Tag Archives: Islamic State

U.S. allies tighten grip around Islamic State stronghold in Syria

Syrian Democratic Forces manning anti-aircraft weapon

By John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed

BEIRUT/BAGHDAD – (Reuters) – U.S.-backed militia drew within firing distance of the last road into an Islamic State stronghold in northern Syria on Thursday, part of a wave of new offensives putting unprecedented pressure on the self-declared caliphate.

The effective encirclement of Manbij by a militia called the Syria Democratic Forces is part of an assault launched last week, backed by U.S. air power and American special forces, to seal off the last stretch of Syrian-Turkish frontier.

It marks the most ambitious advance by a group allied to Washington in Syria since the United States launched its military campaign against Islamic State two years ago.

Simultaneously, Russia is backing a separate advance by forces of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against Islamic State in another part of the country.

And in Iraq, at the opposite end of Islamic State territory, the Baghdad government has sent forces to try to storm the Islamic State bastion of Falluja, an hour’s drive from Baghdad.

Islamic State has also lost territory in recent weeks to Kurds in northern Iraq and anti-Assad rebels in Syria as its disparate enemies attack on a number of fronts.

But it demonstrated on Thursday it can still mount deadly attacks deep inside the territory of its foes. It claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings that killed at least 24 people in Baghdad, and was presumed to be behind a suicide bombing that killed a Western-backed rebel leader in southern Syria.

A five-year-old multi-sided civil war in Syria and a weak government in Iraq have made it impossible to wage a single coordinated campaign against the militants. But Washington and other powers hope this year will see the tide turn against Islamic State, which has ruled over millions of people in Iraq and Syria since declaring its caliphate in 2014.

SDF SEIZES ALL ROADS INTO MANBIJ

In Syria, Washington has long lacked capable proxies on the ground, but has found its first strong allies in the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), formed last year by recruiting Arabs to join forces with a powerful Kurdish militia.

The SDF launched its new offensive last week against the city of Manbij, Islamic State’s main bastion near the Syria-Turkish border west of the Euphrates River.

The overall aim is to shut the Turkish-Syrian frontier, which has served for years as Islamic State’s only major route to the outside world for manpower and material, and more recently for followers returning to Europe to carry out attacks.

An SDF spokesman said on Thursday his group had reached the last road into Manbij from the west, having previously cut off supply routes from north, south and east.

“We have reached the road that links Manbij and Aleppo, from the west,” Sharfan Darwish, spokesman for the Syria Democratic Forces-allied Manbij Military Council, told Reuters.

A monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed that the SDF had advanced to within firing distance of the western road, positioned within a kilometer of it, and were now in effective control of all routes into the city. Civilians in the city and surrounding countryside were fleeing.

Darwish would not comment on whether the SDF was planning an assault on the city itself. He told Reuters on Wednesday forces was poised to enter, but were being cautious due to the civilian presence there.

In southern Syria, where a range of anti-Assad rebel groups include Western-backed nationalists, one of the founders of a rebel alliance called the Free Syrian Army’s Southern Front was killed by a suicide bomber suspected to belong to Islamic State.

Saleem Bakour, a colonel in the Syrian army who defected to the rebels, had led rebels in battle against Islamic State fighters who pushed south after being driven out of the city of Palmyra by Russian-backed government forces in March.

“The martyr was one of the toughest leaders who fought Daesh (Islamic State). We are committed to fighting them to the end,” Southern Front spokesman Issam el-Rayyes said.

BAGHDAD BOMBINGS

In Iraq, Islamic State claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings that killed at least 24 people in Baghdad on Thursday. Such bombings have become frequent again in the capital in recent weeks, after months in which security there had improved despite Islamic State’s control of swathes of territory in the provinces.

The deteriorating security in the capital prompted Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to order an assault on Falluja, Islamic State’s closest bastion to the capital, two weeks ago. It began in earnest last week with troops sweeping into southern rural districts, and they entered the built-up areas of the city for the first time this week.

The Iraq assault on Falluja has the support of U.S. air power, but veers from Washington’s battle plan, which called for the government to focus its forces on Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto Iraqi capital further north.

Falluja, where U.S. forces fought the heaviest battles of their own 2003-2011 occupation of Iraq, has long been a stronghold of Sunni Muslim insurgents opposed to the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad.

Washington fears a sustained campaign in Falluja could bog down the army in hostile territory and delay the recapture of Mosul.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; writing by Peter Graff; editing by Andrew Roche)

Baghdad bombings kill 25 as Falluja siege continues

People gather at the site of car bomb attack in Baghdad al-Jadeeda

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Two suicide bombings that killed about 25 people in Baghdad on Thursday were claimed by Islamic State, whose stronghold of Falluja near the capital is surrounded by Iraqi forces which are now advancing on the city.

The ultra-hardline Sunni insurgents said one attack was carried out with a car laden with explosives and the second with an explosive vest.

Iraqi forces began an offensive against Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, on May 23 after a series of deadly bombings hit Shi’ite districts of the capital. The troops yesterday began advancing against the militants inside the city, after completing its encirclement last week.

A police officer said a suicide car bomb had targeted a commercial street of Baghdad al-Jadeeda (New Baghdad), in the east of the capital, killing 17 people and wounding over 50.

A man wearing an explosive belt blew himself up at checkpoint near the barracks of Taji, just north of Baghdad, killing seven soldiers and wounding more than 20, he said.

Islamic State “has a long experience in establishing small multiple networks that have the ability to operate independently from each other,” said Baghdad-based analyst and former army general Jasim al-Bahadli.

Falluja is a historic bastion of the Sunni insurgency, first against the U.S. occupation of Iraq, in 2003, and then against the Shi’ite-led authorities that took over the country.

Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari last week he expected that the recovery of Falluja would take time as the militants had dug tunnels and planted explosive devices in roads and houses to impede the military advance.

(Reporting by Kareem Hameed and Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Alison Williams)

Libyan brigades edge closer to Islamic State stronghold

Still image of soldiers from a force aligned with Libya's new unity government fire along a road during an advance on the eastern and southern outskirts of the Islamic State stronghold of Sirte

RIPOLI (Reuters) – Forces aligned with Libya’s new unity government advanced on the eastern and southern outskirts of the Islamic State stronghold of Sirte on Wednesday, taking control of at least one military camp, security sources said.

The brigades, who are based in the western city of Misrata, launched their counter-offensive against Islamic State last month, pushing the militants back along the coastal road to the west of Sirte and saying they intended to recapture the city.

The brigades are aligned with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which has been trying to establish its authority over Libya’s competing political and armed factions since arriving in Tripoli in March.

After a lull in fighting at the start of the week, clashes resumed in Sirte on Wednesday and the brigades edged forward, capturing the Taqrift military camp, security sources said.

The brigades’ media office said in statements on social media that they had also captured the Al-Jalet military camp and the Au Hadi roundabout immediately south of Sirte, though this could not immediately be confirmed.

A hospital spokesman in Misrata said at least six brigade members had been killed and 30 wounded in the clashes.

Libya slid into chaos after veteran ruler Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in an uprising five years ago, allowing Islamic State to set up its most important base outside Syria and Iraq.

The GNA is designed to replace two competing administrations that were set up in Tripoli and the east in 2014 with the backing of rival alliances of armed groups.

Western powers see the GNA as the best hope for defeating Islamic State in Libya.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elumami and Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones)

U.S. Navy boosts presence in Mediterranean

he US Navy aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman transits the Suez Canal, Egypt towards the Mediterranean Sea

By Andrea Shalal

ABOARD USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (Reuters) – The U.S. military will have two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea this month ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw, as Washington seeks to balance Russia’s military activities and accelerate its fight against Islamic State militants.

The USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier will hand off to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower when it arrives en route to the Gulf, allowing the Truman to head back to the United States after an extended eight-month deployment, Navy officials on board the Truman said.

The move coincides with NATO military exercises across eastern Europe and Turkey which are likely to raise tensions with Russia. U.S. officials say Russia is operating warships and submarines in the Mediterranean and plans its own exercises in coming weeks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday the NATO exercises did not contribute to an atmosphere of trust and security.

Captain Ryan Scholl, commanding officer of the Truman, said there had been no interactions with Russian warships and U.S. and Russian pilots were largely abiding by the rules of engagement for air operations aimed at avoiding the potential for miscalculation.

“The extension of Truman and movement into the European Command theater, plus the overlap with the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group enables the continued degradation of ISIL and a host of operational benefits,” said Captain Danny Hernandez, spokesman for U.S. European Command, referring to the Islamic State militant group.

He said the overlapping carrier deployments were also intended to enable missions such as Operation Atlantic Resolve, aimed at reassuring U.S. allies in Europe after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

The Truman has used the 72 warplanes on board to drop 1,481 smart bombs and pamphlets on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since last December when it arrived in the Gulf, the Navy said on Wednesday.

It said jets based on the Truman had launched 68 raids over Iraq and Syria and delivered 52 precision weapons since moving to the Mediterranean from the Gulf last Friday.

Islamic State has lost 45 percent of its territory in Iraq and its oil revenues have been halved in Syria, said Rear Admiral Bret Batchelder, commander of the Truman strike group.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Islamic State withdraws from northwest Syria frontlines

Rebel fighters take positions at the frontline during what they said were clashes with Islamic State militants in the town of Marea in Aleppo's countryside

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters withdrew from frontlines with Syrian rebel forces north of Aleppo on Wednesday as they mounted a counter attack against the jihadist group near the Turkish border, an opposition source and monitoring group said.

The sudden withdrawal from villages around the rebel-held town of Marea points to the pressure Islamic State is feeling from offensives being waged by other enemies further east, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Islamic State had managed to besiege the rebel-held town of Marea in a significant advance late last month, stranding thousands of civilians there and prompting a U.S.-led coalition to air drop weapons to rebels, rebel sources said.

Rebel fighters in Marea broke the siege on Wednesday when they captured the village of Kafr Kalbin on the road linking Marea with Azaz, 20 km (12 miles) to the northwest at the border with Turkey. The advance was preceded by a rebel statement saying they were uniting their ranks.

“It seems they (IS) can’t keep several fronts open at the same time. It is a strategic area, they were on the verge of entering Azaz,” Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said. The opposition source said Islamic State had withdrawn from the area quickly, and Free Syrian Army factions had filled the void.

FSA rebels fighting Islamic State north of Aleppo have received military assistance from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

Their battle with Islamic State is separate to one being waged further east by a U.S.-backed group, the Syria Democratic Forces, which includes the Kurdish YPG militia. The Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes, has also advanced against Islamic State since last week.

The FSA rebels are fighting separate conflicts with both the SDF and Assad, their main enemy.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Peter Graff)

Falluja refugees say Islamic State uses food to enlist fighters

Civilians who fled their homes due to clashes gather at the Iraqi army's Camp Tariq, south Falluja

By Saif Hameed

GARMA, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqis who fled Islamic State-held Falluja as government and allied forces advanced on the city said they had survived on stale dates and the militants were using food to enlist fighters whose relatives were going hungry.

The ultra-hardline Sunni fighters have kept a close guard on food storage in the besieged city near Baghdad that they captured in January 2014, six months before they declared a caliphate across large parts of Iraq and Syria.

The militants visited families regularly after food ran short with offers of supplies for those who enlisted, said 23-year-old Hanaa Mahdi Fayadh from Sijir on the northeastern outskirts of Falluja.

“They told our neighbor they would give him a sack of flour if his son joined them; he refused and when they had gone, he fled with his family,” she said.

“We left because there was no food or wood to make fires, besides, the shelling was very close to our house.”

She and others interviewed in a school transformed into a refugee center in Garma, a town under government control east of Falluja, said they had no money to buy food from the group.

The Iraqi government stopped paying the salaries of employees there and in other cities under Islamic State control a year ago to stop the group seizing the funds.

Fayadh escaped Sijir on May 27, four days after the government offensive on Falluja began, with a group of 15 relatives and neighbors, walking through farmland brandishing white flags.

Most of the 1,500 displaced people who found refuge in the school in Garma were women and children, because the army takes men for screening over possible ties with Islamic State. Fayadh said she was waiting for news of her two brothers who were being investigated.

HUMAN SHIELDS

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said last week the offensive had slowed to protect tens of thousands of civilians trapped in Falluja with limited access to water, food and electricity.

Fayadh said the situation in the city was very difficult. “The only thing remaining in the few shops open was dates, old, stale dates and even those were very expensive,” she said.

Azhar Nazar Hadi, 45, said the militants had asked her family to move from Sijir into Falluja itself, a clear attempt to use them as human shields.

“We hid,” she said. “There was shooting, mortars and clashes, we stayed hidden until the forces came in” and escorted them out to the refugee center.

The militants took hundreds of people, along with their cattle, with them into Falluja, Hadi said.

“Life was difficult, very hard, especially when we stopped receiving salaries and retirement pensions.

“The last seven months we ran out of everything and had to survive on dates, and water,” she said. “Flour, rice and cooking oil were no longer available at an affordable price.”

A 50 kg (110 lb) sack of flour cost 500,000 dinars ($428.45), almost half an average Iraqi employee’s month salary.

Abadi ordered the offensive on Falluja, which lies 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, after a series of bombings claimed by Islamic State hit Shi’ite districts of the capital, causing the worst death toll this year.

Between 500 and 700 militants are in Falluja, according to a U.S. military estimate. The Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia coalition that is supporting the Iraqi army offensive on the city says the number of IS fighters there is closer to 2,500.

The United Nations says about 50,000 civilians remain trapped in Falluja, which has been under siege since December, when the Iraqi army recaptured Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province to the west.

When Hadi was asked what Islamic State militants had been telling civilians in Falluja, it was her six-year old child who answered, reciting the Koranic verse: “Be patient, God is with those who are patient.”

(writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

U.S. backed force in Syria closes in on Islamic State held city

Men, who the Democratic Forces of Syria fighters claimed were Islamic State fighters, walk as they are taken prisoners after SDF advanced in the southern rural area of Manbij

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Syrian fighters have surrounded the Islamic State-held city of Manbij from three sides as they press an offensive against the jihadists near the Turkish border, a spokesman for the fighters said on Monday.

The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), including the powerful Kurdish YPG militia and Arab allies, launched the attack last week with the ultimate aim of dislodging Islamic State from its last foothold at the Syrian-Turkish frontier.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that reports on the war, said the U.S.-backed forces had cut the road north from Manbij to Islamic State-held Jarabulus at the Turkish border, which is also expected to be targeted.

Sharfan Darwish, spokesman for the Manbij Military Council, said the U.S.-backed alliance had advanced to within 6 km (4 miles) of Manbij, and the attack backed by U.S. special forces was going to plan. Over 150 jihadists had been killed, with 50 of the bodies in SDF hands, he said.

“If we had wanted to reach (Manbij) before this time, or if we wanted to arrive directly, we could have, but as you know the area is vast and there are a large number of civilians,” he said. “Our forces are surrounding Manbij from three directions.”

He said there were dead among the SDF and the number would be announced later. They included the commander of one of the groups, Faysal Abu Layla of the Sun of the North Battalions. He had died of wounds caused by a mortar bomb.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacking forces were less than 4 km from Manbij at the closest point. Its director, Rami Abdulrahman, said 56 IS members had been killed so far, and 19 SDF fighters had died.

He said IS fighters had sent their families out of Manbij, but disputed Darwish’s account that IS fighters had also left the city. Darwish said many homes being used by IS members were now empty as they had left with their families. “They took everything they could and left the city,” he said.

Reuters could not independently confirm the account.

“Manbij will fall, but the time frame is linked to events and developments,” Darwish said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alison Williams and Anna Willard)

Syrian army opens new front as Islamic State’s many foes attack

Boys help their injured friend after an airstrike on Aleppo's rebel held al-Fardous district

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army backed by Russian air strikes has opened a major new front against Islamic State, the third big assault on the self-proclaimed caliphate this week after Iraqi forces attempted to storm a city and a Syrian militia advanced with U.S. support.

The week’s three big offensives are some of the most aggressive campaigns against Islamic State since it declared its aim to rule over all Muslims from parts of Iraq and Syria two years ago. They signal apparent new resolve by the group’s disparate foes on a range of fronts.

Heavy Russian air strikes hit Islamic State-held territory in eastern areas of Syria’s Hama province, near the boundary of Raqqa province on Friday. Raqqa city, further east, is Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria and, along with Mosul in Iraq, the ultimate goal of those seeking to destroy the group’s self-declared caliphate.

The Syrian army had advanced some 20 km (13 miles) and was now near the edge of the provincial boundary, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the war.

Separately, U.S.-backed militias, including a Syrian Kurdish force called the YPG and new Arab allies recruited to fight alongside it, have been pressing a multi-pronged attack against Islamic State in other parts of Raqqa province and neighboring Aleppo province.

This week, they began a push toward the city of Manbij near the Turkish border, aiming to seize the last 80 km stretch of Turkish-Syrian frontier in Islamic State control and cut off the group’s main link to the outside world for manpower and supplies.

The U.S. military said on Friday its allies were advancing against heavy resistance from Islamic State. If successful, the Manbij campaign would free 40,000 civilians from Islamic State control.

The YPG and its Arab allies, who formed the Syria Democratic Forces last year, have proven to be the first force in Syria allied to the United States that has been effective in fighting against Islamic State.

President Barack Obama has authorized several hundred special forces troops to operate in Syria, some of whom are deployed as advisers in the latest advance.

The Kurdish fighters’ progress has been limited in the past by Turkey, which considers them enemies. But Ankara has signaled its tacit support for the latest advance, saying it understands that most of the fighters involved will be Arabs, not Kurds.

“RACE FOR RAQQA”

The Syrian army’s new offensive was described in a pro-Damascus Lebanese newspaper as part of “the race for Raqqa” – with the government and its Russian allies trying to advance on Islamic State’s de facto Syrian capital before it falls to the fighters allied to the Americans.

A Syrian military source played this down. Reports the offensive targeted Raqqa were only “expectations”, he said, and both Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, another Islamic State-held city in eastern Syria, were possible targets.

Whatever its ultimate target, the offensive appears to be the biggest Damascus has mounted against Islamic State since it recaptured the city of Palmyra with Russian support earlier this year. In the past, the United States has accused Assad and his Russian backers of ignoring Islamic State to take on other foes.

Islamic State’s brutal rule, featuring mass killings, forced conversions and rape, has made it the enemy of all global powers and regional countries. But five years of civil war in Syria, a feeble Iraqi state and global and sectarian rivalries among outside powers have made it impossible to coordinate a single campaign against it.

In Iraq, government troops supported both by U.S.-led coalition air strikes and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia, poured into the southern outskirts of the Islamic State bastion Falluja on Monday. They have since held their positions for four straight days without advancing into the main built-up areas of the city.

Iraq’s finance minister acknowledged in an interview that Falluja, where the U.S. military fought the biggest battles of its own 2003-2011 occupation, was a “tough nut to crack”. The assault would go slow to protect thousands of civilians still trapped in the city, he said.

Falluja is Islamic State’s second-largest bastion in Iraq and closest outpost to Baghdad. But the decision to mount an assault there was not in keeping with the plans of Washington, which would prefer that the Baghdad government focus on recapturing Mosul instead.

Fighting in Falluja risks the army becoming bogged down in territory inhabited by Sunni tribes long hostile to the Shi’ite-led government. However, Shi’ite militia and political parties have pressed Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to attack the city to bring an end to suicide bombings in the capital, an hour’s drive away.

In Syria, state media said the army had made territorial gains and inflicted heavy casualties on Islamic State fighters in the Athriya area of eastern Hama province, close to the provincial border with Raqqa.

“There is progress from Athriya on two fronts, but the coming direction is not set,” the military source said, adding that it could be either Raqqa or Deir al-Zor, which is on a main route linking Islamic State’s Syrian and Iraqi territories.

The army was focused on eastern and northern areas of both Homs and Hama provinces, he said. Hama borders Raqqa province; Homs borders Deir al-Zor.

The Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar said the first aim was to capture the town of Tabqa, site of an air base and major Islamic State arsenal some 50 km (30 miles) west of Raqqa city, and put “a foot in the area without leaving it completely to the Americans’ allies”.

(Writing by Peter Graff, editing by Larry King)

Israel has homegrown Islamic State threat in hand

An Israeli soldier is silhouetted as he takes part in an open-fire scenario training in which soldiers respond with laser-firing rifles to a simulated Palestinian attack

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s crackdown on Arab citizens trying to join Islamic State in Syria or Iraq or to set up cells at home have prevented the threat reaching the scale seen in the West, an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a magazine interview.

About 18 percent of Israel’s population are Muslim Arabs, many of whom identify with the Palestinian struggle, although they seldom take up arms against the majority Jewish country.

However, a rash of defections to Islamic State-held areas of Syria and Iraq and trials of Israeli citizens for identifying with the militant group prompted President Reuven Rivlin to warn in January that “considerable radicalization” was taking root among Israel’s Arab minority.

Eitan Ben-David, head of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau in Netanyahu’s office, told the bi-monthly journal ‘Israel Defense’that “more than a few dozen, but not more than 100” Israeli Arabs had joined Islamic State’s ranks – and some might return.

“These foreign fighters can certainly pose a grave danger internally, so the Shin Bet (security service) and all the state system is doing very good work in foiling this threat, which could be a kind of spreading cancer,” Ben-David said.

“To our satisfaction, the situation is reasonable. It is not like any European country, nor even America, or places like China or Russia which have had a great number of homegrown ISIS fighters,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Israel formally outlawed Islamic State in 2014 and negotiated the repatriation for trial of several Arab citizens who had joined or tried to join the insurgents via Turkey or Jordan.

But government policy hardened last year after one Israeli Arab used a paraglider to fly into an Islamic State-controlled part of southern Syria and after another who had served as a volunteer in Israel’s army defected to the insurgents.

Further raising alarm, two video clips surfaced in October in which Islamic State gunmen vowed in Arabic-accented Hebrew to strike Israel. The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, echoed the threat in an audiotape released in December.

But Ben-David sounded circumspect about that prospect, citing potentially more pressing dangers from Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas or Palestinian militants.

In an incident on Thursday, a Palestinian woman tried to stab an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank and was shot dead, the military said.

In the last half year, Palestinian attacks have killed 28 Israelis and two visiting U.S. citizens. Israeli forces have shot dead at least 196 Palestinians, 134 of whom Israel has said were assailants. Others were killed in clashes and protests.

“When it comes to Islamic State, we worry about terrorist attacks against Israeli or Jewish targets, including abroad, but we are not a main target right now,” he said.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Gareth Jones)

French Security warns of Islamic State plans for waves of attacks

French soldiers patrol in front of the Festival Palace before the opening of the 69th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes

By John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) – Islamic State militants are gearing up for a campaign of bomb attacks on large crowds in France, host to next month’s Euro 2016 soccer championships, its spy chief has said.

Rare remarks by Patrick Calvar, the head of France’s DGSI internal intelligence agency, to the parliament’s defense committee spelled out “a new form of attack … characterized by placing explosive devices in places where there are large crowds and repeating this type of action to create a climate of maximum panic.

“Clearly, France is the most threatened and we know that Daesh (Islamic State) is planning new attacks,” Calvar told the committee on May 10, according to a transcript of his testimony released to the media on Thursday.

The comments came six months after militants killed 130 people in coordinated assaults on cafes, bars, a soccer stadium and a music hall across Paris.

He said the militant group had the numbers to launch the new attacks, including some 645 French citizens or residents currently in Syria or Iraq, of which 400 were fighters. A further 201 were either in transit to or from the region, he said.

Euro 2016 starts on June 10 and runs for a month at 10 stadiums across France. About 2.5 million spectators are expected for 51 soccer matches involving 24 teams. There will also be “fan zones” for crowds watching games on big screens in major cities.

France’s police force is stretched after two militant attacks last year and regular street protests.

However, the government say all measures are in place to ensure it runs smoothly.

“We will not drop our guard,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls told RTL radio on Thursday when asked about Calvar’s comments.

In a reminder of the challenges facing security forces, a fake bomb left behind after a training exercise at Manchester United’s stadium in Britain forced the evacuation of the 75,000-seater ground and the abandonment of a match last weekend.

Referring to the Arabic acronym for Islamic State, Calvar said Daesh was still using the same migrant routes through the Balkans to get its fighters into Europe.

However, with the group under pressure from U.S.-led air strikes in Syria it would want to hit back in Europe to show its supporters that it was still strong.

“It’s in a position where it would try to hit as quickly as possible and as hard as possible,” Calvar said.” It is facing military difficulties on the ground and so will want to divert attention and avenge coalition air strikes,” he said.

(Reporting By John Irish; Editing by Andrew Callus/Jeremy Gaunt)