Tag Archives: suicide bombs

A legacy of war: U.N. clears thousands of explosives in Iraq

FILE PHOTO: Damaged buildings are seen in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq January 30, 2019. REUTERS/Ari Jalal/File Photo

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations cleared almost 17,000 bombs, suicide belts and other explosive hazards in Iraq last year and the dangerous work of sifting through the debris of war – 7.6 million tonnes in Mosul alone – will take many years, U.N. experts said on Thursday.

There are 100,000 damaged buildings in the country that could harbor explosive hazards such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs) left by retreating Islamic State (ISIS) fighters, said Pehr Lodhammar, head of the U.N. Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Iraq.

The bulk of the clearance work is likely to take a decade, and 2 million displaced people are keen to go home. UNMAS trained almost 500,000 people last year to help them recognize the risks.

Last year’s haul of around 17,000 explosive hazards included a “staggering” 2,000 IEDs, Lodhammer told a news conference, noting these had pressure plate fuse triggers, trip wires, infrared devices, anti-lift devices, remote control devices, or a combination of those things.

That figure included 782 suicide belts, many of them actually fitted on dead ISIS fighters found in the debris, he said.

Islamic State held Mosul for three years, and UNMAS arrived when the fighting ended in 2017. Its experts are finding explosive hazards almost everywhere, Lodhammar said. It is also working in Fallujah, Tikrit and Kirkuk, and expanding to Sinjar.

Picking through the flattened wreckage of Western Mosul in temperatures close to 40 Celsius (105 Fahrenheit) is gruesome work and physically and psychologically demanding, UNMAS director Agnès Marcaillou said.

“You have decomposing body parts that are still attached to suicide belts. You are walking around in a stench and clouds of flies, and at any given time you can have a rat or a cat or dog actually detonating something that is buried under there,” she said.

Lodhammar said the task was not traditional one-dimensional mine clearance.

“These are not mines any longer. An anti-personnel mine would have up to 230-250 grams (8.1-8.8 oz) of explosives in it. Now we’re looking at 10-20 kilos (22-44 lb).”

Buildings up to nine storeys high needed to be searched and made safe, while many of the bombs and shells dropped on Mosul by Iraqi security forces and the U.S.-led coalition had failed to go off, he said.

There were 250-pound (113 kg) bombs and 500-pound bombs, some still buried 7-8 meters (23-26 ft) down.

Generally at least 10 percent of bombs are assumed not to explode, and if not cleared away they may turn up decades later, like the World War Two bombs that are still discovered in Germany, he said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Civilian deaths in Afghanistan hit record as suicide attacks surge

Afghan security forces inspect the site of a suicide attack in Jalalabad city, Afghanistan July 10, 2018. REUTERS/Parwiz

By James Mackenzie

KABUL (Reuters) – The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan reached a record in the first half of the year, despite last month’s ceasefire, with a surge in suicide attacks claimed by Islamic State, the United Nations said on Sunday.

Deaths rose 1 percent to 1,692, although injuries dropped 5 percent to 3,430, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in its latest civilian casualty report. Overall civilian casualties were down 3 percent.

Hopes that peace may one day be agreed in Afghanistan were raised last month by a three-day truce over the Eid al-Fitr holiday which saw unprecedented scenes of Taliban fighters mingling with security forces in Kabul and other cities.

“The brief ceasefire demonstrated that the fighting can be stopped and that Afghan civilians no longer need to bear the brunt of the war,” Tadamichi Yamamoto, the senior U.N. official in Afghanistan said in a statement.

But with heavy fighting seen across the country during the first half the year and repeated suicide attacks in Kabul and major provincial cities like Jalalabad, the report underlines the dire security situation facing Afghanistan.

It also pointed to increased activity by Islamic State, reflected in a doubling in casualties in Nangarhar, the eastern province whose capital is Jalalabad, where the militant group has conducted a series of attacks over recent months.

MINISTRY ATTACKED

The main causes of casualties were ground engagements between security forces and militants, roadside bombs, as well as suicide and other so-called complex attacks, which caused 22 percent more casualties than in the same period last year.

Hundreds of civilians were killed in attacks on targets as diverse as Shi’ite shrines, offices of government ministries and aid groups, sports events and voter registration stations.

On Sunday, the day the report was issued, at least seven people were killed and more than 15 wounded by a suicide attack as staff at a government ministry were going home.

The report said two thirds of civilian casualties were caused by anti-government forces, mainly the Taliban and Islamic State.

Fifty-two percent of the casualties from suicide and complex attacks were attributed to Islamic State, often known as Daesh, while 40 percent were attributed to the Taliban.

The Taliban, who say they take great care to avoid civilian casualties, issued a statement rejecting the report as “one sided” and accused UNAMA of working in close coordination with U.S. authorities to push propaganda against them.

With parliamentary elections scheduled for October, there is concern about more violence as polling day approaches.

The Taliban, fighting to restore their version of strict Islamic law, have rejected President Ashraf Ghani’s offer of peace talks, demanding that foreign forces leave Afghanistan.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Edwina Gibbs, Robert Birsel and Keith Weir)

Taliban emerge from hiding to battle Afghan forces in city near Iran

Residents look at an Army vehicle which was damaged during battle between Afghan security forces and Taliban in Farah province, Afghanistan May 16, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

By Storay Karimi and Mohammad Stanekzai

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Taliban fighters emerged from hiding in the dead of night to launch attacks in the Afghan city of Farah, battling government forces who thought they had cleared out the insurgents following heavy clashes earlier in the week, residents and officials said.

The heavily armed fighters had gone to ground in residential areas following their surprise attack on Tuesday, when they nearly overran Farah, before Afghan troops backed by U.S. air power fought them off.

“From one side, there were Taliban and from the other side, war planes firing from the air. People were terrified,” said city shopkeeper Qudratullah.

The Taliban fighters emerged from their hiding places about an hour before midnight on Wednesday, some of them firing on security forces from rooftops, with gunbattles raging into the early hours of Thursday.

At least one suicide bomb attack was launched near the city’s police headquarters.

“The city has been turned into a military zone, people are worried and shops are closed,” said resident Baz Mohammad.

“After what happened last night, anything can happen any time.”

Schools were also declared closed for the whole of the month of Ramadan, which began on Thursday, because of the security situation, said Kabir Haqmal, media advisor to the ministry of education.

After months of relative calm over the winter, the latest fighting underlines the challenge facing the Kabul government and its U.S. allies who are struggling to contain the Taliban insurgency.

The United States has sent thousands of extra trainers to help Afghan forces and stepped up air strikes dramatically, with the aim of pressing the Taliban to the negotiating table, but there has been little to indicate the plan is working.

BLAMING IRAN

In Farah, U.S. forces have provided air support with A-10 attack aircraft and pilotless drones, while the Afghan air force has conducted numerous strikes with its own helicopters and A-29 ground attack aircraft.

Officials had earlier said the city was clear of Taliban but confirmed the fighting overnight.

“A number of Taliban clashed with Afghan forces in different parts of the city,” said Fazel Ahmad Sherzad, the city’s police chief.

“Right now there is no fighting but a search and clearance operation is underway,” he said.

He said a number of foreign fighters appeared to be operating with the Taliban but there was no way of independently verifying that. Officials in Farah often blame neighboring Iran for helping the Taliban in the area.

Fighting has increased across Afghanistan in recent weeks with government forces under heavy pressure in provinces including Badakhshan, Baghlan and Faryab in the north, Farah in the west and Zabul and Ghazni south of the capital Kabul.

In addition, Kabul itself has been targeted by a wave of suicide attacks that have killed and wounded hundreds of people since the beginning of the year.

Remote and sparsely populated Farah, on the border with Iran has seen heavy fighting for months with Taliban forces inflicting heavy casualties on the police and army and even on elite special forces units.

(Additional reporting by Qadir Sediqi in KABUL; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Iraqi troops retreat after Mosul hospital battle

Iraqi forces backed by tribal militias during battle to retake a village from the Islamic State on the eastern bank of the river Tigris, Iraq

By Ahmed Rasheed and Saif Hameed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi troops who seized a hospital deep inside Mosul believed to be used as an Islamic State military base have retreated after a fierce counter-attack, giving up some of their biggest gains in a hard-fought seven-week campaign to recapture the city.

The soldiers seized Salam hospital, less than a mile (1.5 km) from the Tigris river running through central Mosul, on Tuesday but pulled back the next day after they were hit by six suicide car bombs and “heavy enemy fire”, according to a statement by the U.S.-led coalition supporting Iraqi forces.

Coalition warplanes, at Iraq’s request, also struck a building inside the hospital complex from which the militants were firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, it said.

Tuesday’s rapid advance into the Wahda neighborhood where the hospital is located marked a change of tactics after a month of grueling fighting in east Mosul, in which the army has sought to capture and clear neighborhoods block by block.

The soldiers are part of a U.S.-backed 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi forces including the army, federal police, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and mainly Shi’ite Popular Mobilization forces battling to crush Islamic State in Mosul.

Defeating the militants in their Iraq stronghold would mark a major step in rolling back the caliphate declared by the jihadists in parts of Syria and Iraq when they took over Mosul in mid-2014.

But with two years to dig themselves into northern Iraq’s largest city, retreating fighters have waged a lethal defence, deploying hundreds of suicide car bombers, mortar barrages and snipers against the advancing soldiers and exploiting a network of tunnels to ambush them in residential areas.

“GATES OF HELL”

Soldiers from the army’s Ninth Armored division were left exposed on Tuesday after punching into the Wahda neighborhood.

“When we advanced first into Wahda, Daesh (Islamic State) showed little resistance and we thought they had fled,” an officer briefed on the operation told Reuters by telephone. “But once we took over the hospital, the gates of hell opened wide”.

“They started to appear and attack from every corner, every street and every house near the hospital,” said the officer who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He said insurgents may also have used a tunnel network reaching into the hospital complex itself.

Iraqi military spokesmen have said little about the fighting around the hospital, stressing instead gains they said were being made in other parts of east Mosul, including the Ilam neighborhood a few districts northeast.

Brigadier-General Yahya Rasoul, a spokesman for Iraq’s joint operations command, said on Wednesday “operations are continuing” around Wahda. He could not immediately be contacted on Thursday.

The statement by the coalition said Iraqi troops “fought off several counter-attacks and six VBIEDs (car bombs) … before retrograding a short distance, under heavy enemy fire”.

The Iraqi officer said that when the troops were inside the hospital complex, fighting off the militants, they came under attack from suicide bombers who he said either infiltrated through tunnels or had been hiding in the hospital grounds.

“We don’t know, they were like ghosts,” he said.

Iraq does not give casualty figures or report on its equipment losses, but the officer said 20 soldiers were killed and around 20 armored vehicles were destroyed or damaged.

Those figures could not be confirmed. Islamic State’s Amaq news agency said more than 20 vehicles were destroyed and dozens of soldiers killed, and that they had been forced to retreat.

Alongside those figures it showed a picture of a smouldering tank, its turret blown off, next to a crater in the road.

Around 280 km (175 miles) southwest of Mosul dozens of people, mainly civilians, were killed on Wednesday in air strikes which hit a western Iraqi town close to the border with Syria, local parliamentarians and hospital sources said.

They said the strikes hit a busy market area in the Islamic State-held town of Qaim, in the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim province of Anbar. Among the victims were 12 women and 19 children.

An Iraqi military statement said Iraqi air force planes conducted air strikes “on a terrorist hideout” in the area shortly after noon on Wednesday, as well as a second attack an unspecified location.

It said at least 50 terrorists were killed. It gave no details of civilian casualties, but said that the region – and all information coming out of it – was controlled by Islamic State.

Iraq’s speaker of parliament, the country’s most senior Sunni Muslim politician, called on Thursday for a government inquiry into the air strikes.

(Writing by Dominic Evans, editing by Peter Millership)

Islamic State deploys car bombs in new Syria battle

A U.S. fighter walks down a ladder from a barricade, north of Raqqa city, Syria

BEIRUT, Nov 7 (Reuters) – Islamic State militants have set off five car bombs targeting U.S.-backed Syrian armed groups
attacking Raqqa, a Kurdish source said on Monday, saying the fight to drive IS from its stronghold city would “not be easy.”

The operation by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), including the Kurdish YPG militia, that began on Saturday aims
to encircle and ultimately capture Raqqa, adding to the pressure on IS as it faces a major assault in Iraq.

Islamic State has also drawn heavily on suicide car bombs in its efforts to fend off the assault on Mosul by Iraqi forces.

The Kurdish source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S.-led coalition was providing “excellent” air support for the operation dubbed “Euphrates Anger.”

“It is difficult to … put a time frame on the operation at present. The battle will not be easy,” the source said.

The attack so far appears focused on areas north of Raqqa near the town of Ain Issa, 50 km (30 miles) away. The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, an organization that reports on the war, said the SDF forces had so far captured a number of IS positions, but there had been “no real progress.”

The Kurdish source said a number of villages had been captured. “Daesh is resorting to attacks with car bombs to a
great degree,” the source said.

The SDF has been the main partner on the ground in Syria for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, capturing swathes of northern Syria with coalition air support.

Planning for the Raqqa assault has been complicated by factors including the concerns of neighboring Turkey, which
does not want to see any further expansion of Kurdish influence in northern Syria.

Additionally, Raqqa is a predominantly Arab city, and Syrian Kurdish officials have previously said it should be freed from IS by Syrian Arab groups, not the Kurdish YPG.

A U.S. official told Reuters in Washington there was “no available force capable of taking Raqqa in the near future,” and U.S. officials cautioned the process of sealing off and isolating the city could take two months or longer.

(Reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Tom Heneghan)