Tag Archives: Islamic State

Texas father and son among scores killed in France attack

French police secure the area as the investigation continues at the scene near the heavy truck that ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores who were celebrating the Bastille Day

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A Texan and his 11-year-old son on a family vacation were among at least 84 people killed when an attacker crashed a heavy truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day in the French seaside city of Nice, officials said on Friday.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott named the two as Sean Copeland and his son Brodie. Sean, 51, and Brodie were from Lakeway, about 20 miles (30 km) northwest of Austin, and were in the southern Riviera city on a European vacation, family friend Jess Davis told the Austin-American-Statesman newspaper.

French President Francois Hollande called Thursday night’s attack a terrorist act by an enemy determined to strike all nations that share France’s values.

The U.S. State Department confirmed two U.S. citizens were among the dead but did not identify them.

“We are heartbroken and in shock over the loss of Brodie Copeland, an amazing son and brother who lit up our lives, and Sean Copeland, a wonderful husband and father,” the family said in a statement.

Sean Copeland was the vice president of North and South America for Kapow Software, Davis said. Kapow is a division of Lexmark International Inc..

The governor’s office said the French flag is being flown over the governor’s mansion in Austin in remembrance of the victims. “While every heinous attack like this is tragic, this latest one hits close to home,” Abbott said in a statement.

“Sean was not only a terrific leader … but a phenomenal person who will be dearly missed,” said Lexmark spokesman Jerry Grasso.

Haley Copeland, a niece of Sean, wrote on Facebook that “losing a loved one is hard no matter the circumstances but losing a loved one in such a tragic and unexpected way is unbearable. Prayers are much appreciated.”

A photo of Brodie playing in French Riviera waters was posted on Facebook by his youth baseball league, Hill Country Baseball, which said it received it hours before the attack.

The post was followed by hundreds of comments, many offering condolences and prayers. Sean Copeland was remembered by several people in the baseball league as a loving and caring father.

A GoFundMe.com page was set up, seeking to raise $100,000 for the family.

U.S. Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, wrote on Twitter: “A truly heartbreaking loss of life in #Nice, my condolences and prayers are with the Copelands and the community of Lakeway, TX today.”

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York, David Brunnstrom in Moscow and Jon Herskovitz in Austin; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and James Dalgleish)

Death of Islamic State Shishani may damage foreign recruitment

A still image taken on July 14, 2016 from an undated video posted on social media, shows Islamic State senior operative Abu Omar al-Shishani sitting with fighters in an unknown

By Stephen Kalin and Phil Stewart

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The death of Islamic State’s “minister of war” may disrupt its operations, a senior U.S. military officer said on Thursday, and an Iraqi security expert said it could damage the group’s important recruitment efforts in ex-Soviet republics.

Abu Omar al-Shishani (the Chechen), a close military adviser to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in combat in the Iraqi district of Shirqat, south of Mosul, Amaq, a news agency that supports IS, said on Wednesday.

It was the first confirmation of Shishani’s death, which the Pentagon said in March had probably occurred as a result of a U.S. air strike in eastern Syria.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said on Thursday that Shishani had been the target of an attack on Sunday against an Islamic State leadership meeting near Mosul. Cook said the department was aware of reports Shishani had been killed but was not currently able to confirm that.

Cook said the United States believed Shishani was killed in March but learned recently that he might still be alive and decided to carry out a strike targeting him. He said the Pentagon was still assessing the results of the strike.

Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises Iraq’s government on Islamist armed groups, said Shishani had been wounded in the March attack but was treated at a hospital in Shirqat, an Islamic State stronghold about 250 km (160 miles) north of Baghdad.

He said Shishani was killed earlier this week in a nearby village along with an aide by an air strike during combat with U.S.-backed Iraqi forces closing in on the area.

The commander of the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, expressed confidence in the intelligence that led to the recent strike on Shishani in the Tigris River valley where Shirqat is located, but declined on Thursday to declare him dead.

“We’re being a little conservative in calling the ball on whether or not he’s actually dead or not. But we certainly gave it our best shot,” MacFarland told reporters in Baghdad.

Iraqi military officials had no immediate comment.

Some analysts speculated that Shishani might in fact have died in March but Islamic State delayed its announcement to allow time to line up a successor.

Yet there was no immediate word from IS about who would take over for the ginger-bearded jihadist who held as many as three senior posts and was a strong force for recruitment from Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus region and Central Asia.

“(IS) lost something important: the charisma that he had to inspire and seduce Salafists from Chechnya, the Caucasus and Azerbaijan – the former Soviet republics,” Hashimi said.

Asked about the potential impact, MacFarland said it could disrupt Islamic State operations if Shishani were indeed dead. “They would have to figure out who’s going to pick up his portfolio,” he said.

RUSSIAN SPEAKERS

Born in 1986 in Georgia, then still part of the Soviet Union, Shishani once fought with Chechen rebels against the Russian military in the Caucasus province. He then joined independent Georgia’s military in 2006 and fought in its brief war with Russia two years later before receiving a medical discharge, according to U.S. officials.

Shishani was one of only a few Islamist leaders with a professional military background and had several hundred fighters, mostly from ex-Soviet republics, under his command when he came to prominence in a 2013 battle against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in northern Syria.

His role in the capture of Menagh air base, which since has been ceded to regional Kurdish forces, was one of the first big victories by Russian-speaking militants in Islamic State’s rapid capture of large swathes of territory in Syria’s civil war.

Hashimi said it was not clear who Islamic State would choose to replace Shishani, but it was likely to be someone with a similar ethnic background.

“The replacement must be Chechen because there was an agreement between (IS) and the Army of Muhajireen and Ansar that this position must be filled by a Chechen,” said Hashimi, referring to a Syria-based militant group that split when Shishani pledged allegiance to Baghdadi.

According to photographs circulated online, road signs erected in areas controlled by Islamist State are sometimes written in three languages – Arabic, English, and Russian – testifying to the important role of Russian speakers.

In many cases those rebels have been influenced by Islamist insurgencies at home, pushed out of their own countries by security crackdowns, and won advancement in Islamic State through their military skills and ruthlessness.

In June, a Russian official said up to 10,000 militants from ex-Soviet republics were fighting in the ranks of jihadist groups in the Middle East.

Shishani’s group grew to about 1,000 fighters by the end of 2013, according to a notice issued by the U.S. government, which offered up to $5 million for any information that would help to track him down.

Shishani also may have helped Islamic State seize the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014, the victory that established the group as the most potent Islamist security threat in the Middle East.

The suspected attackers in last month’s attack on Istanbul airport had ties to Islamic State and were from Russia and the formerly Soviet Central Asian states of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Turkish officials say.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin; Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Peter Cooney)

U.S. Military likely to seek additional troops in Iraq

U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, commander, U.S. Central Command, briefs the media at the Pentagon in Washington, U.S. April 29, 2016 about the investigation of the airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders trauma center in Kunduz, Afghanistan

By Phil Stewart

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military expects to seek additional troops in Iraq, even beyond the hundreds announced this week, as the campaign against the Islamic State advances, the head of the U.S. military’s Central Command told Reuters.

“As we continue on the mission, I think there will be some additional troops that we will ask to bring in,” U.S. Army General Joseph Votel said in an interview in Baghdad on Thursday, without disclosing a number.

Votel, who oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, said the size of possible future increases were still being discussed within military circles. He did not offer details on the timing of any requests to President Barack Obama’s administration.

His remarks came just three days after Obama’s administration announced a 560 troop increase as part of an effort to facilitate an Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city.

Most of those troops will work out of Qayara air base, which Iraqi forces recaptured from Islamic State militants last week.

They plan to use Qayara as a staging ground for an offensive to retake Mosul.

Votel suggested future requests would similarly be tailored to particular stages of the campaign.

“We try to tie our requests to specific objectives we’re trying to achieve on the ground,” he said.

The recapture of Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto Iraqi capital, from which its leader declared a modern-day caliphate in 2014, would be a major boost for the plans by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the United States to weaken the militant group.

Abadi has pledged to retake Mosul by the end of the year.

Some U.S. officials caution that retaking the city without a plan to restore security, basic services and governance would be a major mistake and question the ability of Iraq’s Shi’ite-government in Baghdad to mend the sectarian divide fueling the conflict.

Votel broadly acknowledged concerns about the non-military aspects of the campaign but said he felt more upbeat after meetings on Wednesday with top Iraqi officials, including Abadi.

“While there is still a lot of work to do – a lot of work to do – I left more encouraged,” he said, stressing the importance that U.S.-backed military operations “pay off on the political side.”

With the latest troop increase, the United States has an official limit of just over 4,600 troops formally assigned to Iraq, although the actual figure is higher due to temporary assignments.

Obama has opposed recommitting the United States to another large-scale ground war in the Middle East and any deployment of forces to Iraq would likely need to be measured.

Republican leaders this week called on Obama to ask Congress for additional funds to pay for the deployment of more troops to Iraq, as Congress and the White House debate defense spending amid mandatory budget cuts.

NO WITHDRAWAL

As Islamic State militants have lost part of their self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria, they increasingly have turned to suicide attacks.

These included a bombing in the Iraqi capital last week that left nearly 300 people dead, the most lethal bombing of its kind since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Votel was speaking before a gunman killed 80 people and wounded scores when he drove a heavy truck at high speed into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city of Nice. No group has claimed responsibility.

Votel cautioned that even after Islamic State eventually loses Mosul and the Syrian city of al-Raqqa, Americans should not expect a rapid, wholesale withdrawal from the country. “What we don’t want to do is declare victory and depart after that. I think we want to see this through,” Votel said.

If Islamic State fighters shift to other locations, outside those cities, Votel said it was important to have U.S. military resources in place “to ensure we can achieve that lasting defeat.”

“If there’s capabilities we don’t need, we will remove them. Likewise if there’s capabilities we do need that we don’t have, we’ll ask for them,” Votel said, describing an evolving campaign that won’t end soon.

(Reporting by Phillip Stewart; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Truck attacker kills 84 celebrating France’s Bastille Day

A woman places a bouquet of flowers as people pay tribute near the scene where a truck ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores and injuring more who were celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday in Nice

By Sophie Sassard and Michel Bernouin

NICE, France (Reuters) – An attacker at the wheel of a heavy truck plowed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice, killing at least 84 people and injuring scores more in what President Francois Hollande called a terrorist act.

The driver, identified by police sources as a 31-year-old Tunisian-born Frenchman, also appeared to open fire before officers shot him dead. The man, named as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was not on the watch list of French intelligence services but was known to the police in connection with common crimes such as theft and violence, the sources said.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 18 people were in a critical condition after the attack on Thursday night, when the white truck zigzagged along the seafront Promenade des Anglais as a fireworks display marking the French national day ended just after 10:30 p.m. (4.30 p.m. ET).

The dead included several children, while the U.S. State Department said two American citizens had been killed. Russian student Viktoria Savchenko was also among the dead, according to the Moscow academy where she studied.

According to one city official, the rented truck careered on for up to 2 km (1.5 miles).

“People went down like nine-pins,” Jacques, who runs Le Queenie restaurant on the seafront, told France Info radio.

The attack seemed so far to be the work of a lone assailant.

Hollande said in a pre-dawn address that he was calling up military and police reservists to relieve forces worn out by enforcing a state of emergency begun in November after Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers struck Paris entertainment spots on a Friday evening, killing 130 people.

Only hours earlier he had announced the emergency would be lifted by the end of July. Following the attack, he said it would be extended by a further three months.

“France is filled with sadness by this new tragedy,” Hollande said. “There’s no denying the terrorist nature of this attack.”

Major events in France have been guarded by troops and armed police since the Nov. 13 attacks. But it appeared to have taken many minutes to halt the progress of the truck as it tore along pavements and a pedestrian zone.

One witness said she thought the attacker was firing a gun as he drove.

“I saw this enormous white truck go past at top speed,” said Suzy Wargniez, a local woman aged 65 who was watching from a cafe on the promenade. “It was shooting, shooting.”

A local government official said weapons and grenades were later found inside the vehicle which was made by Renault Trucks.

Nice-Matin newspaper said on Twitter that police were searching the attacker’s home in the Nice neighborhood of Abattoirs. It gave no source of the information.

(GRAPHIC: Map of Nice truck attack http://tmsnrt.rs/29LqLWk)

ISLAMIC STATE TARGETS FRANCE

After the Paris attacks, Islamic State said France and all nations following its path would remain at the top of its list of targets as long as they continued “their crusader campaign”, referring to action against the group in Iraq and Syria.

France is conducting air strikes and special forces operations against Islamic State, as well as training Iraqi government and Kurdish forces.

“We will further strengthen our actions in Syria and Iraq,” Hollande said, calling the tragedy – on the day France marks the 1789 revolutionary storming of the Bastille prison in Paris – an attack on liberty by fanatics who despised human rights.

France has also sent troops to west Africa to keep Islamist insurgents at bay. The country is home to the European Union’s biggest Muslim population, and critics say it has alienated some in the community through strict adherence to a secular culture that allows no place for religion in schools and civic life.

Dawn broke on Friday with pavements smeared with dried blood. Smashed children’s strollers, an uneaten baguette and other debris were strewn about the promenade. Small areas were screened off and what appeared to be bodies covered in blankets were visible through the gaps.

The truck was still where it came to rest, its windscreen riddled with bullets.

There had been no claim of responsibility on Friday morning.

The truck careered into families and friends listening to an orchestra or strolling above the beach on the Mediterranean Sea toward the grand, century-old Hotel Negresco.

Bystander Franck Sidoli said he had seen people go down. “Then the truck stopped, we were just five meters away. A woman was there, she lost her son. Her son was on the ground, bleeding,” he told Reuters at the scene.

The Paris attack in November was the bloodiest among a number in France and Belgium in the past two years. On Sunday, a weary nation had breathed a sigh of relief that the month-long Euro 2016 soccer tournament had ended without serious incident.

Four months ago, Belgian Islamists linked to the Paris attackers killed 32 people in Brussels.

Vehicle attacks have been used by isolated members of militant groups in recent years, notably in Israel, though never to such devastating effect.

Pop star Rihanna canceled a concert scheduled to be held in Nice on Friday. Riders on the Tour de France, the top event on the international cycling calendar, observed a minute’s silence before Thursday’s stage, held three hours’ drive northwest of Nice. Security has been tightened for the three-week race, which is watched by huge crowds lining the route around the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned what he said “appears to be a horrific terrorist attack”. Others joining him included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Pope Francis, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and officials from Spain, Sweden, the European Union, NATO and the U.N. Security Council.

Turkey, where Islamic State and Kurdish militants have staged a number of attacks in recent months, offered its condolences. “For terrorist groups, there is no difference between Turkey and France, Iraq and Belgium, and Saudi Arabia and the United States,” said President Tayyip Erdogan.

On social media, Islamic State supporters celebrated the high death toll and posted a series of images, one showing a beach purporting to be that of Nice with white stones arranged to read “IS is here to stay” in Arabic.

HIDING IN TERROR

Nice-Matin journalist Damien Allemand had been watching the firework display when the truck tore by. After taking cover in a cafe, he wrote on his paper’s website of what he saw: “Bodies every five meters, limbs … Blood. Groans.”

“The beach attendants were first on the scene. They brought water for the injured and towels, which they placed on those for whom there was no more hope.”

Officials have warned of the continuing risk of Islamist attacks in Europe. Reverses for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have raised fears it might strike again, using alienated young men from the continent’s Arab immigrant communities.

Nice, a city of 350,000, has a history as a flamboyant, aristocratic resort but is also a gritty metropolis. It has seen dozens of its Muslim residents travel to Syria to fight.

At Nice’s Pasteur hospital, medical staff were treating large numbers of injuries. Waiting for friends who were being operated on, 20-year-old Fanny told Reuters she had been lucky.

“We were all very happy, ready to celebrate all night long,” she said. “I saw a truck driving into the pedestrian area, going very fast and zig-zagging.

“The truck pushed me to the side. When I opened my eyes I saw faces I didn’t know and started asking for help … Some of my friends were not so lucky. They are having operations as we speak. It’s very hard, it’s all very traumatic.”

(Additional reporting by Matthias Blamont, Maya Nikolaeva, Michel Rose, Bate Felix, Brian Love adn Bate Felix in Paris, Alastair Macdonald in Brussels, Omar Fahmy in Cairo and Andreas Rinke in Ulaanbaatar; Writing by Alastair Macdonald, Andrew Callus and David Stamp; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Pravin Char)

Islamic State says ‘minister of war’ Shishani killed

A still image taken on July 14, 2016 from an undated video posted on social media, shows Islamic State senior operative Abu Omar al-Shishani sitting with fighters in an unknown location

By Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Abu Omar al-Shishani, who the Pentagon described as Islamic State’s “minister of war”, was killed in combat in the Iraqi city of Shirqat, south of Mosul, a news agency that supports the militant group said on Wednesday.

The Pentagon said in March that Shishani had likely been killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria, but this was the first time the group appeared to confirm his death.

Reuters could not independently verify the statement from Amaq news agency, which Islamic State regularly uses to issue reports and which denied Shishani’s death after the Pentagon’s comments in March.

Islamic State supporters exchanged notes of praise and condolence on social media, including pictures of the ginger-bearded fighter, and pledged to launch a fresh offensive in his honor.

Officials at the Pentagon said they were aware of Wednesday’s report but could not confirm or deny it.

Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based security expert who advises the Iraqi government, said a source in Shirqat confirmed Shishani had been killed there along with several other militants.

Iraqi forces are advancing towards Mosul, the largest city still under the control of Islamic State. They have mostly surrounded Shirqat, 250 km (160 miles) north of Baghdad, and last week retook a major air base from the militants to use in the main push on Mosul, 60 km further north.

CONFLICTING REPORTS

But Rami Abdelrahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Shishani had been wounded in March and died soon after in the countryside east of Raqqa.

“I confirmed from the doctor who went to see him,” said Abdelrahman, who tracks the war in Syria through a network of contacts. He told Reuters Islamic State likely delayed announcing his death to allow time to line up a successor.

Shishani, also known as Omar the Chechen, ranked among America’s most wanted militants under a U.S. program that offered up to $5 million for information to help remove him from the battlefield.

Born in 1986 in Georgia, then still part of the Soviet Union, Shishani had a reputation as a close military adviser to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was said by followers to have relied heavily on him.

Shishani once fought in military operations as a rebel in Chechnya before joining Georgia’s military in 2006 and fighting against Russian troops before being discharged two years later for medical reasons, according to U.S. officials.

He was arrested in 2010 for weapons possession and spent more than a year in jail, before leaving Georgia in 2012 for Istanbul and later Syria.

He decided to join Islamic State the following year and pledged his allegiance to Baghdadi. The State Department said Shishani was identified as Islamic State’s military commander in a video distributed by the group in 2014.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed in Baghdad, Mostafa Hashem in Cairo and David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Shelling, air strikes in Libya siege on Islamic State in Sirte

Tank from forces allied with Libya

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government have been shelling and carrying out air strikes on the center of Sirte city in a siege of Islamic State militants there, an official said on Tuesday.

Militants defending Islamic State’s last stronghold in Libya have been keeping Libyan forces back with sniper fire and mortars in Sirte where they are now surrounded after a two month campaign to take the city.

The fall of Sirte would be a major blow to Islamic State, which took over the city a year ago in the chaos of a civil war between rival factions who once battled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

“Our forces have…targeted militants with artillery and air force around Ouagadougou complex, Ghiza Asskariya district, and in the city center,” said Rida Issa, spokesman for Misrata forces fighting in Sirte.

“They have targeted Islamic State members, vehicles, ammunition stores, and control rooms.”

He said one Misrata fighter was killed and 20 others wounded in a mortar strike on their position in the Zaafran frontline, near the roundabout where Islamic State once crucified victims.

The bodies of around 13 Islamic State fighters were found, but Misrata forces were driven back by sniper fire.

Western powers are backing Prime Minister Fayaz Seraj’s government that moved into Tripoli three months ago in an attempt to unify two rival governments and various armed factions. Seraj is working with a unified National Oil Corporation to restart the oil industry.

But while powerful brigades from Misrata city support Seraj for now and lead the fight to liberate Sirte, other hardliners to the east are still opposing him and his government has made little progress in extending its influence.

After a rapid success in driving Islamic State back from a coastal strip of territory it controlled, the battle for Sirte has slowed to street-by-street fighting as Misrata forces clear out residential areas.

Misrata commanders say a few hundreds militants are dug in around the Ouagadougou complex, the university and a city hospital. They are cautious of advancing rapidly after more than 200 fighters died in the campaign so far.

While forces from the city of Misrata are fighting Islamic State in Sirte, rival brigades allied to Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army are fighting to the east on another front in Benghazi and around another eastern town. Haftar’s hardline backers reject Seraj’s government.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli; Writing by Patrick Markey; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Car bomb kills nine north of Baghdad, say sources

residents at car bombing site in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – At least nine people were killed and 32 wounded on Tuesday when a car packed with explosives was detonated in a district just north of Baghdad, security and medical sources said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast in Rashidiya, but Islamic State regularly carries out such bombings in the capital and other parts of Iraq, where it seized large swathes of territory in 2014.

Baghdad is on high alert for attacks after a blast in the central Karrada district on July 3 killed at least 292 people, making it one of the deadliest bombings in Iraq since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein 13 years ago.

Islamic State has turned increasingly to ad hoc attacks, which U.S. and Iraqi officials have touted as proof that battlefield setbacks are weakening the jihadists. But critics say a global uptick in suicide attacks attributed to the group suggests it may adapt and survive.

(Reporting by Kareem Raheem; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S. to send more troops to Iraq ahead of Mosul offensive

Kurdish Peshmerga forces gather in a village east of Mosul, Iraq,

By Yeganeh Torbati and Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The United States is stepping up its military campaign against Islamic State (IS) by sending hundreds more troops to assist Iraqi forces in an expected push on Mosul, the militants’ largest stronghold, later this year.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter made the announcement on Monday during a visit to Baghdad where he met U.S. commanders as well as Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi.

Most of the 560 troop reinforcements will work out of Qayara air base, which Iraqi forces recaptured from Islamic State and plan to use as a staging ground for an offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city.

Government forces said on Saturday they had recovered the air base, about 60 km (40 miles) from the northern city, with air support from the U.S.-led military coalition.

“With these additional U.S. forces I’m describing today, we’ll bring unique capability to the campaign and provide critical support to the Iraqi forces at a key moment in the fight,” Carter told a gathering of U.S. troops in Baghdad.

The latest force increase came less than three months after Washington announced it would dispatch about 200 more soldiers to accompany Iraqi troops advancing toward Mosul.

Carter told reporters ahead of Monday’s trip that the United States would now help turn Qayara into a logistics hub.

The airfield is “one of the hubs from which … Iraqi security forces, accompanied and advised by us as needed, will complete the southernmost envelopment of Mosul,” he said.

The recapture of Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto Iraqi capital from which its leader declared a modern-day caliphate in 2014, would be a major boost for Abadi and U.S. plans to weaken IS, which has staged attacks in the West and inspired others.

Two years since Islamic State seized wide swathes of Iraq and neighboring Syria in a lightning offensive, the tide has begun to turn as an array of forces lined up against the jihadists have made inroads into their once sprawling territory.

IS has increasingly resorted to ad hoc attacks including a bombing in the Iraqi capital last week that left nearly 300 people dead – the most lethal bombing of its kind since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have touted such bombings as proof that battlefield setbacks are weakening Islamic State, but critics say a global uptick in suicide attacks attributed to the group suggests the opposite.

“In fact, it demonstrates (Islamic State’s) strength and long-term survival skills,” terrorism expert Hassan Hassan wrote in a recent article. “The threat is not going away.”

REPAIRS NEEDED

A senior U.S. defense official said Qayara air base would be “an important location for our advisers, for our fire support, working closely with the Iraqis and being closer to the fight.”

Carter compared its strategic importance to that of a base near Makhmour, a hub for Iraqi forces on the opposite side of the Tigris river that is also used by U.S. troops. A U.S. Marine was killed in Makhmour in March when it was shelled by IS.

U.S. forces had already visited Qayara to check on its condition and advisers can offer specialized engineering support in Mosul, where Islamic State has blown up bridges across the Tigris, U.S. officials said.

Iraqi forces were already improving the base’s perimeter in case of a counterattack from the nearby town of Qayara which IS still holds, another U.S. official in Baghdad said.

Islamic State has suffered a number of territorial losses in recent months including the Syrian town of al-Shadadi, taken by U.S.-backed Syrian forces in February, and the Iraqi recapture of Ramadi in December and Falluja last month.

Abadi has pledged to retake Mosul by the end of the year.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

At least 35 killed in attack on Shi’ite mausoleum north of Baghdad

Soldiers gather at site of suicide attack

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State claimed a triple suicide attack on Thursday evening near a Shi’ite mausoleum north of Baghdad, which killed at least 35 people and wounded 60 others, according to Iraqi security sources.

The attack on the Mausoleum of Sayid Mohammed bin Ali al-Hadi reignited fears of an escalation of the sectarian strife between Iraq’s Shi’ites and Sunnis.

The Shi’ite form a majority in Iraq but Sunnis are predominant in northern and western provinces, including Salahuddin where the mausoleum is located.

Prominent Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his militia, the Peace Brigade, to deploy around the mausoleum, near Balad, about 93 kilometers (58 miles) north of Baghdad.

Sadr’s militia is also deployed in Samarra, a nearby city that houses the shrine of Imam Ali al-Hadi, the father of Sayid Mohammed whose mausoleum was attacked on Thursday.

A 2006 bombing destroyed the golden dome of the shrine of Ali al-Hadi and his other son, Imam Hasan al-Askari, setting off a wave of sectarian violence akin to a civil war.

Pictures posted on social media showed a fire burning in the market located at the entrance of the Sayid Mohammed mausoleum. It was not clear if the site itself was damaged.

A man detonated an explosive belt at the external gate of the mausoleum at around 11 p.m., allowing several gunmen to storm the site and start shooting at worshippers on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr festival, according to the security sources.

At least one gunmen blew himself up in the middle of the crowd while another was gunned down by the guard of the mausoleum before he could detonate his explosive belt.The site also came under rocket fire during the attack that was claimed by Islamic State. The ultra-hardline Sunni group said in a statement the attack was carried out by three suicide bombers wearing explosive belts.

The militants have lost ground since last year to U.S.-backed government forces and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias, but recent bombings showed they still have the ability to strike outside the territory they control in northern and western Iraq.

A massive truck bomb killed at least 292 people in a mainly Shi’ite shopping area of central Baghdad over the weekend, in the deadliest single bombing since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

(Reporting by Ghazwan Hassan and Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by G Crosse and Leslie Adler)

Baghdad bombing death toll rises to 292

Iraqi women light candles as they mark the end of Ramadan at the site of a suicide car bomb

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The death toll from a suicide bombing in Baghdad this weekend has reached 292, Iraq’s Health Ministry said on Thursday.

The attack, claimed by the militant group Islamic State, which government forces are trying to eject from large parts of the north and west of the country, was the deadliest bombing in Iraq since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein 13 years ago.

More than 200 people were wounded in the attack in a busy shopping street in the mainly Shi’ite Karrada district of central Baghdad. About 23 of the wounded were still in hospital, health ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Rudaini told Reuters.

Earlier on Thursday, the ministry had put the toll at 281 and it rose as more people, registered as missing, were identified as dead, Rudaini said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Louise Ireland)