more than 100 families had started moving from southern and eastern suburbs most exposed to the offensive to more central parts of the city.

Islamic State militants were preventing people fleeing Mosul, they said, and one said they directed some toward buildings they had recently used themselves.

“It’s quite clear Daesh (Islamic State) has started to use civilians as human shields by allowing families to stay in buildings likely to be targeted by air strikes,” said Abu Mahir, who lives near the city’s university and offered food to the displaced.

Like other residents contacted by telephone in the city, he refused to give his full name, but Abdul Rahman Waggaa, a member of the exiled Provincial Council of Nineveh of which Mosul is the capital, corroborated his account to Reuters, urging government and coalition forces to update their targeting data.

Around 1.5 million people are still living in Mosul and the International Organisation for Migration said it was preparing gas masks in case of chemical attack by the jihadists, who had used such weapons previously against Iraqi Kurdish forces.

The fall of Mosul would signal the defeat of the ultra-hardline Sunni jihadists in Iraq but could also lead to land grabs and sectarian bloodletting between groups which fought one another after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

For U.S. President Barack Obama, the campaign is a calculated risk, with U.S. officials acknowledging that there is no clear plan for how the region around Mosul will be governed once Islamic State is expelled.

Smoke rises from clashes at Bartila in the east of Mosul during clashes with Islamic State militants, Iraq.

Smoke rises from clashes at Bartila in the east of Mosul during clashes with Islamic State militants, Iraq. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

“DISORIENTED”

The Iraqi army and Peshmerga forces from autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan began moving toward the city at dawn on Monday under air cover from a U.S.-led coalition set up after Islamic State swept into Iraq from Syria in 2014.

Hoshiyar Zebari, a senior Kurdish official, said initial operations succeeded due to close cooperation between the Iraqi government and Kurdish peshmerga fighters, allowing them to clear Islamic State from 9 or 10 villages east of Mosul.

“Daesh is disoriented they don’t know whether to expect attacks from the east or west or north,” he told Reuters.

On Tuesday the attacking forces entered another phase, he said. “It won’t be a spectacular attack on Mosul itself. It will be very cautious. It is a high risk operation for everybody.”

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and explosives expert Fawzi Ali Nouimeh were both in the city, according to what he described as “solid” intelligence reports.

A total of 20 villages were taken from the militants east, south and southeast of Mosul by early Tuesday, according to statements from the two forces, fighting alongside one another for the first time.

Islamic State said on Monday its fighters had targeted the attacking forces with 10 suicide bombs and that their foes had surrounded five villages but not taken them. None of the reports could be independently verified.

RESIDENTS KEPT IN CITY

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the offensive on Monday around two years after Iraq’s second-largest city fell to the militants, who exploited the civil war that broke out in Syria in 2011 to seize territory there.

The operation had been planned since July with U.S. and other coalition forces and Western and Iraqi officials, mindful of the civil war that followed Saddam’s fall, say plans for administering the mainly Sunni city and accommodating those who flee the fighting are in place.

The United Nations has said up to a million people could flee the city and that it expected the first big wave in five or six days, indicating fighting would reach the city then.

But some residents said Islamic State was making sure people did not leave. Anwar said he fled his Sumer district, which lies near Mosul airport, fearing ground forces and aeriel bombing.

“I told Daesh fighters at a checkpoint I’m going to stay at my sister’s house,” he said. “A Daesh fighter made calls through his radio to make sure I was not lying and only after the voice on the other side said ‘Let him go’, did I let myself breathe.”

Fighting is expected to take weeks, if not months, as some 30,000 government forces, Sunni tribal fighters and Kurdish Peshmerga first encircle the city then attempt to oust between 4,000 and 8,000 Islamic State militants.

More than 5,000 U.S. soldiers are also deployed in support missions, as are troops from France, Britain, Canada and other Western nations.

The Iraqi army is attacking Mosul on the southern and southeastern fronts, while the Peshmerga carried out their operation to the east and are also deployed north and northwest.

The Kurdish forces said they secured “a significant stretch” of the 80 km (50 mile) road between Erbil, their capital, and Mosul, about an hour’s drive to the west.

Coalition warplanes attacked 17 Islamic State positions in support of the Peshmerga operation in the heavily mined area, the Kurdish statement said, adding that at least four car bombs were destroyed.

There was no indication about the number of military or civilian casualties in the Iraqi or Kurdish statements.

Obama is seeking to put an end to the “caliphate” – a launch pad for attacks on civilians in the West – before he leaves office in January.

France said it would co-host a multilateral meeting with Iraq on Oct. 20 to discuss how to stabilize Mosul and its surroundings once Islamic State has been defeated.

Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the militants were likely to retreat to their Syrian bastion Raqqa, so it was vital to consider how to retake that city too.

“We can’t let Islamic State reconstitute itself or strengthen to create an even more dangerous hub,” he said.

The Mosul plan calls for the governor of the city’s Nineveh province, Nawfal al-Agoub, to be restored and the city divided into sub-districts with local mayors for each. Agoub will govern along with a senior representative from Baghdad and from Erbil, capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

Screening procedures for any civilians able to flee Mosul have been enhanced, in an effort to learn from the battle for Fallujah, in Anbar province. There, Sunni men and boys were held, tortured and in some cases killed by Shi’ite militia members, who had erected makeshift checkpoints.

The U.N. refugee agency said it had built five camps to house 45,000 people and plans to have an additional six in the coming weeks with a capacity for 120,000, that would still not be enough to cope if the exodus is as big as feared.

(Additional reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh in ERBIL, Ahmed Rasheed and Stephen Kalin in BAGHDAD, Stephanie Nebehay in GENEVA, Warren Strobel, Yara Bayoumy and Jonathan Landay in WASHINGTON; writing by Philippa Fletcher; editing by Giles Elgood)

Islamic State said to lose ground as coalition closes on Mosul

Peshmerga forces after attacking Islamic State

* Iraqi and Kurdish forces say took villages near Mosul

* Consolidating territory, still some way from city

* Civilians at risk, aid groups say, gas attack possible

* IS leader and explosive expert in Mosul-Kurdish official

By Maher Chmaytelli and Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Oct 18 (Reuters) – Iraqi and Kurdish forces closing in on Mosul said on Tuesday they had secured some 20 villages on the outskirts of the city in the first day of an operation to retake what is Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq.

With around 1.5 million people still living in Mosul, the International Organisation for Migration said it was preparing gas masks in case of chemical attack by the jihadists, who had used such weapons previously against Iraqi Kurdish forces.

Tens of thousands of civilians could be forcibly expelled, trapped between fighting lines or used as human shields, said the IOM, one of many aid organizations to sound the alarm.

The fall of Mosul would signal the defeat of the ultra-hardline Sunni jihadists in Iraq but could also lead to land grabs and sectarian bloodletting between groups which fought one another after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

For U.S. President Barack Obama, the campaign is a calculated risk, with U.S. officials acknowledging that there isno clear plan for how the region around Mosul will be governed once Islamic State is expelled.

The Iraqi army and Peshmerga forces from autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan began moving towards the city at dawn on Monday under air cover from a U.S.-led coalition set up after Islamic State swept into Iraq from Syria in 2014.

Hoshiyar Zebari, a senior Kurdish official, said initial operations succeeded due to close cooperation between the Iraqi government and Kurdish peshmerga fighters, allowing them to clear Islamic State from 9 or 10 villages east of Mosul.

“Daesh is disoriented they don’t know whether to expect attacks from the east or west or north,” he told Reuters, using an Arabic acronym for the hardline Sunni group.

On Tuesday the attacking forces entered another phase, he said. “It won’t be a spectacular attack on Mosul itself. It will be very cautious. It is a high risk operation for everybody.”

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and explosives expert Fawzi Ali Nouimeh were both in the city, according to what he described as “solid” intelligence reports, indicating the group would put up significant resistance.

A total of 20 villages were taken from the militants east, south and southeast of Mosul by early Tuesday, according to statements from the two forces, fighting alongside one another for the first time.

Islamic State said on Monday its fighters had targeted the attacking forces with 10 suicide bombs and that their foes had surrounded five villages but not taken them. None of the reports could be independently verified.

The advancing forces were still between 20 and 50 km (12-30 miles) from Mosul and officials described it as a “shaping operation” designed to enhance positions ahead of a major
offensive by taking hilltops, crossings and important crossroads.

EXODUS FEARED

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the offensive on Monday around two years after Iraq’s second-largest city fell to the militants, who exploited the civil war that broke out in Syria in 2011 to seize territory there.

The operation had been planned since July with U.S. and other coalition forces and Western and Iraqi officials, mindful of the civil war that followed Saddam’s fall, say plans for
administering the mainly Sunni city and accommodating those who flee the fighting are in place.

The United Nations has said up to a million people could flee the city and that it expected the first wave in five or six days.

Fighting is expected to take weeks, if not months, as some 30,000 government forces, Sunni tribal fighters and Kurdish
Peshmerga first encircle the city then attempt to oust between 4,000 and 8,000 Islamic State militants.

More than 5,000 U.S. soldiers are also deployed in support missions, as are troops from France, Britain, Canada and other Western nations.

The Iraqi army is attacking Mosul on the southern and southeastern fronts, while the Peshmerga carried out their operation to the east.

The Peshmerga, who are also deployed north and northwest of the city, said they secured “a significant stretch” of the 80 km (50 mile) road between Erbil, their capital, and Mosul, about an hour’s drive to the west.

Obama is seeking to put an end to the “caliphate” – a launch pad for attacks on civilians in the West – before he leaves office in January and the Mosul campaign comes three weeks before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8.

Coalition warplanes attacked 17 Islamic State positions in support of the Peshmerga operation in the heavily mined area, the Kurdish statement said, adding that at least four car bombs were destroyed.

There was no indication about the number of military or civilian casualties in the Iraqi or Kurdish statements.

POST-WAR PLAN

The Mosul plan calls for the governor of the city’s Nineveh province, Nawfal al-Agoub, to be restored and the city divided into sub-districts with local mayors for each. Agoub will govern along with a senior representative from Baghdad and from Erbil, capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

Screening procedures for civilians fleeing Mosul have been enhanced, in an effort to learn from the battle for Fallujah, in Anbar province. There, Sunni men and boys were held, tortured and in some cases killed by Shi’ite militia members, who had erected makeshift checkpoints.

The U.N. refugee agency said it had built five camps to house 45,000 people and plans to have an additional six in the coming weeks with a capacity for 120,000, that would still not be enough to cope if the exodus is as big as feared.

Amnesty International urged Iraqi authorities to keep Shi’ite paramilitary groups away from Mosul whose population is largely Sunni.

The rights group said the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad would bear responsibility for the actions of the militias, known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are officially considered to be part of the country’s armed forces.

U.S. and Iraqi officials are working to ensure displaced civilians take safe routes out of the city, and that checkpoints are overseen by provincial authorities and monitored by international non-government groups.

(Additional reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh in ERBIL, Ahmed Rasheed and Stephen Kalin in BAGHDAD, Stephanie Nebehay in GENEVA, Warren Strobel, Yara Bayoumy and Jonathan Landay in WASHINGTON; writing by Philippa Fletcher; editing by Giles Elgood)

Refugee from Iraq pleads guilty in U.S. to attempting to join Islamic State

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – An Iraqi-born man who entered the United States as a refugee pleaded guilty on Monday in Texas to attempting to volunteer to fight with Islamic State, federal prosecutors said.

Omar Faraj Saeed Al-Hardan, 24, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Houston to one count of attempting to provide material support, specifically himself, to the militant group, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the southern district of Texas said in a statement.

Al-Hardan, who most recently lived in Houston, faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 17, prosecutors said.

The case comes during a U.S. presidential race in which the question of admitting refugees from the Middle East, especially Syria, has become a point of contention between the two leading candidates.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has called for increasing the number of Syrian refugees admitted and said the United States can adequately screen them. Republican nominee Donald Trump has opposed their entry and called for “extreme vetting” of incoming Muslim immigrants.

In the Texas case, federal agents began investigating Al-Hardan in 2014 after he communicated with a California man who he believed was associated with the Syrian Islamist rebel group Al-Nusrah, prosecutors said in a statement.

Al-Hardan in 2014 and 2015, in discussions with a confidential informant, said he planned to travel overseas to support Islamic State, prosecutors said.

He also said he had taught himself to make remote detonators and showed off a circuit board he built as a transmitter, prosecutors said.

Al-Hardan entered the United States as an Iraqi refugee in late 2009, about two years before the start of a civil war in Syria, after spending time in refugee camps in Jordan and Iraq, prosecutors said. He was later granted legal permanent residence.

The arrest of Al-Hardan gained national media attention in January, with Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a conservative Republican, citing it as an indication of why Texas was seeking to block the resettlement of Syrian refugees.

Islamic State, which controls tracts of land in Iraq and Syria, has claimed credit for a surge in global attacks this summer, even as it has been hammered by U.S.-led coalition air strikes. On Monday, Iraqi forces launched a U.S.-backed offensive to drive Islamic State from the city of Mosul.

President Barack Obama has said refugees are properly screened and vetted.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Syrian rebels seize ‘doomsday’ village where Islamic State promised final battle

A view shows an office that was used by Islamic State militants in Turkman Bareh village, after rebel fighters advanced in the area, in northern Aleppo

By Angus McDowall and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels said they captured the village of Dabiq from Islamic State on Sunday, forcing the jihadist group from a stronghold where it had promised to fight a final, apocalyptic battle with the West.

Its defeat at Dabiq, long a mainstay of Islamic State’s propaganda, underscores the group’s declining fortunes this year as it suffered battlefield defeats in Syria and Iraq and lost a string of senior leaders in targeted air strikes.

The group, whose lightning advance through swathes of the two countries and declaration that it had established a new caliphate stunned world leaders in 2014, is now girding for an offensive against Iraq’s Mosul, its most prized possession.

The rebels, backed by Turkish tanks and warplanes, took Dabiq and neighboring Soran after clashes on Sunday morning, said Ahmed Osman, head of the Sultan Murad group, one of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions involved in the fighting.

“The Daesh myth of their great battle in Dabiq is finished,” he told Reuters, using a pejorative name for Islamic State.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said that Dabiq’s liberation was a “strategic and symbolic victory” against Islamic State.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter also welcomed the retaking of Dabiq as both a military and symbolic blow to Islamic State and thanked Turkey for the role it played. “Its liberation gives the campaign to deliver ISIL a lasting defeat new momentum in Syria,” Carter said, using an alternative name for the group. ‎

The Free Syrian Army is an umbrella group for rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, dragging in regional and global powers and creating space for jihadists.

An Islamic prophecy names Dabiq as the site of a battle between Muslims and infidels that will presage doomsday, a message Islamic State used extensively in its propaganda, going so far as to name its main publication after the village.

It also chose Dabiq as the location for its killing in 2014 of Peter Kassig, an American aid worker held hostage by the group, by Mohammed al-Emwazi, better known as Jihadi John.

However, it has appeared to back away from Dabiq’s symbolism since advances by the FSA groups backed by Turkey had put it at risk of capture, saying in a more recent statement that this battle was not the one described in the prophecy.

The village, at the foot of a small hill in the fertile plains of Syria’s northwest about 14 km (9 miles) from the Turkish border and 33 km north of Aleppo, has little strategic significance in its own right.

But Dabiq and its surroundings, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State had brought 1,200 fighters in recent weeks, occupied a salient into territory captured by the Turkey-backed rebels.

CLASHES

Ankara launched the Euphrates Shield operation, bringing rebels backed by its own armor and air force into action against Islamic State, in August, aiming to clear the group from its border and stop Kurdish groups gaining ground in that area.

“Euphrates Shield will continue until we are convinced that the border is completely secure, terrorist attacks against Turkish citizens out of the question and the people of Syria feel safe,” Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said.

The Turkish-backed forces would now continue their advance toward the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab, southeast of Dabiq, he said.

A Turkish military source said that while Dabiq was largely under control, some rebels had been killed in blasts by landmines and other bombs.

The rebels and Turkish military were working to secure Dabiq’s surroundings to prevent any remaining Islamic State fighters trapped in the area from escaping.

Since early 2016 Islamic State’s territorial possessions in Syria have been steadily eroded by the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the United States, which in August took the city of Manbij.

Turkey’s campaign has since cut the jihadist group off from the Turkish border, long its most reliable entry point for supplies and foreign fighters.

Meanwhile air strikes have killed a succession of Islamic State leaders in Syria, including its “war minister” Omar al-Shishani and Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, one of its leading strategists and an architect of its shift toward plotting attacks in Europe.

In Iraq the army backed by Shi’ite Muslim militia groups has this year recaptured Falluja and is now poised for an offensive on Mosul, where Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in 2014 declared himself heir to Islam’s caliphs.

However, the militants still hold most of Syria’s Euphrates basin, from al-Bab, 26 km southeast of Dabiq, through the group’s capital of Raqqa and to the Iraqi border.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun in Ankara and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Greg Mahlich and Sandra Maler)

Exclusive: Islamic State crushes rebellion plot in Mosul as army closes in

Convoy on the Outskirts of Mosul

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State has crushed a rebellion plot in Mosul, led by one of the group’s commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the caliphate’s Iraqi capital to government forces, residents and Iraqi security officials said.

Islamic State (IS) executed 58 people suspected of taking part in the plot after it was uncovered last week. Residents, who spoke to Reuters from some of the few locations in the city that have phone service, said the plotters were killed by drowning and their bodies were buried in a mass grave in a wasteland on the outskirts of the city.

Among them was a local aide of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who led the plotters, according to matching accounts given by five residents, by Hisham al-Hashimi, an expert on IS affairs that advises the government in Baghdad and by colonel Ahmed al-Taie, from Mosul’s Nineveh province Operation Command’s military intelligence.

Reuters is not publishing the name of the plot leader to avoid increasing the safety risk for his family, nor the identities of those inside the city who spoke about the plot.

The aim of the plotters was to undermine Islamic State’s defense of Mosul in the upcoming fight, expected to be the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Mosul is the last major stronghold of Islamic State in Iraq. With a pre-war population of around 2 million, it is at least five times the size of any other city Islamic State has controlled. Iraqi officials say a massive ground assault could begin this month, backed by U.S. air power, Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite and Sunni irregular units.

A successful offensive would effectively destroy the Iraqi half of the caliphate that the group declared when it swept through northern Iraq in 2014. But the United Nations says it could also create the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, in a worst case scenario uprooting 1 million people.

Islamic State fighters are dug in to defend the city, and have a history of using civilians as human shields when defending territory.

CAUGHT

According to Hashimi, the dissidents were arrested after one of them was caught with a message on his phone mentioning a transfer of weapons. He confessed during interrogation that weapons were being hidden in three locations, to be used in a rebellion to support the Iraqi army when it closes in on Mosul.

IS raided the three houses used to hide the weapons on Oct. 4, Hashimi said.

“Those were Daesh members who turned against the group in Mosul,” said Iraqi Counter-terrorism Service spokesman Sabah al-Numani in Baghdad, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “This is a clear sign that the terrorist organization has started to lose support not only from the population, but even from its own members.”

A spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition which conducts air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq was unable to confirm or deny the accounts of the thwarted plot.

Signs of cracks inside the “caliphate” appeared this year as the ultra-hardline Sunni group was forced out of half the territory it overran two years ago in northern and western Iraq.

Some people in Mosul have been expressing their refusal of IS’s harsh rules by spray-painting the letter M, for the Arabic word that means resistance, on city walls, or “wanted” on houses of its militants. Such activity is punished by death.

Numani said his service has succeeded in the past two months in opening contact channels with “operatives” who began communicating intelligence that helped conduct air strikes on the insurgents’ command centers and locations in Mosul.

A list with the names of the 58 executed plotters was given to a hospital to inform their families but their bodies were not returned, the residents said.

“Some of the executed relatives sent old women to ask about the bodies. Daesh rebuked them and told them no bodies, no graves, those traitors are apostates and it is forbidden to bury them in Muslim cemeteries,” said one resident whose relative was among those executed.

“After the failed coup, Daesh withdrew the special identity cards it issued for its local commanders, to prevent them from fleeing Mosul with their families,” Colonel al-Taie said.

A Mosul resident said Islamic State had appointed a new official, Muhsin Abdul Kareem Oghlu, a leader of a sniper unit with a reputation as a die-hard, to assist its governor of Mosul, Ahmed Khalaf Agab al-Jabouri, in keeping control.

Islamic State militants have placed booby traps across the city of Mosul, dug tunnels and recruited children as spies in anticipation of the offensive.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Peter Graff)

Islamic State claims responsibility for deadly mosque attack in Afghan capital

Afghan Shi'ite Muslims carry the coffin of one of the victims of Tuesday's attack for burial at the Sakhi Shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) – Islamic State on Wednesday claimed responsibility for an attack that killed at least 18 worshippers at a shrine in the Afghan capital, raising fears of sectarian violence after a string of attacks on the country’s Shi’ite minority.

The claim of responsibility for Tuesday’s attack, released online, came as the minority gathered to observe Ashura, one of its holiest days, in commemorations subdued because of security fears, as well as the funerals of the dead.

On Wednesday afternoon, a second explosion outside a mosque in northern Afghanistan killed at least 14 people and wounded 24 at a similar Ashura gathering. But there was no immediate claim of responsibility for that blast.

Islamic State also targeted members of Kabul’s Shi’ite community in a suicide bombing in July that killed more than 80 people and wounded 130.

The attacker in Kabul, said to be wearing a police uniform, entered the Karte Shakhi mosque on Tuesday night and opened fire on a crowd of Shi’ite Muslims gathered for Ashura, which marks the seventh-century death of a grandson of the prophet Mohammed.

In its statement, Islamic State said the attacker detonated a suicide vest after firing all his ammunition, but security forces said they shot the man.

A Reuters video shows the suspected attacker’s body intact, with no sign of an explosive vest.

The dead included four women and two children, said the United Nations, which condemned the attack as an “atrocity”.

It put the tally at 18 civilians killed and 50 wounded, though some witnesses said the toll could be higher.

Mourners buried several of the victims, including a four-year-old girl, on Wednesday.

“We are not happy with the government and the police. They both failed to protect us and provide security for us,” said one of the girl’s relatives, Mohammed Hussain, who described the event as “doomsday” for the family.

The day is typically marked by processions that often include self-flagellation by some worshippers, but government warnings of possible attacks prompted more subdued observation of the event this year.

The Taliban, who have been waging a 15-year insurgency against the Western-backed government and often conduct attacks in Kabul, had denied involvement in the shooting.

The schism between Sunnis and Shi’ites developed after the prophet Mohammed died in 632 and his followers could not agree on a successor. Some Sunni Muslim militants see Shi’ites as a threat and legitimate targets for attack.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel and Clarence Fernandez)

Turkish army says Islamic State putting up ‘stiff resistance’ in Syria

A Turkey military vehicle near an ISIS stronghold

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Islamic State militants in northern Syria are putting up “stiff resistance” to attacks by Turkish-backed rebel fighters, Turkey’s military said on Wednesday, almost two months after it launched an incursion to drive them away from its border.

Supported by Turkish tanks and air strikes, the rebels have been pushing toward the Islamic State stronghold of Dabiq. Clashes and air strikes over the past 24 hours have killed 47 jihadists, the military said in a statement.

“Due to stiff resistance of the Daesh (Islamic State) terror group, progress could not be achieved in an attack launched to take four settlements,” it said, naming the areas east of the town of Azaz as Kafrah, Suran, Ihtimalat and Duvaybik.

However, the operation to drive the jihadists away from the Turkish border, dubbed “Euphrates Shield”, has allowed Turkish-backed rebels to take control of about 1,100 square km (425 square miles) of territory, the military said.

A Syrian rebel commander told Reuters the rebels were about 4 km (2.5 miles) from Dabiq. He said capturing Dabiq and the nearby town of Suran would spell the end of Islamic State’s presence in the northern Aleppo countryside.

A planned major offensive on the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab, southeast of Dabiq and an important strategic target, depended on how quickly rebels could take control of the roughly 35 km (22 miles) in between the two cities, he said.

Al-Bab is also a strategic target for the Kurdish YPG militia, which, like the rebels, is battling Islamic State in northern Syria but is viewed as a hostile force by Turkey.

In a daily round-up on Euphrates Shield’s 50th day, the Turkish army said 19 Islamic State fighters had been “neutralized” in clashes and eight rebels were killed. Twenty-two rebels were wounded and Turkish forces suffered no losses.

Turkish warplanes destroyed five buildings used by Islamic State fighters, while U.S.-led coalition jets “neutralized” 28 of the jihadists and destroyed three buildings, it said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Louise Ireland)

U.N. – situation ‘rapidly deteriorating’ in embattled Afghan city

Afghan security forces keep watch in front of their armoured vehicle in Kunduz city, Afghanistan

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Fighting in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz has led to a “rapidly deteriorating” humanitarian situation, officials said on Thursday, leaving thousands of people with limited access to food, water, or medical care.

Street-to-street gun battles have continued for four days after Taliban militants slipped past the city’s defenses on Monday.

Government troops, backed by U.S. special forces and air strikes, have repeatedly declared that they are in control of the city, but residents report that heavy fighting has forced many people to flee.

The fighting has forced as many as 10,000 people from their homes in Kunduz, the United Nations reported, with those who remain facing serious water, food and electricity shortages, as well as threats from the fighting.

“Many families were unable to bring their possessions with them and are in a precarious position,” Dominic Parker, head of the U.N.’s humanitarian coordination office, said in a statement. “We have had reports that some families have been forced to sleep out in the open and many have few food supplies.”

Among those fleeing Kunduz are about two-thirds of the staff at the city’s main public hospital, which was struck by several rockets and small arms fire, said Marzia Yaftali Salaam, a doctor.

The 200-bed public hospital is the main provider of medical care in Kunduz after a more advanced trauma center run by Medecins Sans Frontieres was destroyed by an American air strike last year.

In the past three days, the hospital has been inundated by at least 210 patients, many of them civilians, including women and children, wounded in the fighting, Salaam said.

“Many of the wounded had to be carried to clinics in surrounding districts and private clinics in the city,” she said. “If the situation remains the same, we may be forced to halt our services.”

During a lull in the fighting on Wednesday, nearly 50 casualties were rushed to the hospital in the span of a few hours, said Hameed Alam, head of the public health department in Kunduz.

The U.S. military command in Kabul said Afghan forces are “defeating Taliban attempts to take Kunduz,” with reinforcements on the way and commandos continuing to clear “isolated pockets” of Taliban fighters.

The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist from 1996 to 2001, are seeking to topple the Western-backed government in Kabul and reimpose Islamic rule.

“There is fighting in every street and the situation is critical,” said Ismail Kawasi, a spokesman for the Public Health Ministry in Kabul.

Additional medical supplies and personnel were positioned in neighboring provinces, but they must wait for the fighting to subside before they can be flown to Kunduz, he said.

(Reporting by Sardar Razmal; Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni in Kabul; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie and Dominic Evans)

Suicide bombers hit Shi’ite gatherings in Baghdad, at least 11 dead: police

Member of Si

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Suicide bombers attacked two Shi’ite Muslim processions in Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than 40, police and medical sources said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts at the Shi’ite events commemorating the slaying of Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hussein.

A bomber detonated his explosive vest in the middle of one Shi’ite procession in the Amil district of southern Baghdad, killing six and wounding 25, the sources said.

A similar attack hit a procession in the eastern Mashtal district, killing five and wounding 18, the sources added.

(Reporting by Karem Raheem and Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Andrew Heavens)