Tag Archives: Middle East

In shadow of crackdown, Turkey commemorates failed coup

People wave Turkey's national flags as they arrive to attend a ceremony marking the first anniversary of the attempted coup at the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey July 15, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan and members of the opposition came together on Saturday to mark the anniversary of last year’s failed coup, in a moment of ceremonial unity all but overshadowed by the sweeping purges that have shaken society since.

The gathering in parliament was one of the first in a string of events planned through the weekend to commemorate the night of July 15, when thousands of unarmed civilians took to the streets to defy rogue soldiers who commandeered tanks and warplanes and bombed parliament in an attempt to seize power.

More than 240 people died before the coup was put down, a show of popular defiance that has likely ended decades of military interference in Turkish politics.

But along with a groundswell of nationalism, the coup’s greatest legacy has been the far-reaching crackdown.

Some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the civil service and private sector and more than 50,000 detained for alleged links to the putsch. On Friday, the government said it had dismissed another 7,000 police, civil servants and academics for suspected links to the Muslim cleric it blames for the putsch.

“Our people did not leave sovereignty to their enemies and took hold of democracy to the death,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, as Erdogan and members of opposition parties looked on. “These monsters will surely receive the heaviest punishment they can within the law.”

Critics, including rights groups and some Western governments, say that Erdogan is using the state of emergency introduced after the coup to target opposition figures including rights activists, pro-Kurdish politicians and journalists.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) was represented by its deputy chairman as the party’s two co-leaders are in jail – as are local members of rights group Amnesty International and nearly 160 journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

‘JUSTICE DESTROYED’

At the parliamentary ceremony, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) decried what he said was the erosion of democracy following the coup.

“This parliament, which withstood bombs, has been rendered obsolete and its authority removed,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, in a reference to an April referendum that Erdogan narrowly won, giving him sweeping executive powers.

“In the past year, justice has been destroyed. Instead of rapid normalization, a permanent state of emergency has been implemented.”

Kilicdaroglu this month finished a 25-day, 425 km (265 mile) “justice march” from Ankara to Istanbul, to protest the detention of a CHP lawmaker. The march, although largely ignored by the pro-government media, culminated in a massive rally in Istanbul against the crackdown.

In the run-up to the anniversary of July 15, Turkish media has been saturated by coverage from last year’s coup, with some channels showing almost constant footage of young men and even headscarved mothers facing down armed soldiers and tanks in Istanbul.

One man, 20-year-old Ismet Dogan, said he and his friends took to the streets of Istanbul the night of the coup after they heard the call from Erdogan to defy the soldiers. He was shot in both legs by soldiers, he told the website of broadcaster TRT Haber.

“My friends and I said, ‘We have one nation, if we are to die, let’s do it like men’,” he said. “Everyone who was there with me had come there to die. Nobody was afraid of death.”

(Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Russia sees growing acceptance of Assad as key to Syria talks

FILE PHOTO - Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview in Damascus, in this handout photograph distributed by Syria's national news agency SANA on September 26, 2013. SANA/Handout via Reuters/File Photo

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – U.N.-led Syria talks have a chance of making progress because demands for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad have receded, Russia’s ambassador in Geneva, Alexei Borodavkin, told reporters on Saturday.

The seventh round of talks, which ended on Friday, had produced positive results, especially a “correction” in the approach of the main opposition delegation, the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee, he said.

“The essence of this correction is that during this round the opposition never once demanded the immediate resignation of President Bashar al-Assad and the legitimate Syrian government.”

The HNC and its backers in Western and Gulf capitals had realized that peace needed to come first, and then political reforms could be negotiated, he said.

“Assad must go” was long the mantra of the HNC and its international backers, a call flatly rejected by Russia, which is widely seen as holding the balance of power in Syria because of its military involvement and alliance with Assad.

But over the past year the opposition suffered military defeats at the hands of forces loyal to Assad, and neither U.S. President Donald Trump nor French President Emmanuel Macron is calling for his immediate ouster.

Assad’s negotiators at the U.N. talks have avoided discussion of any kind of political transition, preferring to focus on the fight against terrorism.

They have not yet had to negotiate directly with the opposition because there is no unified delegation to meet them, since the HNC and two other groups, known as the Cairo and Moscow platforms, all claim to represent the opposition.

In the seven rounds so far, U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura has met each side separately, a laboriously choreographed negotiation that has succeeded only in deciding what to discuss: a new constitution, reformed governance, fresh elections and fighting terrorism.

The three opposition delegations’ leaders have been meeting to try to find common ground, raising hopes of direct talks at the next round in September.

Borodavkin said the success of such a unified delegation would depend on its willingness to compromise with Assad’s team.

“If they will be ready to make deals with the government delegation, that is one thing. If they again slide into… ultimatums and preconditions that are not realistic, then this will not fly. This will lead the negotiations, be it direct or indirect, into a deadlock.”

He also called for wider opposition representation, citing the Kurds as a striking example, since they were Syrian citizens with their own political and military influence.

But he said it was up to de Mistura to decide how and when to incorporate them in the peace process.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Ros Russell)

Traumatized civilians fleeing Syria’s Raqqa in droves: U.N. official

FILE PHOTO: Children walk at a camp for people displaced from fighting in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, in Ain Issa, Syria June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Scores of civilians are fleeing Syria’s Raqqa traumatized, with families torn apart and conditions worsening as the battle to oust Islamic State intensifies, a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.

The number of people escaping has risen rapidly in recent weeks, Sajjad Malik, the U.N. refugee agency’s representative in Syria, told Reuters.

“They’re coming out really weak, thirsty, and frightened,” he said, after visiting several camps for the displaced in northeast Syria.

Under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias is fighting to seize Islamic State’s base in Syria.

With air strikes and special forces from the U.S.-led coalition, the SDF pushed into Raqqa in June after advancing on the city for months.

Fighting since late last year has displaced more than 240,000 people in the wider Raqqa province, most of them only in the last few weeks, Malik said.

“They’re traumatized (by) what they’ve seen,” he said.

“Dead bodies all over the place. In some more destroyed neighborhoods, bodies still in that heat rotting on the street and in debris.”

Recent advances along the Euphrates river, which borders the city from the south, have allowed the Kurdish-led SDF to completely encircle Islamic State inside Raqqa.

“Some places do not even have enough drinking water anymore,” Malik said, after residents lost access to the river.

An estimated 30,000-50,000 people remain trapped in the city with Islamic State holding people there against their will, Malik said. Witnesses say the militants have shot at those trying to escape.

“Those who are coming out now are paying enormous amounts of money, basically their lifelong savings, to smugglers to get them out,” he said. “They’ve left family members behind.”

Many do not have enough money or could not bring elderly parents and sick relatives with them.

“There is a conflict going on to eradicate ISIS but in the process we should try to protect (civilians),” Malik said, stressing the importance of getting them safe passage out.

Even after the “military endgame” in Raqqa, he added, people will have to grapple with a humanitarian crisis and severe trauma. Many children now fear the sound of aircraft.

“This will take much longer … to bring them back to some kind of normalcy,” Malik said.

The U.S.-led coalition says it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

Ahead of the attack on the city, the U.N. human rights office raised concerns about increasing reports of civilian deaths. In a May report, it said there had been “massive civilian casualties … and serious infrastructure destruction.”

The U.N. refugee agency is expanding its work in northeast Syria as people begin to flee the province of Deir al-Zor. A camp south of the Kurdish-controlled city of Hasakah has already taken in 2,000 displaced people, Malik said.

“Already, hundreds of them are coming out in trucks and buses,” Malik said.

Islamic State militants still control swathes of Syria’s eastern desert bordering Iraq and most of Deir al-Zor, which would be its last major foothold in Syria after losing Raqqa.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Iraq faces pockets of Islamic State resistance in Mosul’s Old City

FILE PHOTO: Military vehicles of Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) personnel are pictured in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL (Reuters) – Iraqi forces faced further pockets of resistance from Islamic State militants in Mosul’s Old City on Friday, four days after the prime minister declared victory.

Iraqi army helicopters flew overhead and explosions could be heard, residents said, while videos of alleged revenge attacks against people detained during the retaking of Mosul underlined future security challenges.

“Three mortars landed on our district,” a resident of Faysaliya, in east Mosul, just across the Tigris river, said by telephone.

A few hundred Islamic State insurgents swept into Mosul three years ago, imposed a reign of terror after the Iraqi army collapsed and declared a caliphate spanning Iraqi and Syrian territory seized in a shock offensive.

The victory of U.S.-backed Iraq forces in Mosul marked the biggest defeat for Islamic State, which is under siege in the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, its operational base.

Even though the Sunni Muslim group’s caliphate is now crumbling, it is expected to revert to an insurgency and keep carrying out attacks in the Middle East and West.

Securing long-term peace in Iraq will not be easy.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi faces the challenge of preventing revenge killings that could create more instability, along with sectarian tensions and ethnic strife that have dogged Iraq since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric, urged Iraqis to avoid violence and sectarianism in his first Friday sermon since the proclamation of victory in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch said it had used satellite imagery to verify that a video published on Facebook on Tuesday, showing armed men in military uniforms beating a detainee before throwing him from a height and then shooting at him, had been filmed in west Mosul.

The footage shows the men shooting at the body of another man already lying at the bottom of the perch. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

Iraq’s joint operations command said the allegations were being looked at closely and if any violations were found, those responsible would be held accountable. It also said that the videos could have been fabricated.

Three other videos posted this week by the same account appear to show members of various Iraqi security forces beating men wearing ordinary clothes. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Egypt’s Coptic Christians to halt activities after security threat, sources say

Egyptian priests react during the funeral of victims of the Palm Sunday bombings, at St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Monastery "Deir Mar Mina" in Alexandria, Egypt April 10, 2017. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christians have been told by church leaders to cancel all events and activities outside churches in July because of a security threat, church and security sources said on Thursday.

The warning followed an attack in May by Islamic State on Copts traveling to a monastery in central Egypt that killed 29 people. A month earlier, 44 people were killed in bomb attacks at a cathedral and another church on Palm Sunday.

Sources said the warning was given to individual church leaders by a representative of the Coptic Orthodox Pope. Copts on trips or youth camps had been told to cut short their activities and return home early.

The Egyptian Catholic church said it got the same instructions. The church “complied with the interior minister’s decision to cancel church trips and camps until further notice,” Father Rafik Greish, a spokesman for the Coptic Catholic Church, told Reuters late on Thursday.

A Coptic church official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, told Reuters that his church received “oral instructions this week, nothing written, to prevent panic,” he said.

The source said the church was provided with more security forces to secure the gates of the church this week.

Egypt faces an Islamist insurgency led by the Islamic State group in the Sinai Peninsula, where hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed since 2013.

At least 23 soldiers were killed last week when suicide car bombs tore through two military checkpoints in the region in an attack claimed by Islamic State. It was one of the bloodiest assaults on security forces in years.

But Islamic State has also intensified attacks in the mainland in recent months, often targeting Coptic Christians. About 100 Copts have been killed since December.

(Reporting by Malak Ghobrial; additional reporting by Mahmoud Morad, Amina Ismail and Ahmed MOhamed Hassan; writing by Patrick Markey, editing by Larry King)

Refugees return to Syria from Lebanon in Hezbollah-mediated deal

Syrian Refugees seen at Lebanon's border region of Arsal, Lebanon July 12, 2017. REUTERS/Hassan Abdallah

By Hassan Abdullah

ARSAL, Lebanon (Reuters) – A convoy of refugees began leaving the Lebanese border region for Syria on Wednesday, a security source said, the second group to return under an agreement brokered by the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah.

The Lebanese army escorted around 250 people out of the border town of Arsal. The refugees headed for the Syrian town of Asal al-Ward across the border, northeast of Damascus.

A military media unit run by Damascus ally Hezbollah said the buses carried 60 families. An estimated 60,000 refugees are in Arsal.

It was the second batch of people to leave for their hometown across the border Arsal under the agreement, which Hezbollah arranged in indirect talks with the Syrian rebel group Saraya Ahl al-Sham, said an official in the alliance fighting in support of the Damascus government.

Hezbollah also coordinated with the Lebanese military and with the Syrian government separately, securing crossings for refugees who want to leave, the official said.

Several refugees told a Reuters photographer before a checkpoint manned by Hezbollah fighters they were eager to go back to their hometown after several years in squalid, makeshift camps in the border town of Arsal.

“It’s been three years and we haven’t seen our families and relatives, said Abeer Mahmoud al Haj, in a van with her family members around her. “May God return everyone to his country, there is no better than Syria,”

Since early in the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah has backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, along with Iran and Russia, sending thousands of men to fight the mostly Sunni Syrian rebels.

The U.N. refugee body said it was not involved in the deal. A spokeswoman said it was not encouraging large-scale return of refugees to a country where conflict is still raging.

“The UNHCR is not at a stage where it’s promoting return because the conditions are not conducive,” Dana Sleiman said.

Two refugees in Arsal who refused to give their names said many in the camps were unwilling to return because of fears their young men would be drafted into the army. Many had also lost their livelihoods and their villages had been ransacked.

“RECONCILIATION DEALS”

More than 1 million registered Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon, now making up a quarter of its population, the United Nations refugee agency says. The number is widely put at closer to 1.5 million.

They are scattered across Lebanon, mostly in makeshift camps and often in severe poverty, and face the risk of arrest because of restrictions on legal residence and work.

The group of refugees returned on Wednesday as part of a local deal, not a broader agreement. Politicians are deeply divided over whether Lebanon should work directly with the Syrian government over the return of refugees, which Hezbollah and its allies advocate.

Others, including Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, are strongly opposed, questioning the safety of the refugees once they return. Hariri has called for secure areas to be set up on the Syrian side of the border to which refugees could voluntarily return under United Nations supervision.

In a televised speech on Tuesday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that time was running out for Syrian militants along the border near Arsal to reach deals with Syrian authorities.

“It’s high time to end the threat of militant groups in Arsal and little time is left to reach certain reconciliation deals,” Nasrallah said. “There are terrorists and planners of attacks in Arsal and this needs a solution.”

Nasrallah praised the security campaign the Lebanese army has been waging in recent weeks against suspected militants.

The Lebanese army says it regularly stages operations in the hills near the northeastern border against Islamic State and militants formerly linked to al Qaeda.

In late June, authorities arrested several hundred people in raids on Syrian refugee camps in Arsal. A Lebanese military prosecutor has ordered forensic examinations on the bodies of four of them who died in army custody, after rights groups called for an investigation.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam and Suleiman al Khalidi in Beirut; writing by Ellen Francis; editing by Andrew Roche)

Iraq strikes Islamic State in Mosul days after declaring victory

Destroyed buildings from clashes are seen in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces clashed with Islamic State militants holding out in Mosul’s Old City on Wednesday, more than 36 hours after Baghdad declared victory over the jihadists in what they had made the de facto Iraqi capital of their self-declared caliphate.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s victory announcement signaled the biggest defeat for the hardline Sunni group since its lightning sweep through northern Iraq three years ago. But pockets of Mosul remain insecure and the city has been heavily damaged by nearly nine months of grueling urban combat.

About 900,000 people fled the fighting, with more than a third sheltered in camps outside Iraq’s second largest city and the rest living with family and friends in other neighborhoods.

Civilian activity has quickly returned to much of Mosul and work to repair damaged homes and infrastructure is underway, but authorities have not prepared a post-battle plan for governance and security in the city, officials say.

Iraqi forces exchanged gunfire with the militants in their final Mosul redoubt just before midnight and into the morning hours, three residents living just across the Tigris River from the area told Reuters.

Army helicopters strafed the Old City and columns of smoke rose into the air, though it was unclear if these came from controlled explosions or from bombs set off by Islamic State, the residents said by phone.

“We still live in an atmosphere of war despite the victory announcement two days ago,” said Fahd Ghanim, 45. Another resident said the blasts shook the ground around half a kilometer away.

An Iraqi military official attributed the activity to “clearing operations”.

“There are Daesh (fighters) hiding in different places,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State. “They disappear here and pop up there, then we target them.”

Media access to the area has been heavily restricted since Abadi claimed victory on Monday, hailing “the collapse of the terrorist state”.

Footage released by the Islamic State news agency Amaq entitled “Fighting till the last gasp” and allegedly filmed in Mosul’s Maydan district showed militants mixed in with civilians and unidentified corpses lying amid the rubble of an urban battlefield. Reuters could not authenticate the video.

ASYMMETRIC ATTACKS

The Iraqi official declined to estimate the number of militants or civilians remaining in the Old City, but the top U.S. general in Iraq said on Tuesday that as many as a couple of hundred IS insurgents could still be in Mosul.

“There are bypassed holdouts. We haven’t cleared every building in this city the size of Philadelphia. That’s going to have to be done, and there are also hidden IEDs (improvised explosive devices),” Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend told reporters. “There are still going to be losses from the Iraqi security forces as they continue to secure Mosul.”

The U.S.-led coalition said it had conducted three air strikes on IS in the Mosul area on Tuesday, targeting militants, machine-gun emplacements and rocket-propelled grenade systems.

South of the city, Iraqi security forces repelled an IS attack launched from western desert areas on the village of al-Jaran, a tribal fighter said.

Reinforcements also arrived to help government forces oustmilitants armed with machine guns and mortars from the village of Imam Gharbi, further to the south. IS had taken around 75 percent of the village since storming it last week.

These are the kind of asymmetric, guerrilla-style strikes Islamic State is expected to concentrate on now as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces regain control over cities the group captured during its shock 2014 offensive.

Another attack on a border guard convoy in western Anbar province, near the Syrian border, killed two soldiers and wounded four on Tuesday, military sources said.

Separately, 28 Sunni Muslim civilians were kidnapped in the Iskandariya district south of Baghdad this week and 20 of them were found dead later, a police officer told Reuters.

Suspects detained by the authorities said they belonged to the Shi’ite Muslim Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia. A Baghdad-based spokesman for the group, whose fighters are taking part in the Shi’ite-led government’s campaign against Islamic State, said he had no knowledge of the incident.

The government’s victory in Mosul may rekindle revenge attacks and fresh violence between Sunnis and Shi’ites, a sectarian divide that tipped Iraq into civil war after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin; editing by Michael Georgy and Mark Heinrich)

Turkey’s Erdogan says lifting emergency rule currently out of question

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference to present the outcome of the G20 leaders summit in Hamburg, Germany July 8, 2017. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday ruled out an immediate end to the year-old state of emergency imposed after a failed coup, saying it could only be lifted once the fight against terrorism was finished.

Earlier on Wednesday Turkish authorities detained 14 army officers and issued warrants for the detention of 51 people, including 34 former employees of state broadcaster TRT, for suspected links to the coup, local media reported.

“There can be no question of lifting emergency rule with all this happening,” Erdogan said in a speech to investors in Ankara. “We will lift the emergency rule only when we no longer need to fight against terrorism. Lifting the emergency rule can be possible in the not-too-distant future.”

He did not give a more specific time frame.

Ankara imposed the state of emergency soon after the coup attempt last July, when a group of rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, helicopters and warplanes and attacked parliament in a bid to overthrow the government, killing more than 240 people.

Since then, some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from the army, civil service and private sector and more than 50,000 detained for alleged links to the coup.

Emergency rule allows the president and cabinet to bypass parliament in passing new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms as they deem necessary.

Critics say Erdogan is using the measures to quash dissent, while the government says they are necessary because of the gravity of the security threats Turkey faces.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Wednesday that the purges in the military were probably coming to an end.

Some 7,655 military personnel – including 150 generals and admirals and 4,287 officers – have been dismissed since the coup.

“The military purge has been largely completed by the dismissal of soldiers across all ranks. This struggle will continue until the last FETO member has paid the price for their treason,” Yildirim told the same conference in Ankara.

FETO is the term the government uses for the network of the U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen it blames for the coup. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, has denied playing any role in the coup.

Separately, police killed five Islamic State militants in a dawn raid on a house in the central city of Konya on Wednesday, the local governor’s office said, adding that four police officers were slightly wounded.

There were suspicions that those killed may have been planning to target events being held this week to commemorate the first anniversary of the coup, according to the private Dogan news agency.

It said 22 suspected Islamic State members, also suspected of preparing attacks on coup anniversary events, were detained in an operation in the western coastal province of Izmir.

Turkish security forces are also battling militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the state in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Daren Butler; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Arab states seek to step up pressure on Qatar over 2013 accord

FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of Doha's diplomatic area March 21, 2013. REUTERS/Fadi Al-Assaad/File Photo

DUBAI (Reuters) – Four Arab states sought on Monday to pile pressure on Qatar over charges it backs terrorism, saying the publication of a previously secret accord between Riyadh and Doha showed Qatar broke a promise not to meddle in the affairs of Gulf countries.

The text of the 2013 accord, whose existence was known but whose contents have never before been made public, was first published by CNN on Monday and later released on social media by Saudi officials.

In a joint statement, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said the publication of the accord, meant to settle a dispute between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors, “confirms beyond any doubt Qatar’s failure to meet its commitments and its full violation of its pledges”.

Amid fresh tension with Qatar, the four slapped sanctions on Doha on June 5, accusing it of supporting terrorism, cozying up to Iran, backing the Muslim Brotherhood – the world’s oldest Islamist organization – and interference in their affairs.

The four say Qatar pledged to desist from interfering in its neighbors’ politics in the 2013 agreement.

Qatar has rejected the charges and said the four countries are trying to impose their own views on its foreign policies.

The document surfaced as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in the region to help Washington’s allies hammer out a way out of the crisis.

In response, Qatar accused Saudi Arabia and the UAE of breaking the spirit of the Riyadh agreement and engaging in an “unwarranted and unprecedented attack on Qatar’s sovereignty”.

The Riyadh accord aimed to enhance cooperation between sovereign Gulf Arab states and avoid interference in their internal affairs, the official Qatar News Agency (QNA) said.

Kuwaiti mediation efforts hit a snag last week when the four Arab states said they were disappointed with Qatar’s response to their list of 13 demands.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Qatar said the demands, which included ending support for militant groups, the closure of the Al Jazeera TV channel, shutting down a Turkish military base in Qatar and downgrading ties with Iran, were an infringement of its sovereignty.

QNA reported Sheikh Saif Bin Ahmed Al-Thani, director of Qatar’s government communications, as saying the 13 demands bore no relation to the Riyadh accord and the latest crisis was the result of a coordinated media campaign against Qatar.

“Some of the allegations and demands of the siege countries have no basis, while others were an unwarranted and unprecedented attack on the sovereignty of the state of Qatar in violation to all international and regional agreements.”

The 2013 agreement, reached at a meeting in Riyadh hosted by the then Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, was signed by the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, while an implementation mechanism was signed by the six GCC foreign ministers.

In the document, the parties agreed to refrain from backing any “political currents that pose a threat to any member country of the (Gulf Cooperation) Council”, and provided for Muslim Brotherhood leaders who are non-GCC citizens to leave the area.

(Reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by James Dalgleish and Clarence Fernandez)

Islamic State tightens grip on village near Mosul after defeat

Iraqi Federal Police celebrate in the Old City of Mosul. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

By Ghazwan Hassan

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State has captured most of a village south of Mosul despite losing control of its stronghold in the city, an Iraqi army officer and residents said, deploying guerrilla-style tactics as its self-proclaimed caliphate crumbles.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over Islamic State in Mosul on Monday, marking the biggest defeat for the hardline Sunni group since its lightning sweep through northern Iraq three years ago.

But the militants, armed with machine guns and mortars, have now seized more than 75 percent of Imam Gharbi, a village on the western bank of the Tigris river some 70 km (44 miles) south of Mosul, and reinforcements are expected, the Iraqi army officer said.

Islamic State launched its attack on Imam Gharbi last week, in the kind of strike it is expected to deploy now as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces regain control over cities the group captured during its shock 2014 offensive.

Mosul resident Hind Mahmoud said by telephone that she had heard exchanges of gunfire in the Old City and seen an Iraqi army helicopter firing on Islamic State militants on Tuesday.

Stripped of Mosul, Islamic State’s dominion in Iraq will be reduced to mainly rural, desert areas west and south of the city.

Islamic State also faces pressure in its operational base in the Syrian city of Raqqa, where U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish and Arab forces have seized territory on three sides of the city.

The campaign to retake Mosul from the militants was launched last October by a 100,000-strong alliance of Iraqi government units, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shi’ite militias, with a U.S.-led coalition providing key air and ground support.

Abadi’s government in Iraq now faces a difficult task managing the sectarian tensions which enabled Islamic State to gain supporters in the country among fellow Sunnis, who say they were marginalized by the Shi’ite-led government.

The U.S.-led coalition warned that victory in Mosul did not mark the end of the group’s global threat.

“Now it is time for all Iraqis to unite to ensure ISIS (Islamic State) is defeated across the rest of Iraq and that the conditions that led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq are not allowed to return again,” Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend said in a statement.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Gareth Jones)