The Jim Bakker Show

Civilians flee as Shi’ite groups close in on flashpoint town west of Mosul

By Isabel Coles and Saif Hameed

ERBIL/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have fled Tal Afar as Shi’ite paramilitary groups close in the Islamic State-held town on the road between Mosul and Raqqa, the main cities of the militant group’s self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

The exodus from Tal Afar, 60 km (40 miles) west of Mosul, is causing concern among humanitarian organizations as some of the fleeing civilians are heading deeper into insurgents’ territory, where aid cannot be sent to them, provincial officials said.

Popular Mobilisation units, a coalition of mostly Iranian-trained and backed militias, are trying to encircle Tal Afar, a mostly ethnic Turkmen town, as part of the offensive to capture Mosul, the last major city stronghold of Islamic State in Iraq.

About 3,000 families have left the town, with about half heading southwest, toward Syria, and half northward, into Kurdish-held territory, said Nuraldin Qablan, a Tal Afar representative in the Nineveh provincial council, now based in the Kurdish capital Erbil.

“We ask Kurdish authorities to open a safe passage for them,” he told Reuters.

He said Islamic State started on Sunday night to allow people to leave after it fired mortars at Popular Mobilisation positions at the airport, south of the city, and Popular Mobilisation forces responded.

The offensive started on Oct. 17 with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition. It is turning into the most complex campaign in Iraq since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and empowered the nation’s Shi’ite majority.

The people fleeing Tal Afar are from the Sunni community, which makes up a majority in the Nineveh province in and around Mosul. The town also had a Shi’ite community, which fled in 2014 when the hardline Sunni group swept through the region.

Turkey is alarmed that regional rival Iran could extend its power through proxy groups to an area close to the Turkish and Syrian borders, where Ankara is backing rebels opposed to the Russian and Iranian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Citing its close ties to Tal Afar’s Turkmen’s population, Turkey has threatened to intervene to prevent revenge killings should Popular Mobilisation forces, known in Arabic as Hashid Shaabi, storm the town.

“People are fleeing due to the Hashid’s advance, there are great fears among the civilians,” said Qablan, who is also the deputy head of Nineveh’s provincial council.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi tried to allay fears of ethnic and sectarian killings in Tal Afar, saying any force sent to recapture it would reflect the city’s diversity.

Cutting the road to Tal Afar would seal off Mosul as the city is already surrounded to the north, south and east by Iraqi government and Kurdish peshmerga forces.

Iraq’s U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service unit breached Islamic State’s defenses in east Mosul at the end of October and is fighting to expand a foothold it gained there.

AIR STRIKES ON MOSUL

Iraqi military estimates put the number of insurgents in Mosul at 5,000 to 6,000, facing a 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government units, peshmerga fighters and Shi’ite militias.

Mosul’s capture is seen as crucial towards dismantling the caliphate, and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have withdrawn to a remote area near the Syrian border, has told his fighters there can be no retreat.

A Mosul resident said air strikes have intensified on the western part of the city, which is divided by the Tigris river running through its center.

The strikes targeted an industrial area where Islamic State is thought to be making booby traps and transforming vehicles into car bombs, he said.

The militants are dug in among more than a million civilians as a defense tactic to hamper the strikes. They are moving around the city through tunnels, driving suicide car bombs into advancing troops and hitting them with sniper and mortar fire.

The Iraqi authorities did not release an overall estimate of the casualties, but the United Nations warned on Saturday that growing numbers of wounded civilians and military are overwhelming the capacity of the government and international aid groups.

More than 68,000 people are registered as displaced because of the fighting, moving from villages and towns around the city to government-held areas, according to U.N. estimates.

The figure does not include the thousands of people rounded up in villages around Mosul and forced to accompany Islamic State fighters to cover their retreat towards the city as human shields. It also does not included the 3,000 families which have fled Tal Afar.

In some cases, men of fighting age were separated from those groups and summarily killed, according to residents and rights groups.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Exclusive: Watchdog condemns Syrian government, Islamic State use of banned chemical weapons

By Anthony Deutsch

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The executive body of the global chemical weapons watchdog voted on Friday to condemn the use of banned toxic agents by the Syrian government and by militant group Islamic State, a source who took part in the closed session said.

Roughly two-thirds of the 41 members on the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), endorsed a U.S.-tabled text, the source told Reuters.

The OPCW’s Executive Council, which meets behind closed doors, seldom votes on such matters, generally operating through consensus. But this text was supported by 28 members, including Germany, France, the United States and Britain.

It was opposed by Russia, China, Sudan and Iran. There were nine abstentions. Russia and Iran are Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main allies against rebels seeking to overthrow him. Western and Gulf Arab states back the rebels.

The U.S.-Russian split over Syria was striking as it was those two countries that in 2013 took the lead in getting the Damascus government to join the OPCW and avert threatened U.S.-led military intervention in Syria’s civil war.

A 13-month international inquiry by the OPCW and United Nations concluded in a series of reports that Syrian government forces, including helicopter squadrons, were responsible for the use of chlorine barrel bombs against civilians.

The OPCW-U.N. mission found that the Syrian government carried out three toxic attacks in March and April of last year, while Islamic State militants had used sulfur mustard gas.

The findings set the stage for a U.N. Security Council showdown between the five veto-wielding powers, likely pitting Russia and China against the United States, Britain and France over how those responsible for the attacks should be held accountable.

Syrian authorities deny having used chemical weapons in the conflict. Islamic State has not commented.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Iraqi forces preparing advance on south Mosul

By John Davison and Dominic Evans

SOUTH OF MOSUL/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi security forces are preparing to advance toward Mosul airport on the city’s southern edge to increase pressure on Islamic State militants fighting troops who breached their eastern defenses, officers said on Thursday.

The rapid response forces, part of a coalition seeking to crush the jihadists in the largest city under their control in Iraq or Syria, took the town of Hammam al-Alil, just over 15 km (10 miles) south of Mosul, on Monday.

Officers say they plan to resume their advance north, up the western bank of the Tigris River towards the city of 1.5 million people who have lived under the ultra-hardline Sunni Islamists for more than two years.

More than three weeks after the U.S.-backed campaign to retake Mosul was launched, the city is almost surrounded by the coalition of nearly 100,000 fighters. But troops have entered only a handful of neighborhoods in the east of the city.

“We need to put wider pressure on the enemy in different areas,” said Major-General Thamer al-Husseini, commander of the elite police unit which is run by the Shi’ite-controlled Interior Ministry.

He said operations would resume within two days.

Lieutenant-Colonel Dhiya Mizhir said the target was an area overlooking Mosul airport, which has been rendered unusable by Islamic State to prevent attackers using it as a staging post for their offensive.

Army officers told Reuters in September the militants had moved concrete blast walls onto the runway to prevent planes from landing there.

Satellite pictures released by intelligence firm Stratfor also showed they had dug deep trenches in the runways and destroyed buildings to ensure clear lines of sight for defenders and to prevent advancing forces from using hangars or other facilities.

On the southern front, security forces took cover behind a mound of earth and fired at Islamic State positions from armored gun turrets.

The village of Karama was mostly deserted apart from a handful of residents and a few dozen Iraqi forces. A cement factory they recaptured three days ago was battered by gunfire.

“They used car bombs as we moved in and this street was heavily mined, but the battle wasn’t hard,” said 19-year-old recruit Abdel Sattar.

NIMRUD RUINS

Separate forces advancing on the eastern side of the Tigris targeted two villages on Thursday on the edge of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, a military statement said.

Troops from the Ninth Armoured Division took the village of Abbas Rajab, four km east of Nimrud, and raised the Iraqi flag.

The Iraqi government says Nimrud was bulldozed last year as part of Islamic State’s campaign to destroy symbols which the Sunni Muslim zealots consider idolatrous. It would be the first such site to be recaptured from Islamic State.

Counter terrorism forces and an armored division fighting in the east of the city have been battling to hold on to half a dozen districts they surged into a week ago.

They have been hit by waves of attacks by Islamic State units, including snipers, suicide bombers, assault fighters and mortar teams, who have used a network of tunnels under the city and civilian cover in the narrow streets to wear them down in lethal urban warfare.

Residents contacted by telephone on Thursday said aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition supporting the Iraqi forces were circling the skies above eastern Mosul. They heard the sound of heavy clashes, artillery and mortar fire.

The militants were hitting back, they said. “Daesh (Islamic State) fighters were firing mortar bombs from a garden next to us which they had taken from a Christian,” one person said.

“They were bombarding the Zahra neighborhood where the Iraqi forces are. The war planes hit back with small rockets and destroyed the mortar and killed three of them,” he said, adding he had moved his family to another district.

Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) forces have been fighting in Zahra for a week, sometimes gaining ground only to be pushed back on the defensive. A senior CTS officer said on Thursday the neighborhood was fully under control.

“I’m very happy. I can’t believe that we’re over this terrible nightmare,” said another resident who returned to Zahra after taking refuge outside the city. “But we’re still frightened that Daesh might return”.

“We need more attacks on the other neighborhoods to liberate them and drive Daesh further away.”

The militants, who have ruled Mosul with ruthless violence, displayed bodies of at least 20 people across the city in the last two days – five of them crucified at a road junction – saying they had been killed for trying to make contact with the attacking forces, residents have said.

The United Nations has warned of a possible exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the city. So far 45,000 have been displaced, the International Organization for Migration said on Thursday.

Those figures exclude the thousands of people forced to accompany Islamic State fighters as human shields on their retreat into Mosul from towns and villages around the city.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Angus MacSwan and David Stamp)

Anxious world leaders seek clarity on Trump policies

Donald Trump arriving at election night speech

By Angus MacSwan

LONDON (Reuters) – World leaders reacted to Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election with offers to work with him tinged with anxiety over how he would deal with a host of problems, from the Middle East to an assertive Russia.

Several authoritarian and right-wing leaders commended the billionaire businessman and reality TV star who against the odds won the leadership of the world’s most powerful country.

Trump, who has no previous political or military experience, sent conciliatory signals after his upset of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, pledging to seek common ground, not conflict, with the United States’ allies.

During his election campaign, Trump expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioned central tenets of the NATO military alliance and suggested Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to shoulder their own defense burden.

Putin was among the first to send congratulations after Trump declared victory.

Ties between Washington and Moscow have become strained over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, and allegations of Russian cyber attacks featured in the U.S. election campaign.

“We heard the campaign statements of the future U.S. presidential candidate about the restoration of relations between Russia and the United States,” Putin said.

“It is not an easy path, but we are ready to do our part and do everything to return Russian and American relations to a stable path of development.”

Among other issues causing concern among allies are Trump’s vows to undo a global agreement on climate change, ditch trade deals he says have been bad for U.S. workers and renegotiate the nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers which has led to an easing of sanctions on Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif urged Trump to stay committed to the Iran deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the election result would have no effect on Tehran’s policies and the nuclear accord with six world powers could not be dismissed by one government.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who had a poor relationship with President Barack Obama, said he hoped to reach “new heights” in bilateral ties under Trump.

Obama and Netanyahu sparred over the issue of Israeli settlements, while Trump has said they should expand.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also congratulated Trump, but analysts said his rule may be profoundly negative for Palestinian aspirations.

And despite Trump’s negative rhetoric about Muslims during his campaign, including threats to ban them from the United States, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he hoped the business magnate’s election would breathe new life into U.S.-Egyptian ties.

UNCERTAINTY

In Britain, where Trump’s victory had echoes of last June’s referendum in which voters showed dissatisfaction with the political establishment by voting to leave European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May said the “enduring and special relationship” between the two countries would remain intact.

Nigel Farage, a leader of the Brexit campaign who spoke at a Trump rally during the election campaign, tweeted: “I hand over the mantle to @RealDonaldTrump! Many congratulations. You have fought a brave campaign.”

But some European officials took the unusual step of denouncing the outcome, calling it a worrying signal for liberal democracy and tolerance in the world.

“Trump is the pioneer of a new authoritarian and chauvinist international movement. He is also a warning for us,” German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told Funke newspaper group.

Some leaders are smarting from insults that Trump doled out in the past few months, such as calling German Chancellor Angela Merkel “insane” for allowing more than 1 million migrants into the country last year.

“We’re realizing now that we have no idea what this American president will do,” Norbert Roettgen, a conservative ally of Merkel and head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told German radio. “Geopolitically we are in a very uncertain situation.”

President Francois Hollande said France wanted to begin talks with Trump immediately to clarify his stance on international affairs.

“This American election opens a period of uncertainty,” Hollande said.

French officials had openly endorsed Clinton and warned that Trump’s “confused” foreign policy objectives were alarming for the rest of the world.

“The U.S. is a vital partner for France and what’s at stake is peace, the fight against terrorism, the situation in the Middle East, economic relations and the preservation of the planet,” Hollande said.

But like-minded right-wing European parties that are hoping to make inroads of their own in 2017 — a year in which Germany, France and the Netherlands hold elections, and Italy and Britain could also do so — hailed Trump’s victory.

“Their world is falling apart. Ours is being built,” Florian Philippot, a senior figure in France’s far-right National Front (FN), tweeted.

CHINA CONCILIATORY

In Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message with a conciliatory tone, telling Trump that Beijing and Washington shared responsibility for promoting global development and prosperity.

“I place great importance on the China-U.S. relationship, and look forward to working with you to uphold the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” Xi told Trump, who said on the campaign trail to take on China and to tax Chinese imports to stop currency evaluation.

South Korea expressed the hope that Trump would maintain current U.S. policy of pressuring North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests. Seoul was concerned Trump may make unpredictable proposals to North Korea, a ruling party official said, quoting top national security officials.

A Japanese government official, speaking before Trump clinched the election, urged him to send a message as soon as possible to reassure the world of the United States’ commitment to its allies.

“We are certainly concerned about the comments (Trump) has made to date about the alliance and the U.S. role in the Pacific, particularly Japan,” the Japanese official said.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus in Europe, Asia and the Americas, Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Angus MacSwan)

Crucifixions and vice patrols show Islamic State maintains Mosul grip

Little girl carrying bottled water in Iraqi village

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State militants fighting to hold on to their Mosul stronghold have displayed the crucified bodies of five people they said gave information to “the enemy”, and are back on the city streets policing the length of men’s beards, residents say

The five bodies were put on display at a road junction, a clear message to the city’s remaining 1.5 million residents that the ultra-hardline Islamists are still in charge, despite losing territory to the east of the city.

Thousands of Islamic State fighters have run Mosul, the largest city under their control in Iraq and neighboring Syria, since they conquered large parts of northern Iraq in 2014.

They are now battling a 100,000-strong coalition including Iraqi troops, security forces, Kurdish peshmerga and mainly Shi’ite paramilitary groups, which has almost surrounded the city and has broken into eastern neighborhoods.

Residents contacted by telephone late on Tuesday said many parts of the city were calmer than they had been for days, allowing people to venture out to seek food, even in areas which have seen heavy fighting over the last week.

“I went out in my car for the first time since the start of the clashes in the eastern districts,” said one Mosul resident. “I saw some of the Hisba elements of Daesh (Islamic State) checking people’s beards and clothes and looking for smokers”.

Islamic State’s Hisba force is a morality police unit which imposes the Sunni jihadists’ interpretation of Islamic behavior. It forbids smoking, says women should be veiled and wear gloves, and bans men from Western-style dress including jeans and logos.

Hisba units patrol the city in specially marked vehicles.

“It looks like they want to prove their presence after they disappeared for the last 10 days, especially on the eastern bank,” the resident said.

Mosul is divided into two halves by the Tigris river running through its center. The eastern half, where elite Iraqi troops have broken through Islamic State defenses, has a more mixed population than the western, overwhelmingly Sunni Arab side, where Islamic State fighters are believed to be strongest.

CRUCIFIED CORPSES

The militants are putting up a fierce defense after their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, told them in a speech last week to remain loyal to their commanders and not to retreat in the “total war” with their enemies.

Iraqi military officials say they have sources inside the city, helping them identify Islamic State positions for targeting by the U.S.-led air coalition supporting the campaign, which is also backed by U.S. troops on the ground.

The gruesome public display of the bodies in east Mosul appeared to be a warning against other potential informers.

“I saw five corpses of young men which had been crucified at a road junction in east Mosul,” not far from districts which had seen heavy fighting, said another resident.

“The Daesh people hung the bodies out and said that these were agents passing news to the infidel forces and apostates,” he said referring to the Western allies backing the campaign and the Shi’ite-led government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

In another sign of a clampdown on contact with the outside world, one retired policeman said Islamic State officials were trying to inspect SIM cards to check on all communications.

“I went to get my pension as usual, but the man at the office refused to give it to me unless I handed over my SIM card,” the 65-year-old man, who gave his name as Abu Ali, said. “These are the instructions from Daesh,” the man told him.

Many residents close to the fighting have said the scale of the clashes has been terrifying, with the sound of gunfire, mortar bombardments and air strikes echoing through the streets.

In the Zuhour district, still controlled by Islamic State on Mosul’s eastern bank, witnesses said that cars carrying mortars roamed the streets on Tuesday, but were not seen being fired – unlike in the previous two days.

The relative quiet may reflect a reduction in fighting since Iraq’s special forces first broke into eastern Mosul a week ago. They faced fierce resistance, and have not sought to any major advance since then.

One witness said traffic had almost returned to normal in most parts of eastern Mosul and markets were operating, albeit not as busy as before the start of military operations.

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Islamic State claims attack on Pakistan police academy, 59 dead

By Gul Yusufzai

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Middle East-based Islamic State on Tuesday said fighters loyal to their movement attacked a police training college in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, in a raid that officials said killed 59 people and wounded more than 100.

Pakistani authorities have blamed another militant group, Lashkar-e-Janghvi, for the late-night siege, though the Islamic State claim included photographs of three alleged attackers.

Hundreds of trainees were stationed at the facility when masked gunmen stormed the college on the outskirts of Quetta late on Monday. Some cadets were taken hostage during the raid, which lasted nearly five hours. Most of the dead were cadets.

“Militants came directly into our barrack. They just barged in and started firing point-blank. We started screaming and running around in the barrack,” one police cadet who survived told media.

Other cadets spoke of jumping out of windows and cowering under beds as masked gunmen hunted them down. Video footage from inside one of the barracks showed blackened walls and rows of charred beds.

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency published the claim of responsibility, saying three IS fighters “used machine guns and grenades, then blew up their explosive vests in the crowd”.

Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister of the province of Baluchistan, whose capital is Quetta, said the gunmen attacked a dormitory in the training facility, while cadets rested and slept.

“Two attackers blew up themselves, while a third one was shot in the head by security men,” Bugti said. Earlier, officials had said there were five to six gunmen.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said authorities carried out the body of a teenaged boy who they said was one of the attackers and had been shot dead by security forces.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army chief General Raheel Sharif both traveled to Quetta after the attack and participated in a special security meeting on Tuesday afternoon, the prime minister’s office said.

One of the top military commanders in Baluchistan, General Sher Afgun, told media that calls intercepted between the attackers and their handlers suggested they were from the sectarian Sunni militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

“We came to know from the communication intercepts that there were three militants who were getting instructions from Afghanistan,” Afgun told media, adding that the Al Alami faction of LeJ was behind the attack.

LeJ, whose roots are in the heartland Punjab province, has a history of carrying out sectarian attacks in Baluchistan, particularly against the minority Hazara Shias. Pakistan has previously accused LeJ of colluding with al Qaeda.

Authorities launched a crackdown against LeJ last year, particularly in Punjab province. In a major blow to the organization, Malik Ishaq, the group’s leader, was killed in July 2015 alongside 13 members of the central leadership in what police say was a failed escape attempt.

“Two, three days ago we had intelligence reports of a possible attack in Quetta city, that is why security was beefed up in Quetta, but they struck at the police training college,” Sanaullah Zehri, chief minister of Baluchistan, told the Geo TV channel.

ISLAMIC STATE

Pakistan has improved its security situation in recent years but Islamist groups continue to pose a threat and stage major attacks in the mainly Muslim nation of 190 million.

Islamic State has sought to make inroads over the past year, hoping to exploit the country’s growing sectarian divisions.

Monday night’s assault on the police college was the deadliest in Pakistan since a suicide bomber killed 70 people in an attack on mourners gathered at a hospital in Quetta in August.

The August attack was claimed by IS, but also by a Pakistani Taliban faction, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar.

The military had dismissed previous Islamic State claims of responsibility and last month said it had crushed the Middle East-based group’s attempt to expand in Pakistan. It also dismissed previous IS claims of responsibility as ‘propaganda’.

A photograph of the three alleged attackers released by Islamic State showed one individual with a striking resemblance to the picture of a dead gunman taken by a policeman inside the college, and shared with Reuters.

Analysts say Islamic State clearly has a presence in Pakistan and there is growing evidence that some local groups are working with IS.

“The problem with this government is that it seems to be in a complete state of denial,” said Zahid Hussain, an Islamabad-based security analyst.

HIDING UNDER BEDS

Wounded cadets spoke of scurrying for cover after being woken by the sound of bullets.

“I was asleep, my friends were there as well, and we took cover under the beds,” one unidentified cadet told Geo TV. “My friends were shot, but I only received a (small) wound on my head.”

Another cadet said he did not have ammunition to fight back.

Officials said the attackers targeted the center’s hostel, where around 200 to 250 police recruits were resting. At least three explosions were reported at the scene by media.

Quetta has long been regarded as a base for the Afghan Taliban, whose leadership has regularly held meetings there.

Baluchistan is no stranger to violence, with separatist fighters launching regular attacks on security forces for nearly a decade and the military striking back.

Militants, particularly sectarian groups, have also launched a campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations of minority Shias.

Attacks are becoming rarer but security forces need to be more alert, Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan warned.

“Our problem is that when an attack happens, we are alert for a week after, ten days later, until 20 days pass, (but) then it goes back to business as usual,” he said.

“We need to be alert all the time.”

(Additional reporting by Syed Raza Hassan in KARACHI, and Mehreen Zahra-Malik, Kay Johnson, Asad Hashim in ISLAMABAD, and Mohamed el Sherif in CAIRO; Writing by Kay Johnson, Mehreen Zahra-Malik, Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Catherine Evans and Clarence Fernandez)

Islamic State steps up counter-attacks as Mosul offensive enters second week

By Maher Chmaytelli and Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD/BARTELLA, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State expanded its attacks on Monday against Iraqi army and Kurdish forces to relieve pressure on its militants confronting an offensive on Mosul, its last major urban stronghold in the country.

About 80 Islamic State-held villages and towns have been retaken in the first week of the offensive, bringing the Iraqi and Kurdish forces closer to the edge of the city itself – where the battle will be hardest fought.

The Mosul campaign, which aims to crush the Iraqi half of Islamic State’s declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, may be the biggest battle yet in the 13 years of turmoil triggered by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and could require a massive humanitarian relief operation.

Some 1.5 million residents remain in the city and worst-case forecasts see up to a million being uprooted, according to the United Nations. U.N. aid agencies said the fighting has so far forced about 6,000 to flee their homes.

In a series of counter-attacks on far-flung targets across Iraq since Friday, Islamic State fighters have hit Kirkuk, the north’s main oil city, the town of Rutba that controls the road from Baghdad to Jordan and Syria, and Sinjar, a region west of Mosul inhabited by the persecuted Yazidi minority.

Yazidi provincial chief Mahma Xelil said the Sinjar attack was the most violent in the area in the last year.

He said at least 15 militants were killed in the two-hour battle and a number of their vehicles were destroyed, while the peshmerga suffered two wounded.

Islamic State said two peshmerga vehicles were destroyed and all those on board were killed.

Islamic State committed some of its worst atrocities in Sinjar when it swept through the Yazidi region two years ago, killing men, kidnapping children and enslaving women. Kurdish fighters took back the region a year ago.

The Yazidis are a religious sect whose beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions and who speak one of the Kurdish languages. They are considered infidels by the hardline Sunni Islamist militants.

REGIONAL INTERVENTION

The Iraqi force attacking Mosul is 30,000-strong, joined by U.S. special forces and under American, French and British air cover. The number of insurgents dug in the city is estimated at 5,000 to 6,000 by the Iraqi military.

The Mosul campaign has drawn in many regional players, highlighting how Iraq is being used as a platform for influence between rival parties – Sunni-ruled Turkey and its Gulf allies and Shi’ite Iran and its client Iraqi militias.

Turkey and Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated central government are at loggerheads about the presence of Turkish troops at a camp in northern Iraq, without approval from Baghdad’s Shi’ite-led government.

Ankara fears that Shi’ite militias, which have been accused of abuses against Sunni civilians elsewhere, will be used in the Mosul offensive. Turkey’s own presence in Iraq has also helped inflame sectarian passions.

It was from Mosul’s Grand Mosque that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate over parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014. Within a year his group was in retreat in Iraq, having lost the Sunni cities of Tikrit, Ramadi and Falluja.

The Iraqi army last week dislodged the insurgents from the main Christian region east of Mosul and its elite unit, the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) has pressed ahead with operations to clear more villages since Saturday.

CTS forces took three villages west of the Christian town of Bartella in an early morning attack on Monday and are now outside Bazwaia village, between five and seven km (three to four miles) east of Mosul, Lieutenant General Abdel Ghani al-Assadi told Reuters.

The region of Nineveh around Mosul is a mosaic of ethnic and religious groups – Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, Yazidis, Christians, Sunnis, Shi’ites – with Sunni Arabs the overwhelming majority.

The army’s press office said a total of 78 villages and town have been recaptured between Oct. 17, when the Mosul operation started, and until Sunday evening.

More than 770 Islamic State fighters have been killed and 23 captured. One hundred and twenty-seven car bombs used in suicide attacks on advancing troops have been destroyed, according to an army statement.

Islamic State says it has killed hundreds of fighters from the attacking forces and blocked their progress.

The army is trying to advance from the south and the east while Kurdish peshmerga fighters are holding fronts in the east and north.

The distance from the frontlines to the built-up area of Mosul ranges from 40 kilometers (25 miles), in the south, to 5 kilometers at the closest, in the east.

After Islamic State’s attack on Friday in Kirkuk, the hardline Sunni militant group has launched other diversionary attacks in Sinjar and Rutba, 360 km west of Baghdad, where they killed at least seven policemen, according to security sources.

Federal police units arrived in Rutba overnight to back up the local forces, according to the sources who estimate that 16 insurgents have been killed so far. Islamic State said in an online statement that dozens of security force members and pro-government Sunni tribal forces had fled Rutba.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Syria says east Aleppo ceasefire has begun, promises ‘safe exit’

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – The Syrian military said on Thursday a unilateral ceasefire backed by Russia had come into force to allow people to leave besieged eastern Aleppo, a move rejected by rebels who say they are preparing a counter-offensive to break the blockade.

State media earlier said the army had opened exit corridors in two designated areas in the Bustan al Qasr quarter and near the Castello road in northern Aleppo city. Waiting buses were shown on state television.

Intensified Russian and Syrian bombing of besieged rebel-held parts of Aleppo in the past weeks has hit hospitals, bakeries and water pumping stations, and killed hundreds of civilians.

The United Nations has criticized unilateral ceasefires after long sieges, saying they can be helpful only if combined with humanitarian access for those who do not want to leave.

The 250,000 civilians trapped inside the besieged rebel held parts of the city have so far stayed away from the corridors. The army blames rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad for preventing them leaving and says they use civilians as human shields.

Rebels say the goal of Moscow and Assad is to empty rebel-held areas of civilians so they can take over the whole city.

“They talk about humanitarian corridors, but why are they not allowing food into besieged eastern Aleppo to alleviate our suffering? We only need the Russian bombers to stop killing our children. We don’t want to leave,” said Ammar al Qaran, a resident in Sakhour district.

State-owned Ikhbariyah television said rebels had fired a mortar barrage near to where ambulances had been heading to take patients from the besieged parts of the city for treatment in government-held areas.

MEDICAL TREATMENT

The Syrian military said on Wednesday it would observe the temporary ceasefire over three days from morning to sunset to allow trapped civilians to escape and said it had pulled back to enable rebel fighters to leave the city via two designated corridors.

“We guarantee a safe exit. Seize the opportunity and save your families,” an army loudspeaker blared near an exit corridor, on live footage shown on the pro-Syrian government Lebanese news channel Mayadeen.

“An appeal to our people … we will extend every help from shelters to hot dishes and facilities that offer you medical treatment,” said the army loudspeaker.

To the rebels, the army broadcaster said: “Drop your weapons, this is your last chance.”

Residents reported no raids on residential areas on Thursday morning though rebel sources said planes believed to be Russian jets flying at high altitude continued to pound targets in towns and villages in Aleppo’s western countryside and in rebel-held Idlib province in northwest Syria.

People ventured onto the streets in some neighborhoods to buy essentials before an expected resumption of nightly raids after sunset.

Near the Turkish border, at least one civilian and scores were wounded when a car bomb blew up in an industrial area in the town of Azaz, a stronghold for Turkish-backed rebels who are waging a campaign to drive out Islamic State militants from their remaining foothold in the northern Aleppo countryside.

Since Russia intervened in the war a year ago, the government’s side has gained the upper hand on numerous fronts, including Aleppo, where the opposition-held sector has been completely encircled for weeks.

The Syrian army has pressed ahead with a major campaign, supported by Iranian-backed militias and Russian air power, to take full control of Syria’s largest city, divided between rebel and government zones since 2012.

The rebels, however, say they are preparing a large-scale offensive to break the siege of Aleppo and that the Russian air force has failed.

“The coming battle is not going to be like others. We are waiting for the signal of the start of a decisive battle which will surprise the regime and its militias,” Abu Obeida al Ansari, a commander from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the rebranded former al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front, said in a statement on social media.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Islamic State attacks Kirkuk as Iraqi forces push on Mosul

By Maher Chmaytelli and Michael Georgy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State launched a major counter-attack on the city of Kirkuk on Friday as Iraqi and Kurdish forces pursued operations to seize territory around Mosul in preparation for an offensive on the jihadists’ last major stronghold in Iraq.

Islamic State’s assault on Kirkuk, which lies in an oil- producing region, killed 18 members of the security forces and workers at a power station outside the city, including two Iranians, a hospital source said.

Crude oil production facilities were not targeted and the power supply continued uninterrupted in the city. Kirkuk is located east of Hawija, a pocket still under control of Islamic State that lies between Baghdad and Mosul.

With air and ground support from the U.S.-led coalition, Iraqi government forces captured eight villages south and southeast of Mosul. Kurdish forces attacking from the north and east also captured several villages, according to statements from their respective military commands overnight.

The offensive that started on Monday to capture Mosul is expected to become the biggest battle fought in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The United Nations says Mosul could require the biggest humanitarian relief operation in the world, with worst-case scenario forecasts of up to a million people being uprooted.

About 1.5 million residents are still believed to be inside Mosul. Islamic State has taken 550 families from villages around Mosul and is holding them close to IS locations in the city, probably as human shields, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office said in Geneva.

The fighting has forced 5,640 people to flee their homes so far from the vicinity of the city, the International Organization for Migration said late on Thursday.

The Turkish Red Crescent said it was sending aid trucks to northern Iraq with food and humanitarian supplies for 10,000 people displaced by fighting around Mosul.

EXPLOSIVE DEVICE

A U.S. service member died on Thursday from wounds sustained in an improvised explosive device blast near the city.

Roughly 5,000 U.S. forces are in Iraq. More than 100 of them are embedded with Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, advising commanders and helping them ensure coalition air power hits the right targets, officials say.

However, the Kurdish military command complained that air support wasn’t enough on Thursday.

“Regrettably a number of Peshmerga have paid the ultimate sacrifice for us to deliver today’s gains against ISIL. Further, Global Coalition warplane and support were not as decisive as in the past,” the Kurdish command said in a statement.

Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, addressing anti-Islamic State coalition allies meeting in Paris via video link, said the offensive was advancing more quickly than planned.

A senior Kurdish military official told Reuters the offensive by the Iraqi and Kurdish forces was moving steadily as they push into villages on the outskirts of Mosul.

But he expected the offensive to slow down once they approach the city itself, where Islamic State had built trenches, dug tunnels and might use civilians as human shields.

“I believe it will be more clear within the coming weeks once we get rid of those villages and we come closer to the city how quickly this war will end. If they (Islamic State) decide to defend the actual city then the process will slow down.”

Once inside Mosul, Iraqi special forces would have to go from street to street and from neighbourhood to neighbourhood to clear explosives and booby traps, the official said.

Islamic State denied that government forces had advanced. Under the headline “The crusade on Nineveh gets a lousy start,” the group’s weekly online magazine Al-Nabaa said it repelled assaults on all fronts, killing dozens in ambushes and suicide attacks and destroying dozens of vehicles including tanks.

HOLED UP

In Kirkuk, Islamic State attacked several police buildings and a power station in the early hours of Friday and some of the attackers remained holed up in a mosque and an abandoned hotel.

The militants also cut the road between the city and the power station 30 km (20 miles) to the north.

Several dozen took part in the assault, according to security sources who couldn’t confirm a claim by Islamic State that it had taken a Kurdish police officer hostage.

The assailants in Kirkuk came from outside the city, said the head of Iraq’s Special Forces, Lieutenant General Talib Shaghati, speaking on a frontline east of Mosul.Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi reacted to the killing of the Iranian citizens in Kirkuk, saying these attacks are “the last breath of terrorists in Iraq”.

At least eight militants were killed, either by blowing themselves up or in clashes with the security forces, the sources said. Kurdish forces had dislodged the militants from all the police and public buildings they had seized before dawn, they said.

MACHINE GUN

Kurdish NRT TV footage showed machine gun fire hitting a drab two-floor building that used to be a hotel, and cars burning in a nearby street.

Islamic State claimed the attacks in online statements, and authorities declared a curfew in the city where Kurdish forces were getting reinforcements.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters took control of Kirkuk in 2014, after the Iraqi army withdrew from the region, fleeing an Islamic State advance through northern and western Iraq.

On the frontline south of Mosul, thick black smoke lingered from oil wells that Islamic State torched to evade air surveillance, in the region of Qayyara.

The army and the U.S.-led coalition took back this region in August and are using its air base as a hub to support the offensive on Mosul.

“Long live Iraq, death to Daesh,” was painted on a wall near an army checkpoint there, referring to an Arabic acronym of Islamic State.

The army Humvees at the checkpoint carried Shi’ite flags, revealing that the soldiers of this unit belonged to Iraq’s majority community.

Flying Shi’ite flags in the predominantly Sunni region and the participation of the Popular Mobilization Force, a coalition of mostly Iranian-trained militias, in a support role to the army has raised concerns of sectarian violence and revenge killings during or after the battle.

The nation’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Friday renewed a call to spare civilians.

“All those who are participating in the battle have to respect the humanitarian principles and refrain from seeking vengeance,” said a sermon delivered in Sistani’s name in the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala by one of his representatives.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy near Qayyara, Stephen Kalin east of Mosul and Saif Hameed in Baghdad; editing by Giles Elgood)

Far from Aleppo, Syria army advance brings despair to besieged Damascus suburb

residents fleeing an air strike in Damascus, Syria

By Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Dozens of children line up for bread on the side of a road in Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held area near Damascus. In scenes described by a witness, their belongings are piled up on the gravel — blankets, old mattresses, sandbags stuffed with clothes — until the families can figure out their next destination.

They are some of the thousands of people who have fled their homes in recent months, as government forces have steadily encroached on the biggest rebel stronghold near Syria’s capital.

Since a ceasefire collapsed last month, international attention has been focused on a major attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces and his allies on the northern city of Aleppo.

But hundreds of miles south, the government’s gradual, less-publicized advance around Damascus may be of equal importance to course of a war in its sixth year, and is also causing hardship for civilians under siege.

Government troops, backed by Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, have been snuffing out pockets of rebellion near the capital, notably taking the suburb Daraya after forcing surrender on besieged rebels.

The densely-populated rural area east of Damascus known as the Eastern Ghouta has been besieged since 2013 and is much larger and harder to conquer than Daraya.

Government advances are forcing people to flee deeper into its increasingly overcrowded towns, and the loss of farmland is piling pressure on scarce food supplies.

Several hundred thousand people are believed to be trapped inside the besieged area, similar in scale to the 250,000 civilians under siege in Aleppo.

“People were on top of each other in the trucks and cars,” said Maamoun Abu Yasser, 29, recalling how people fled the al-Marj area where he lived earlier this year, as the army captured swathes of farmland.

Abu Yasser said he and a few friends tried to hold out for as long as possible, but the air strikes became unbearable.

“The town was almost empty. I was scared that if we got bombed, there would be nobody to help us,” he told Reuters by phone. “We couldn’t sleep much at night. We were afraid we’d fall into the regime’s hands. It would probably be better to die in the bombardment.”

SEEKING SHELTER

Since the start of the year, Syrian government forces and their allies, including Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, have moved into Eastern Ghouta from the south, the southwest, and the east, helped by infighting among rebel groups that control the area.

The advances have forced more than 25,000 people to seek shelter in central towns away from approaching frontlines, residents said. Some have set up makeshift homes in the skeletons of unfinished or damaged buildings, aid workers said. Others live in shops and warehouses, or haphazardly erected tents.

The army has made its most significant gains in the area in recent months, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war. Rebels are still putting up resistance, “but the regime and Hezbollah’s continuous advances are a big indicator that they’ve decided to press on till the end”, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said.

Eastern Ghouta was targeted with poison gas in 2013, nearly leading to U.S. air strikes to bring down Assad, who denied blame. President Barack Obama called off military action after Russia brokered an agreement for Assad to give up chemical arms.

The district has regularly been pounded by government air strikes. Insurgents have meanwhile used it as a base to shell Damascus.

Staples such as bread and medicine are unavailable or prohibitively expensive, several residents said.

Once self-sufficient farmers who were forced to abandon their land have become dependent on food from local charities, which Syrian aid workers say are often funded by organizations in Gulf states that support the opposition to Assad.

“Many families ate from their own land … and they made a living from it,” Abu Yasser said. “They were traders … and now they have to stand in line to get one meal.”

The sprawling agricultural area was historically a main food source for much of the capital’s eastern countryside. The territory taken by the army in the past six months was full of crops, until fierce battles and air strikes set it ablaze, aid worker Osama Abu Zaid told Reuters from the area.

“Now, compared to the sectors we lost, there are few planted fields left,” he said.

Opponents of Assad accuse his government and its Russian allies of relentlessly bombing Eastern Ghouta before ground troops swept in. The Syrian government and Russia say they only target militants.

“It’s the scorched earth policy. People were hysterical,” Abu Zaid said. “Even if you dug a hole in the ground and sat in it, the chances of surviving would be very, very slim.”

Residents have protested over the internecine war among the rebel groups which they blame for the army’s gains. Hundreds of people were killed in fighting between the Jaish al-Islam and Failaq al-Rahman factions.

Abu Zaid said the government had been failing for more than a year to capture southern parts of the Ghouta, until the internal fighting allowed for a quick advance.

NOT ENOUGH FOOD AND SHELTER

The waves of displacement mean schools and homes are full in central towns and cities still held by rebels.

“There was a big shock, a huge mass of people migrating at the same time, without any warning, without any capacity to take them in,” Malik Shami, an aid worker, said.

“Residents are already unable to get food at such high prices,” he said. International aid is insufficient and severely restricted by the Syrian government. “So they rely on local groups… but we can only do basic things, to keep us on our feet,” he said. “There will be a big crisis in the winter.”

A United Nations report said around 10 aid trucks had entered towns in the area this year.

Amid ongoing battles, the army has escalated its bombing of Eastern Ghouta, and dozens have been killed this month, the Observatory reported. It said the army advanced in the northeast of the area, edging closer to the city of Douma.

“The bombing and the fires, it’s like in the movies,” Shami said. “At night, there’s intense panic.”

Residents believe the government aims to force them into an eventual surrender through siege and bombardment, the tactic used in Daraya, where a local agreement guaranteed fighters safe passage to other rebel-held parts of the country.

“There are many theories” about what could come next, said Mahmoud al-Sheikh, a health worker. “But in general, there’s a lot of mystery about the future, a fear of the unknown.”

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva; editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff)

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