Tag Archives: Raqqa

Iraq slows advance on last IS pocket in Mosul packed with civilians

Iraqi Federal Police members ride in a military vehicle during fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

By Maher Chmaytelli and Stephen Kalin

MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces slowed their advance on Tuesday through the last streets in Mosul controlled by Islamic State where militants and civilians are packed in densely together, a commander said.

While Iraqi commanders predicted final victory in Mosul this week, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced they had begun an assault on Islamic State’s Syrian redoubt in the Old City of Raqqa.

The Iraqi military has pushed insurgents into a shrinking rectangle no more than 300 by 500 meters beside the Tigris river in Mosul; but the resistance has been fierce.

The Rapid Response Division, an elite Interior Ministry unit, called in air strikes just 50 meters away from their targets, and the fighting got close enough at one point for the militants to toss a hand grenade at the troops.

It was from the pulpit of Mosul’s medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque that, three years ago, leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” over parts of Iraq and Syria. Forces retook the mosque on Thursday, prompting Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to declare an end to the group’s “state of falsehood”.

The number of Islamic State militants fighting in Mosul, by far the biggest city it has ever controlled, has dwindled from thousands at the start of the U.S.-backed offensive more than eight months ago to a couple of hundred now, according to the Iraqi military.

A commander from the Rapid Response Division estimated more than 10,000 civilians remained trapped inside the area under militant control, including people brought from other areas as human shields.

They are trapped with little food, water or medicine amid the Old City’s maze of narrow alleyways, according to residents who have managed to escape.

“The presence of civilians has affected the troops’ advance a lot. The directions from the commander-in-chief of the armed forces are to advance slowly to preserve civilians’ lives and this is what we are doing,” the officer said on state TV without being named.

“The area is small but the advance today is very good, relatively.”

He said the progress had also been slowed by a high number of improvised explosives planted in streets and buildings.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the offensive, which Iraq’s army and counter-terrorism service are also fighting in a multi-pronged attack.

TERRITORY SINKING FAST

With Mosul gone, the group’s territory in Iraq will be limited to a few areas west and south of the city where some tens of thousands of civilians live.

In neighboring Syria, a U.S-backed coalition force said it had fired on two small sections of the historic Rafiqah Wall in the Old City of Raqqa, allowing them to overcome Islamic State defenses.

“The portions targeted were 25-metre sections and will help preserve the remainder of the overall 2,500-meter wall,” the coalition said in a statement.

Iraqi authorities are planning a week of nationwide celebrations, to mark the end of the offensive, and Abadi is expected to visit Mosul to formally declare victory.

With its territory shrinking fast, Islamic State has been stepping up suicide attacks in the parts of Mosul taken by Iraqi forces and elsewhere, including a camp for displaced people west of Baghdad on Sunday.

Thousands of people have already fled the Old City this week, joining about 900,000 others, about half the city’s pre-war population, who have been displaced over months of grinding warfare.

Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is believed to be hiding near the Iraq-Syrian border, according to U.S. and Iraqi military sources.

The group has moved its remaining command and control structures to Mayadin, in eastern Syria, U.S. intelligence sources have said, without indicating if Baghdadi was also hiding in the same area.

Baghdadi has often been reported killed or wounded. Russia said on June 17 its forces might have killed him in an air strike in Syria. But Washington says it has no information to corroborate such reports and Iraqi officials are also skeptical.

(Writing by Stephen Kalin; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Islamic State counter attack causes fierce clashes in Syria’s Raqqa

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter sit as medics treat his comrades injured by sniper fired by Islamic State militants in a field hospital in Raqqa, Syria June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State mounted a fierce counter-attack against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of militias in the city of Raqqa on Friday, but there were divergent accounts of its success in regaining ground.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said the group had managed to regain control over most of Raqqa’s industrial district, but the SDF said fighting was limited to the edges of that area and the attack was repelled.

West of Raqqa, the Syrian army advanced on Friday, driving the group from its last territory in Aleppo province in a move that relieves pressure on an important government supply route, a Syrian military source said.

The SDF, a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab groups, took the industrial district this month in its biggest gain so far in Islamic State’s de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.

It said on Friday heavy clashes had taken place since late Thursday in east Raqqa, where the industrial district is located, in the areas of al-Rawdha, al-Nahdha and al-Daraiyah.

However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Islamic State had regained control over most of the industrial area in fierce fighting.

The SDF, on its social media feed, acknowledged there had been intense clashes but said the whole industrial district was still in its hands and the attack had been thwarted.

ARMY ADVANCE

The army took the last stretch of the Ithriya-Rasafa road, part of the highway from Hama to Raqqa, forcing Islamic State to withdraw from a salient it held to the north, the military source and the Observatory said.

Islamic State had used that salient, an area containing a range of hills and a dozen villages, to mount frequent attacks on a different road linking Ithriya to Khanaser, part of the government’s only available land route to Aleppo.

The capture of the Ithriya-Rasafa road also shortens the Syrian army’s route to its battlefront with Islamic State south of Tabqa, a possible route for its multi-pronged offensive to relieve the government’s enclave in Deir al-Zor.

Although Islamic State has withdrawn from the salient east of Khanaser, the army has not yet combed the entire area, the Syrian military source said.

On Thursday, the Observatory said the SDF had managed to take the last stretch of the Euphrates’ south bank opposite Raqqa, completely encircling Islamic State inside the city.

Since all Raqqa’s bridges were already destroyed, and the U.S.-led coalition was striking boats crossing the river, the city had already been effectively isolated since May.

Naser Haj Mansour, a senior SDF official, told Reuters on Thursday he thought it could be “maybe more than a month or a month and a half” before the group took the city. Previous SDF timescales for its war on Islamic State have proven optimistic.

Beyond Raqqa, Islamic State still retains most of the 200km (130 mile) stretch of the Euphrates valley flowing to the border with Iraq. The Syrian army still holds a big enclave in Deir al-Zor, the area’s largest city, on which it is slowly advancing from the direction of Palmyra.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams and Angus MacSwan)

U.S.-backed SDF sees big risk of clash with Turkey in northwest Syria

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces warned on Thursday of the prospect of fierce confrontation with the Turkish army in northwestern Syria if it attacks SDF areas, and said this would undermine the assault on Islamic State at Raqqa.

Naser Haj Mansour, a senior SDF official, told Reuters the SDF had taken a decision to confront Turkish forces “if they try to go beyond the known lines” in the areas near Aleppo where the sides exchanged fire on Wednesday.

“Certainly there is a big possibility of open and fierce confrontations in this area, particularly given that the SDF is equipped and prepared,” he said. “If it (the Turkish army)attacks we will defend, and if it attacks there will be clashes.”

Turkey has recently deployed reinforcements into the area, according to Turkey-backed rebel groups, prompting SDF concern that Ankara is planning to attack nearby areas that are under SDF control.

The SDF is an alliance of Kurdish and Arab groups spearheaded by the YPG militia which Turkey views as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey.

The Turkish military said on Wednesday it had fired artillery at YPG positions south of the town of Azaz in what it said was a response to the YPG’s targeting of Turkey-backed rebels. Mansour said the SDF had responded to Turkish shelling.

On Thursday, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmus, said it would retaliate against any cross-border gunfire from the YPG and not remain silent in the face of anti-Turkey activities by terrorist groups abroad.

Kurtulmus also reiterated Ankara’s opposition to the U.S. arming of YPG combatants and said U.S. officials would understand this was the “wrong path”.

Mansour said an attack on SDF-controlled areas would “do great harm” to the U.S.-backed Raqqa assault by drawing some SDF fighters away from front lines.

The SDF launched a long-anticipated assault on Raqqa city earlier this month. Mansour said SDF forces would soon completely besiege the city by closing the last remaining way out from the south. “There is a plan to impose a complete siege, but if this will take a day or two days, I can’t say,” he said.

Raqqa is bordered to the south by the River Euphrates.

He said that Islamic State fighters were focusing their efforts on defending certain key positions in the city, “meaning they are conducting fierce battles in some strategic positions”.

“This may be due to a shortage of numbers and ammunition,” he said. He also said the Islamic State was deploying fewer car bombs than in previous battles and this also indicated a shortage of supplies.

(Reporting by Tom Perry and Daren Butler; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Richard Balmforth)

Mosul battle to end in days as troops advance in Old City

A displaced Iraqi child eats after fleeing with his family during the fights between the Iraqi army and Islamic State militants, in the old city in Mosul, Iraq June 26, 2017.

By Marius Bosch and Khaled al-Ramahi

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – The battle to wrest full control of the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State will be over in a few days, the Iraqi military said on Monday, as elite counter-terrorism units fought militants among the narrow alleyways of the historic Old City.

An attempted fight-back by militants failed on Sunday night and Islamic State’s grip on the city, once its de facto capital in Iraq, was weakened, a senior commander said.

“Only a small part (of the militants) remains in the city, specifically the Old City,” Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) in Mosul, told Reuters.

“From a military perspective, Daesh (Islamic State) is finished,” Assadi said. “It has lost its fighting spirit and its balance. We are making calls to them to surrender or die.”

 

Iraqi security forces transport displaced civilians with an armoured fighting vehicle out of West Mosul during fighting with Islamic State militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq

Iraqi security forces transport displaced civilians with an armoured fighting vehicle out of West Mosul during fighting with Islamic State militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq June 24, 2017. REUTERS/Marius Bosch

As CTS units battled militants in the densely-populated maze of tiny streets of the Old City, which lies by the western bank of the Tigris river, Assadi said the area under Islamic State control in Mosul was now less than two sq kms.

Mosul will fall “in very few days, God willing,” he added.

Up to 350 militants are estimated by the Iraqi military to be besieged in the Old City, dug in among civilians in crumbling houses and making extensive use of booby traps, suicide bombers and sniper fire to slow down the advance of Iraqi troops.

More than 50,000 civilians, about half the Old City’s population, remain trapped behind Islamic State lines with little food, water or medicines, according to those who escaped.

 

A displaced Iraqi family flees during the fight between the Iraqi army and Islamic State militants, in the old city of Mosul, Iraq

A displaced Iraqi family flees during the fight between the Iraqi army and Islamic State militants, in the old city of Mosul, Iraq June 26, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support in the eight-month-old offensive.

The militants last week destroyed the historic Grand al-Nuri Mosque and its leaning minaret from which their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria three years ago. The mosque’s grounds remain under the militants’ control.

Iraqi troops captured the neighborhood of al-Faruq in the northwestern side of the Old City facing the mosque, the military said on Monday.

PUSHING EAST

Iraqi forces took the eastern side of Mosul from Islamic State in January, after 100 days of fighting, and started attacking the western side in February.

Assadi said Iraqi forces had linked up along al-Faruq, a main street bisecting the Old City, and would start pushing east, toward the river. “It will be the final episode,” he said.

Aid organizations say Islamic State has stopped many civilians from leaving, using them as human shields. Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old City have been killed in the past three weeks.

Islamic State has carried out sporadic suicide bombings in parts of Mosul using sleeper cells. It launched a wave of such attacks late on Sunday, trying to take control of a district west of the Old City, Hay al-Tanak, and the nearby Yarmuk neighborhood.

Assadi said an attempt by the militants to take over the neighborhoods had failed and they were now besieged in one or two pockets of Hay al-Tanak.

Security forces were searching the two neighborhoods house to house, as a curfew was still in force over parts of western Mosul, witnesses said.

Social media carried posts showing black smoke and reports that it came from houses and cars set alight by the militants. Some of the residents who had fled the fighting returned to areas where the curfew was partially lifted, witnesses said.

The authorities did not confirm a report on Mosul Eye, an anonymous blogger who supplied information on the city during the militants’ rule, that 12 civilians had been killed in the attacks.

The fall of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate”, but Islamic State remains in control of large areas of both Iraq and Syria.

Islamic State’s Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is assumed to be hiding in the Iraqi-Syrian border area. There has been no confirmation of Russian reports over the past days that he has been killed.

In Syria, the insurgents’ “capital” Raqqa, is nearly encircled by a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Syrians fear new Raqqa turmoil once Islamic State is defeated

FILE PHOTO: Graduates of a U.S.-trained police force, which expects to be deployed in Raqqa, dance during a graduation ceremony near Ain Issa village, north of Raqqa, Syria, June 17, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo

By Michael Georgy

RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) – U.S.-backed forces are closing in on Islamic State in Raqqa, but local Syrians who have escaped the battlefield are worried about what comes after the fight.

Dozens of them have volunteered to help rebuild the town once the militants have been defeated. The aim of organization they have joined, the Raqqa Civil Council (RCC) is to restore order and keep the peace in a place where further violence could fuel the rise of a new set of extremists with global ambitions.

The RCC was established in April by Kurdish and Arab allies of the U.S.-led coalition that began attacking Raqqa this month, to replace militant rule in a part of Syria long beyond President Bashar al-Assad’s control.

The campaign against Islamic State has accelerated since President Donald Trump took office in January with the militants now facing defeat in both Raqqa and Mosul in Iraq.

But the RCC says post-conflict planning in Raqqa has not kept pace. RCC volunteers say they have told the coalition it will take 5.3 billion Syrian lira (about $10 million) a year to restore power and water supplies, roads and schools and that they have nothing but small private donations so far.

The dangers of the failure to rebuild after conflict were clear in Iraq following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The post-conflict chaos opened the door to an insurgency that devastated the country and fueled the rise of Islamic State.

Mosul and Raqqa are both key centers of the caliphate the group proclaimed in 2014, but Raqqa is its operational headquarters, from where it plotted many of the deadly attacks that have targeted civilians around the world.

A U.S. official said Washington stood ready to fund the RCC, “provided they prove themselves inclusive and representative of the communities they govern”.

STABILITY

The RCC is a diverse team co-led by Arab tribal leader Sheikh Mahmoud Shawakh al-Bursan, who wears tribal robes, and Kurdish civil engineer Leila Mustafa, dressed in a green shirt and jeans.

Based in the village of Ain Issa, 50 km (30 miles) north of Raqqa, it has the support of the Syrian Democratic Forces, U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab militia fighting Islamic State.

“This is a historic step for Raqqa,” Mustafa said, referring to the dozens of technocrats and tribal leaders at its headquarters, a former government water department building, preparing to govern Raqqa until free elections can be held.

“But there is destroyed infrastructure which must be rebuilt,” she said. “Schools must be opened. Water and power stations need funding.”

The lack of funding has left the council, whose 70 members include teachers, doctors, engineers and lawyers, with few resources to appease frustrated, displaced Raqqa residents looking for quick solutions when they return to the city.

Revenge killings of anyone associated with Islamic State are likely, and such violence could fuel another extremist militant movement, just as revenge killings of al-Qaeda-linked tribes in Iraq helped Islamic State spread its rule there from Raqqa.

Abdul Aziz al-Amir, one of 20 representatives of local tribes on the council, is optimistic they can foster social cohesion in the city, where rows of houses and shops have been pulverized by coalition air strikes and Islamic State bombs.

“People with disputes always came to us,” said Amir, wearing a checkered headdress and flowing robe. “We have the confidence of the people. We can help bring stability.”

Syria’s northern neighbor Turkey disagrees, arguing that a Raqqa council allied to Kurdish militia will expand the power of Syria’s Kurds, effective fighters during the six-year-old conflict who have established self-rule in Syria’s north.

Turkey has battled a three-decade old insurgency by Kurdish PKK fighters in its south east and says Syrian Kurdish militia are an extension of the outlawed PKK. It views their ascendancy as a security threat.

The main Syrian Kurdish groups say their goal is only autonomy in a future democratic and federal Syria. The council says some 80 percent of its members are Arabs, with two Arabs and a Kurd as its deputy leaders.

European countries share Turkish and U.S. concerns that the RCC acts independently from the Kurdish militia in Raqqa, an overwhelmingly Arab city, but are very worried about post-conflict limbo given the number of attacks on their soil.

“For the moment the United States is telling us, ‘we’re carrying out our war so will see afterwards,” a European diplomat said.

SCRATCH POLICE FORCE

In the meantime, the council is running mainly on small donations, often from individuals. “One girl sent us 30 euros through Western Union,” said RCC member Omar Aloush. “We thanked her.”

Sitting in his office surrounded by people asking him to help them return home, he holds up a petition from farmers for funds to fix irrigation canals destroyed by Islamic State.

“Fixing Raqqa will require millions and millions of dollars,” said Aloush who had watched as Islamic State destroyed his businesses; a hospital, a sports club, a language school and a restaurant.

“We don’t even have the cash to help them with a project that would cost about $15,000.”

With 200,000 people displaced from Raqqa and more expected to flee as fighting intensifies, some needs are basic.

Two western military personnel from the coalition appeared in Aloush’s office to tell him they could not pay for vehicles to transport food. Aloush told them the council would foot the bill.

Just outside Ain Issa, police recruits for Raqqa funded by the coalition engage in a traditional dance to celebrate their graduation, after just 12 days of training.Idris Mohamed, a Kurd who has been named as the future head of security in Raqqa, says 700 have been trained so far. “The goal is to train 3,000 but 10,000 would be great,” he said.

His main concern, aside from the Islamic State sleeper cells expected to stage attacks once coalition forces have control, is revenge killings that could bring a new wave of instability.

As fellow graduates enjoyed the music, young policeman Adel al-Arabi recounted how Islamic State had killed his brother and cousin. “I watched Daesh behead them in the street,” he said, explaining that he had joined the force to avenge their deaths.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in BEIRUT, Tulay Karadeniz and Dominic Evans in ANKARA and John Irish in PARIS, editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Spirits high among Kurds in Syria as coalition battles for Raqqa

A Kurdish fighter from the People's Protection Units (YPG) fires a 120 mm mortar round in Raqqa, Syria, June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

By Michael Georgy

RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) – Kurdish fighter Habun Kamishli proudly recalled the cat and mouse game she played with an Islamic State suicide bomber in the Syrian town of Raqqa, where the militant group is likely to make its last stand.

“I was standing on a rooftop yesterday as our forces advanced. I noticed he was trying to sneak from one street to another to get into the building and kill us,” she said.

“Then I took a picture of his body with my phone. We are avenging the deaths of our fellow Kurds.”

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, made up predominantly of Kurdish fighters, has seized territory to the north, east and west of Raqqa. The city of about 200,000 has been the base of operations for Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on civilians across the globe.

The assault on Raqqa is likely to be a defining moment in the U.S.-led war on Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Along with the Iraqi army’s campaign to drive out Islamic State in Mosul, the other center of its self-proclaimed caliphate, it threatens to deal a major blow to the militants.

Spirits were high among Kurds on Thursday, as they identified Islamic State targets on an iPad and fired mortar rounds toward them.

Nearby, a Kurdish fighter listened to communications on a radio. Coalition aircraft had spotted militants in a car and were about to attack.

The mood along a Raqqa street was a far cry from the fear that took hold when the extremist Sunni militants group declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria and moved towards building a self-sufficient state.

Kurdish YPG militia flags hang on the walls of buildings beside names of fighters and women sang patriotic songs.

Shops taken over by the militants were abandoned, with just a few empty chocolate boxes left. Large billboards with the group’s original name Islamic State in Iraq and Syria felt like part of a bygone era.

Kurdish women commanders seemed confident of victory in the next few months.

“We have them surrounded on three sides and many can’t escape anymore,” said Samaa Sarya. “Some manage to escape on wooden boats along the river at night.”

The number of car bombs, a favorite Islamic State weapon, has fallen from about 20 to 7 a day. Coalition air strikes are exerting heavy pressure on Islamic State.

Still, dangers persist.  Minutes later, Sarya received word that a drone operated by Islamic State dropped a bomb on Raqqa, wounding 12 of her comrades.

Some Kurdish fighters estimate there could be as many as 3,000 militants left in Raqqa, where buildings are pockmarked from fighting.

The Syrians left, but foreign fighters stayed and were busy planting landmines and booby trapping houses, Kurdish fighters said. Islamic State snipers were highly effective, they said.

“Today our movements were delayed by snipers,” said Kurdish fighter Mostafa Sirikanu.

Gunfire could be heard as Kurdish militiaman Orkash Saldan pointed to a wall about 500 meters away.

“Daesh are just beyond that point,” he said, walking past a rocket Islamic State fired two days ago.

In a nearby building, where Islamic State had left behind mattresses and clothes, he pointed to a small teapot.

“You never know they could have put a bomb in that teapot or that television,” he said.

(Editing by Anna Willard)

Syrians say militants shoot escapees, air strikes kill civilians as Raqqa battle intensifies

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters walk along a damaged street in the Raqqa's al-Sanaa industrial neighbourhood, Syria June 14, 2017. Picture taken June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Michael Georgy

AIN ISSA, Syria (Reuters) – Islamic State militants in Raqqa are passing themselves off as civilians to try to avoid intensifying air strikes and shooting anyone caught trying to escape their Syrian bastion as U.S.-backed coalition forces close in, witnesses said.

At a camp for the displaced in the village of Ain Issa north of the city, people who arrived on Wednesday also said the air strikes supporting an assault by U.S.-backed forces had inflicted widespread destruction as the battle intensified.

United Nations war crimes investigators said the air campaign had killed at least 300 civilians in the city, captured by Islamic State in 2014 in the chaos of Syria’s civil war.

The escapees said the air strikes had flattened rows of apartment blocks along a main road but many of them had already been abandoned by residents fleeing Islamic State’s reign of terror and the assault on the town, which began last week.

“The coalition strikes destroyed a four-story apartment building. I saw 10 people trapped underneath,” said Abu Hamoud. “They used phosphorus.”

Human Rights Watch expressed concern on Wednesday about the use of incendiary white phosphorous weapons by the U.S.-led coalition, saying it endangers civilians when used in populated areas.

The coalition is backing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias who spent months moving to surround Raqqa in northern Syria in preparation for the assault to recapture the city.

Hassan Kirfou, said an airstrike hit the mosque where he works just a few hours after he closed it for the night, and two other mosques were hit.

“I saw three dead teenagers on top of each other outside the Nour mosque,” he said. “I don’t know why they shot these areas. As far as I know there were only a few Daesh (Islamic State) snipers left there.”

Much of the damage from air strikes was inflicted on Seif al-Dawla street, one of the main arteries of the town. “My uncle and two cousins were killed. Their house was destroyed,” Kirfou said.

The pressure on Islamic State, which is on the brink of losing the other center of its self-proclaimed caliphate, the Iraqi city of Mosul, is taking a heavy toll on the group, people who arrived at Ain Issa in the last few days said.

“They have started using microphones to tell people: ‘Don’t go to the infidels, stay with Islam’,” said Abdul Razak Crais, standing near rows of white tents as people lined up for food.

“They poured gasoline on the cars of anyone who tried to escape then lit a match and burned the vehicles. I saw them haul people out of their cars and shoot them with AK-47s.”

The coalition estimates that 3,000-4,000 Islamic State fighters are holed up in Raqqa, the administrative headquarters of Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on civilians across the globe.

Residents who fled say the militants have been laying landmines on streets, booby trapping houses and digging tunnels in preparation for battle.

“They take over people’s houses and create big holes in their walls so they can move back and forth during fighting,” said Thaier Ibrahim.

Others at the camp said militants were hiding weapons and riding cars with civilians to avoid air strikes.

Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of a U.N. Commission of Inquiry, said civilians were now extremely vulnerable: “As the operation is gaining pace very rapidly, civilians are caught up in the city under the oppressive rule of ISIL, while facing extreme danger associated with movement due to excessive air strikes.”

About 10,000 civilians have fled to the SDF-run Ain Issa camp about 60 km (40 miles) north of Raqqa with hundreds more arriving each day, Medecins Sans Frontieres has said.

Conditions have deteriorated because of the grueling summer heat. But people like Mohamed Nahaf took the risk of getting shot to escape Islamic State and a battle for the city that could take months.

“They cut off all roads. We had to pay a smuggler $200 to get us out,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

‘Staggering’ civilian deaths from U.S.-led air strikes in Raqqa: U.N.

FILE PHOTO" Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters stand amid smoke in Raqqa's western neighbourhood of Jazra, Syria June 11, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Intensified coalition air strikes supporting an assault by U.S.-backed forces on Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa in Syria are causing a “staggering loss of civilian life”, United Nations war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias supported by a U.S.-led coalition, began to attack Raqqa a week ago to take it from the jihadists. The SDF, supported by heavy coalition air strikes, have taken territory to the west, east and north of the city.

“We note in particular that the intensification of air strikes, which have paved the ground for an SDF advance in Raqqa, has resulted not only in staggering loss of civilian life, but has also led to 160,000 civilians fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced,” Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry told the Human Rights Council.

Pinheiro provided no figure for civilian casualties in Raqqa, where rival forces are racing to capture ground from Islamic State. The Syrian army is also advancing on the desert area west of the city.

Separately, Human Rights Watch expressed concern in a statement about the use of incendiary white phosphorous weapons by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, saying it endangered civilians when used in populated areas.

In its speech to the 47-member forum in Geneva, the U.S. delegation made no reference to Raqqa or the air strikes. U.S. diplomat Jason Mack called the Syrian government “the primary perpetrator” of egregious human rights violations in the country.

Pinheiro said that if the international coalition’s offensive is successful, it could liberate Raqqa’s civilian population, including Yazidi women and girls, “whom the group has kept sexually enslaved for almost three years as part of an ongoing and unaddressed genocide”.

“The imperative to fight terrorism must not, however, be undertaken at the expense of civilians who unwillingly find themselves living in areas where ISIL is present,” he added.

Pinheiro also said that 10 agreements between the Syrian government and armed groups to evacuate fighters and civilians from besieged areas, including eastern Aleppo last December, “in some cases amount to war crimes” as civilians had “no choice”.

Syria’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Hussam Edin Aaala, denounced violations “committed by the unlawful U.S.-led coalition which targets infrastructure, killing hundreds of civilians including the deaths of 30 civilians in Deir al-Zor.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Miles and Tom Heneghan)

U.S.-backed Syrian fighters reach old city walls in Islamic State-held Raqqa

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter gestures towards an armoured vehicle in Hawi Hawa village, west of Raqqa, Syria June 11, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Syrian militias advanced further into Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa from the east on Monday, reaching the walls of the Old City, a war monitor and a militia spokesman said on Monday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias supported by a U.S.-led coalition, began to attack Raqqa last Tuesday with the aim of taking it from Islamic State militants, after a months-long campaign to cut it off.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the SDF took the al-Sanaa industrial neighborhood on Monday as part of their push into the eastern half of the city, and had reached the walls of the Old City neighborhood.

SDF media officer Ahmad Mohammed said the SDF had reached the walls but there were still fierce clashes in al-Sanaa and the district had not yet been totally secured.

The Old City, east of central Raqqa, is a neighborhood of modern housing bordered on two sides by fortified city walls built in the eighth century by the Abbasid Islamic Caliphate which at one point used Raqqa as its capital.

Residents said on Monday the Old City area was being shelled intensely.

The U.S.-led coalition estimates that Raqqa, which Islamic State seized from Syrian rebels in 2014 during their lightning advance in Syria and Iraq, is defended by 3,000 to 4,000 jihadists.

It has been a hub both for Islamic State’s military leaders and its bureaucrats, and has been used to plot attacks in countries around the world.

The SDF also advanced from north of the city on Monday, taking a sugar factory complex northeast of Raqqa. A video said to show SDF officers within the complex shows heavy damage to the factory.

Since the offensive began the SDF, supported by heavy coalition air strikes, have taken territory to the west, east and north of the city.

The fighting has caused large numbers of people to flee the city and surrounding areas.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Fighters move cautiously into Islamic State-held Raqqa

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) female fighters gather at the eastern outskirts of Raqqa city, Syria June 7, 2017. Picture taken June 7, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said

RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) – At Raqqa’s eastern edge, a handful of Syrian fighters cross a river by foot and car, all the while relaying their coordinates to the U.S.-led coalition so they don’t fall victim to friendly fire.

This is their only way into al-Mishlab, the first district the Kurdish and Arab militias have swept into, in what the coalition says will be a long and difficult battle for Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto “capital” in Syria.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched their assault to capture the city this week.

As artillery and coalition aircraft pounded targets in the city, SDF fighters moved in small groups into the district during a media trip organized by the SDF.

“The comrades are advancing and Daesh forces are collapsing in front of us, but there are snipers obstructing our movements, and they are also shelling our positions with mortars,” said an SDF fighter who gave his name as Khalil.

For months, air strikes and special forces from the U.S.-led coalition have helped them encircle Raqqa, which Islamic State seized in 2014 and has used as a base to plan attacks abroad.

In a statement sent to Reuters, coalition spokesman Colonel Joseph Scrocca said the militants’ resistance had been “minimal” outside the city and that they were retreating “to protect their fortifications inside the city”.

A few civilians left farmland near Raqqa on Wednesday, waving white flags to SDF fighters heading toward al-Mishlab on a road littered with blown-up vehicles.

At the gates of the city, a bridge lay collapsed, testament to the air strikes that have left Islamic State with no way in or out except by boat across the Euphrates river.

Large plumes of smoke rose nearby. SDF fighters crossed the river into the district through pathways made of piles of rocks, soil and pipes.

A field commander who gave her name as Clara said fighting continued in some parts of the district. Islamic State militants had drawn on mines, car bombs, and suicide attackers as they sought to defend the district in recent days, she said.

The SDF fighters moved in units of five or less, waiting in bombed-out buildings or trenches for air strikes to clear the way for further advances, they said. With every movement, the unit commander relayed their GPS coordinates for pilots to pinpoint SDF and enemy positions.

Away from the frontlines, fighters in green camouflage uniform, some with colourful scarves wrapped around their heads, unloaded crates of weapons from trucks.

An SDF field commander said the coalition had recently delivered the weapons, including mortar bombs.

“These weapons recently arrived to us because we had sent our fighters for training by coalition forces,” said Ankiza Mahmoud, the commander of an SDF unit, one of many Kurdish female fighters taking part in the attack.

Some of the fighters unloading weapons wore the shoulder patch of the Kurdish YPG militia, the SDF’s most powerful component. Its role in the Raqqa campaign has strained ties between the United States and NATO ally Turkey, which fears growing Kurdish ascendancy along its border.

The United States said last week it had started supplying arms to the YPG for the Raqqa assault, deepening Turkey’s anger. Ankara views the YPG as a part of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency within Turkey.

Yet the militia has emerged as the main U.S. parter in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria.

The shipment of weapons reached the eastern outskirts of Raqqa city on Wednesday, and the newly trained SDF fighters would soon head to the frontlines, they said.

(Writing by Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Tom Perry and Catherine Evans)