The Jim Bakker Show

Iraqi authorities gain first foothold at Kurdish frontier with Turkey

By Ahmed Rasheed, Ercan Gurses and Raya Jalabi

ANKARA/BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi troops deployed on Tuesday at one of the main land crossings with Turkey, gaining a foothold at the Kurdish-held frontier for the first time in decades and imposing one of Baghdad’s central demands on the Kurds.

Iraq’s entire land border with Turkey is located inside the Kurdish autonomous region, and has been controlled by the Kurds since before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

But since the Kurds staged a referendum on independence last month that Baghdad considers illegal, the central government has demanded a presence at all border crossing points.

The Iraqis set up positions between the Turkish and the Iraqi Kurdish checkpoints at the border crossing between the Turkish town of Habur and the Iraqi Kurdish town of Fish-Khabur, a security source in Baghdad said.

Vehicles crossing the border would now be subject to three checks — by Turks, Iraqi forces and the Kurds.

“Habur border gate has been handed over to the central government as of this morning,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told members of his ruling AK Party in parliament in Ankara.

Officials from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said they had not relinquished control of the crossing. Discussions were ongoing to allow Iraqi “oversight” at the border, Hoshyar Zebari, a former Iraqi foreign minister now working as an advisor to the KRG, told Reuters.

An Iraqi official showed Reuters pictures of the Iraqi flag being raised at the border gate, where Iraqi and Turkish soldiers were deployed and Turkish flags also hoisted.

The issue of control of the border crossing is of crucial importance for the landlocked Kurdish region. The Fish-Khabur crossing is the site of the main oil export pipeline for northern Iraq, and crude exports through it are the principal source of funds for the Kurds.

BALANCE SHIFTS

The balance of power between Iraqi central government forces and the autonomous Kurdish region has been transformed since the Kurds staged their referendum on Sept. 25.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi ordered his forces to recapture all territory held by the Kurds outside the borders of their autonomous region, and most of it was seized this month within a matter of days.

Baghdad is also demanding control of all border crossings with Turkey and Iran. Abadi has won backing from both Tehran and Ankara for his moves against the Kurds.

Iraq’s military said a delegation headed by army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanmi was visiting the Fish-Khabur area to take control of Kurdish-held international border checkpoints with both Turkey and Syria.

Zebari, the Kurdish government advisor, said the Kurds were prepared to accept “Iraqis at the airports and border posts to have oversight, to make sure everyone is in compliance”, but any such presence must be achieved through negotiations, not force.

The split between the Kurds and the Iraqi central government is a particular challenge for Washington which is closely allied to both sides. The United States had urged the Kurds not to hold the referendum, worried that it would precipitate a backlash.

The referendum and ensuing dispute with Baghdad has also exposed deep rifts within the Kurdish leadership. Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani announced on Sunday that he would step down, and accused security forces loyal to a rival political party of “high treason” for yielding territory to the central government without a fight.

The KRG and the central government held talks Friday through Sunday to resolve their conflict.

Yildirim said Turkey had agreed to open another border gate with Iraq as part of a route that would lead to the city of Tal Afar, some 40 km west of Mosul and home to a predominantly ethnic Turkmen population.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Raya Jalabi in Erbil, Daren Butler in Ankara; writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Peter Graff)

Beijing seen poised for fresh South China Sea assertiveness

By Greg Torode and Ben Blanchard

HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) – China has quietly undertaken more construction and reclamation in the South China Sea, recent satellite images show, and is likely to more powerfully reassert its claims over the waterway soon, regional diplomats and military officers say.

With global attention focused on North Korea and Beijing engrossed in its Party Congress, tensions in the South China Sea have slipped from the headlines in recent months.

But with none of the underlying disputes resolved and new images reviewed by Reuters showing China continuing to develop facilities on North and Tree islands in the contested Paracel islands, experts say the vital trade route remains a global flashpoint.

Some expect China to land its first deployments of jet fighters onto its runways in the Spratly islands in coming months, while regional military officers say it is already using the new facilities to expand naval and coast guard deployments deep into Southeast Asia.

“They’ve built these extensive facilities and both Chinese civilian and PLA experts have always made it clear that when the strategic time is right, they’re going to start using them more fully,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China security expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“I think it is a question of when, rather than if, China will start to assert its interests more forcefully in the South China Sea … and that is likely to be at a time of China’s choosing,” Glaser told Reuters.

Rival claimant Vietnam, meanwhile, is nearing completion of reclamations and an extended runway on its base on Spratly Island, the satellite images show.

CALM AFTER THE STORM

The build-up of the Spratlys symbolizes China’s growing assertiveness over the South China Sea during President Xi Jinping’s first term and was highlighted in his address to the Communist Party Congress this month.

“Construction on islands and reefs in the South China Sea has seen steady progress,” Xi told the Congress.

The issue is likely to come up during U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Asia, which begins this week.

“We remain concerned about tensions in the South China Sea, in particular those caused by land reclamation and militarization of disputed outposts and the willingness of some to resort to coercive tactics to assert their claims,” said Michael Cavey, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department.

“We have consistently called on China, as well as other claimants, to refrain from any further land reclamation, construction of new facilities, and militarization of the disputed features.”

Responding to Reuters’ questions, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang reiterated the islands were irrefutably Chinese territory.

“You can’t say that the construction on our islands and reefs in the South China Sea and the building of necessary defensive facilities is an expansion of military deployments,” he said.

“We believe that at present the situation in the South China Sea is generally good, and all relevant parties should work hard together to protect the peace and stability of the South China Sea.”

China’s ambassador to Washington, Cui Tiankai, said on Monday the United States should not try to “interfere” in regional efforts to resolve disputes in the South China Sea.

For a graphic on Spratly Islands, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/1/6/12/index.html

China has been seeking to soothe fellow claimant the Philippines and accelerating talks with the wider ASEAN grouping, amid concerns in Washington about the long-term security of the waterway through which some $3 trillion in trade a year passes.

In a speech in Singapore earlier this month, the most senior U.S. military chief in the region said even while Washington pushed Beijing for help on North Korea, it would still hold China accountable for actions that countered international rules and norms.

“We also want Beijing to do more to stop provocative actions in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, where the Chinese are building up combat power and positional advantage in an attempt to assert de-facto sovereignty over disputed maritime features,” Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said.

China claims much of the area through its controversial nine-dash line, which overlaps rival maritime claims by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei.

TACTICS NOT STRATEGY

A recent study by the U.S. government-linked RAND Corp weighing the risks of a conflict between the United States and China moved the South China Sea up its list of potential flashpoints.

Placing it above Taiwan but below the Korean peninsula, the study notes the waterway has “become the unanticipated focal point of U.S.-Chinese … rivalry”.

While the Pentagon has embarked on more regular freedom-of-navigation patrols, or FONOPS, to challenge Beijing’s claims, some analysts believe Washington is struggling to counter China’s creeping domination of the area.

“China appears to be pursuing a well-thought out and long-term strategy to achieve dominion over the South China Sea while America responds with ad hoc tactical maneuvers,” said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore’s Yusof Ishak Institute.

“FONOPS are tactics not strategy, and they have not made China rethink its plans for the South China Sea one iota.”

Ni Lexiong, a naval expert at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said there was little need for China to dramatically increase deployments now, but much depended on the actions others.

“As long as others don’t intentionally go and provoke clashes, things will be fine,” he added. “The issue is that some countries, like the United States, go and stir things up.”

(Reporting by Greg Torode and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON and Venus Wu in HONG KONG; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

Iraq orders truce with Kurds to allow peaceful deployment at border crossings

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered a 24-hour suspension to military operations against Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, to allow for the peaceful deployment of Iraqi troops at the border crossings with the Kurdistan region.

A Kurdish spokesman earlier said the two sides reached an agreement on Friday to stop fighting which broke out on Oct. 16, after Iraqi forces seized the oil-city of Kirkuk.

Abadi ordered the offensive on Kirkuk and other Kurdish-held territory in retaliation to the Sept. 25 vote for independence in a referendum organized by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) – a drive that was all but crushed by the surprise attack.

The 24-hour truce “should allow a joint technical committee … to work on the deployment of federal Iraqi forces in all disputed areas, including Fish-Khabur, and the international border”, Abadi said in a statement.

“This should prevent bloodshed between the children of the same country.”

He wants to take control of border crossings with neighboring countries, including one in the Fish-Khabur area through which an oil export pipeline crosses into Turkey, carrying Iraqi and Kurdish crude oil.

The KRG on Wednesday proposed an immediate ceasefire, a suspension of the referendum result and “starting an open dialogue with the federal government based on the Iraqi constitution” – call rejected by Baghdad.

According to the KRG, which is based in the Kurdish autonomous region’s capital of Erbil, the ceasefire entered effect at 1 a.m. on Friday (2200 GMT Thursday).

“The ceasefire is holding,” Vahal Ali, the director of KRG President Masoud Barzani’s media office, told Reuters.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has also urged dialogue to start, in a call to Abadi, the Iraqi central government said in a statement on Friday morning.

U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces, Iranian-backed paramilitaries and Kurdish fighters fought alongside each other to defeat Islamic State, also called ISIS, but the alliance has faltered with the militants largely defeated in the country.

OIL REVENUE

The multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk, which lies outside the KRG official boundaries, fell to Iraqi forces without much resistance on Oct. 16 but the Kurdish Peshmerga began to fight back as they withdrew closer to the core of the Kurdish region.

The fall of Kirkuk, considered by many Kurds as the heart of their fatherland, was a major symbolic and financial blow to the Kurdish drive for independence championed by Barzani, as it halved the region’s oil export revenue.

The most violent clashes happened in the northwestern corner as the Peshmerga fought back offensives toward Fish-Khabur, and also south of their capital Erbil, leaving dozens of casualties on both sides.

Speaking in Geneva on Thursday, Tillerson said he was “disappointed that the parties have been unable to reach an entirely peaceful resolution” and that he had encouraged Abadi to accept the KRG “overtures for talks on the basis of the Iraqi constitution”.

Abadi demanded on Thursday that the Kurds declare their referendum void, rejecting the KRG offer to suspend its independence push to resolve a crisis through talks. “We won’t accept anything but its cancellation and the respect of the constitution,” he said in a statement during a visit to Tehran.

The spokesman of the U.S.-led anti Islamic State coalition in Baghdad, U.S. Colonel Ryan Dillon, told Reuters: “Both parties are talking with one another, but it is not an official ceasefire.”

In an interview with Kurdish TV Rudaw, Dillon called on the two sides to extend the deal to a complete halt in hostility and “refocus our efforts on defeating ISIS”. “We are encouraging dialogue, we are trying to get the tensions down,” he added.

Iraqi forces on Thursday launched an offensive to recapture the last patch of Iraqi territory still in the hands of Islamic State, on the border area with Syria.

Abadi has expressed hope the group will be completely defeated in Iraq before the end of the year.

The militant group also holds parts of the Syrian side of the border, but the area under their control is shrinking as they retreat in the face of two sets of hostile forces – a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition and Syrian government troops with foreign Shi’ite militias backed by Iran and Russia.

Islamic State’s self-declared cross-border caliphate effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces captured Mosul, the group’s de facto capital in Iraq, in a gruelling battle which lasted nine months.

The militants’ Syrian stronghold, Raqqa, fell to U.S.-backed forces earlier this month.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared the caliphate from Mosul in mid-2014, released an audio recording on Sept. 28 that indicated he was alive, after several reports he had been killed. He urged his followers to keep up the fight despite setbacks.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Alison Williams)

U.S sanctions North Koreans for ‘flagrant’ rights abuse

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on seven North Korean individuals and three entities for “flagrant” human rights abuses, including killings, torture, forced labor and the hunting down of asylum seekers abroad.

“Today’s sanctions target the North Korean military and regime officials,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “We also are targeting North Korean financial facilitators who attempt to keep the regime afloat with foreign currency earned through forced labor operations.”

Among those sanctioned were the director and the deputy director of the Military Security Command, the first vice minister of the Ministry of People’s Security and the labor minister. North Korea’s consul general in Shenyang, China, and a diplomat at its embassy in Vietnam were also sanctioned.

“We are especially concerned with the North Korean military, which operates as secret police, punishing all forms of dissent,” the statement said.

“Further, the military operates outside of North Korea to hunt down asylum seekers, and brutally detains and forcibly returns North Korean citizens.”

The Treasury statement charged that Ku Sung Sop, the consul general in Shenyang, and Kim Min Chol, the diplomat in Vietnam, had participated in the forced repatriation of North Korean asylum seekers.

Scott Busby, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, told a news briefing that Ku’s case had been raised with China.

He said it was up to China how to react, but the range of possibilities included expelling him from the country.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China does not approve of countries using their own domestic law to enact unilateral sanctions outside of the United Nations framework.

“We will maintain normal exchanges and cooperation with North Korea on the basis of complying with U.N. resolutions,” he told a daily news briefing, without elaborating.

Busby said North Korean government violations included extrajudicial killings, torture, rape and forced abortions and the aim of the sanctions was to send a message, especially to prison camp managers and mid-level officials, that individuals would be held accountable.

The U.S. administration has sought to restrict the income North Korea receives from its export of labor as part of efforts to choke off funds helping to finance the country’s nuclear and missile programs, which Pyongyang says are aimed at developing weapons capable of hitting the United States.

North Korea routinely denies widespread allegations of rights abuses.

The Treasury statement said the Ch’olhyo’n Overseas Construction Company, which was sanctioned along with the Military Security Command and the External Construction Bureau, had operated in Algeria and was reported to earn foreign currency for North Korea.

“Employees of Ch’olhyo’n are kept in slave-like conditions, including having salaries and passports withheld by (North Korean) security officials assigned as site supervisors, meager food rations, poor living conditions, and severe restrictions on their freedom of movement,” the Treasury statement said.

It said the External Construction Bureau had operated in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Tom Brown)

Mattis talks diplomacy on North Korea ahead of Trump’s Asia tour

By Phil Stewart

PANMUNJOM, South Korea (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis emphasized diplomatic efforts to resolve the North Korean missile and nuclear crisis as he stood at the tense and heavily fortified border between North and South on Friday, saying: “Our goal is not war.”

His remarks came before U.S. President Donald Trump – who has threatened to destroy the North if necessary – leaves on his first trip to Asia next week, including a stop in South Korea to meet President Moon Jae-in.

For his part, Moon, after talks with Mattis, said the “aggressive deployment” of U.S. strategic assets in the region, which have included overflights by U.S. bombers, had been effective in deterring the North Korean threat.

Tension between North Korea and the United States has been building after a series of nuclear and missile tests by Pyongyang and bellicose verbal exchanges between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, stoking fears any miscalculation could lead to an armed confrontation.

“North Korean provocations continue to threaten regional and global security despite unanimous condemnation by the United Nations Security Council,” Mattis said in prepared remarks as he visited the demilitarized zone (DMZ).

“As Secretary of State Tillerson has made clear, our goal is not war, but rather the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”

Standing alongside Mattis, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo said: “We together will continue to defend peace through strong will and strong might.”

TRUMP VISIT LOOMS

Ahead of Trump’s visit to Asia, Mattis has emphasized diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis during his week-long trip to the region.

“That’s really what it was all about – to keep the (North Korea) effort firmly in the diplomatic lane for resolution,” Mattis said earlier this week after three days of meetings with Asian defense chiefs in the Philippines.

At the same time, the U.S. and South Korean militaries are looking for ways to deter Pyongyang and bolster the South’s defenses.

Washington’s top military officer, Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with his South Korean counterpart, General Kyeong Doo Jeong, a U.S. military statement said. Dunford renewed U.S. warnings of retaliation to further provocations.

“(Dunford) reaffirmed that any attack by North Korea would be met with a response that will be overwhelming and effective, using the full range of U.S. military capabilities,” the statement said.

The United States flew Air Force bombers over waters east of North Korea last month in a show of force. The U.S. Navy, in what it says was a long-planned maneuver, will have three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups in the Pacific in the coming days.

Last week, CIA chief Mike Pompeo said North Korea could be only months away from developing the ability to hit the United States with nuclear weapons, a scenario Trump has vowed to prevent.

U.S. intelligence experts say Pyongyang believes it needs the weapons to ensure its survival and have been skeptical about diplomatic efforts, focusing on sanctions, to get Pyongyang to denuclearize.

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on seven North Korean individuals and three entities for “flagrant” human rights abuses, including killings, torture, forced labor and the hunting down of asylum seekers abroad.

In a speech last month at the United Nations, Trump threatened to destroy North Korea if necessary to defend the United States and allies. Kim has blasted Trump as “mentally deranged.”

Despite the rhetoric, White House officials say Trump is looking for a peaceful resolution. But all options, including military ones, are on the table.

“Do we have military options in defense for attack, if our allies are attacked? Of course we do. But everyone is out for a peaceful resolution,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him this week.

“No one’s rushing for war.”

Separately, North Korea released a South Korean fishing boat which had been found to be in North Korean waters illegally, state media said.

The crew of 10 – seven South Koreans and three Vietnamese – were released on Friday evening, a spokesman for South Korea’s coastguard told Reuters. The return of the boat, which had been reported as missing from Saturday, may have eased already strained relations between North and South.

The two sides are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy the South and the United States.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim and James Pearson; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie)

Iraqi leader visits Iran as Tehran seeks to drive wedge with Washington

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi in Tehran, Iran, October 26, 2017. Leader.ir/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVE.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Iraq’s U.S.-backed prime minister on Thursday that he should not rely on the United States in the fight against Islamic State, seeking to drive a wedge between Washington and one of its close allies.

“Unity was the most important factor in your gains against terrorists and their supporters,” Khamenei told the visiting Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, according to state TV. “Don’t trust America … It will harm you in the future.”

Iraq is one of the only countries in the world that is closely allied to both the United States and Iran. Both countries have armed and trained pro-government forces in Iraq in the battle against Islamic State militants.

The United States, which installed the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003, now has 5,000 troops in Iraq and provides air support, training and weapons to the Iraqi army. Iran, the predominant Shi’ite power in the Middle East, funds and trains Iraqi Shi’ite paramilitaries known as Popular Mobilisation, which fight alongside government troops.

For years, Baghdad has carefully avoided antagonising either Washington or Tehran. But a confrontation between the Iraqi central government and its Kurdish minority in recent weeks has threatened to tip the balance in Iran’s favour. The Kurds are also funded and trained by Washington which has considered them allies for decades.

After the Kurds staged a referendum on independence last month, Abadi responded by sending his troops to swiftly seize territory from Kurdish forces.

This week, Abadi rebuked U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for demanding he send Iranian fighters in pro-government Shi’ite militia “home”. Abadi’s office issued a statement saying no country should give orders to Iraq and calling the paramilitaries “patriots”.

He has since travelled to both Turkey and Iran to seek support for his hard line towards the Kurds.

The Kurdish regional government proposed on Wednesday an immediate ceasefire, a suspension of the result of last month’s Kurdish independence vote and “starting an open dialogue with the federal government based on the Iraqi Constitution”.

The offer was rejected by Abadi’s government, which said the independence referendum result must be annulled, rather than merely suspended, as a pre-condition to any talks.

“We will preserve Iraq’s unity and will never allow any secession,” Iran’s state news agency IRNA quoted Abadi as saying during his meeting with Khamenei.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Peter Graff)

North Korea diplomat says take atmospheric nuclear test threat ‘literally’

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The recent warning from North Korea’s foreign minister of a possible atmospheric nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean should be taken literally, a senior North Korean official told CNN in an interview aired on Wednesday.

“The foreign minister is very well aware of the intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his words literally,” Ri Yong Pil, a senior diplomat in North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, told CNN.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said last month Pyongyang may consider conducting “the most powerful detonation” of a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean amid rising tensions with the United States.

The minister made the comment after President Donald Trump warned that North Korea, which has been working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States, would be totally destroyed if it threatened America.

CIA chief Mike Pompeo said last week that North Korea could be only months away from gaining the ability to hit the United States with nuclear weapons.

Experts say an atmospheric test would be a way of demonstrating that capability. All of North Korea’s previous nuclear tests have been conducted underground.

Trump next week will make a visit to Asia during which he will highlight his campaign to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs.

Despite the bellicose rhetoric, White House officials say Trump is looking for a peaceful resolution of the standoff. But all options, including military ones, are on the table.

The U.S. Navy said on Wednesday a third aircraft carrier strike group was now sailing in the Asia-Pacific region, joining two other carriers, the Ronald Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt.

Navy officials said the Nimitz, which was previously carrying out operations in support of the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, would be ready to support operations in the region before heading back to its home port. It said the movement had been long planned.

A leading South Korea opposition figure, Hong Jun-pyo, head of the conservative Liberty Korea Party, told Reuters in Washington on Wednesday he backed Trump’s tough stance.

Hong said he had met with members of Congress and the administration and told them a majority of South Koreans wanted U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, which were withdrawn from the Korean peninsula in 1992, returned, or for South Korea to develop a nuclear capability of its own.

“The only way to deal with the situation is by having a nuclear balance between the North and the South,” said Hong, the runner-up in South Korea’s 2017 presidential election.

Reintroducing nuclear weapons remains unlikely, not least because it would undermine demands from Seoul and Washington for North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs.

Trump spoke during his election campaign about the possibility of South Korea and Japan acquiring nuclear weapons, but administration officials have played down the remarks and given no indication of any plan to redeploy tactical weapons.

On Wednesday, Trump was asked whether he would visit the tense demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea during his Asia tour and responded enigmatically.

“I’d rather not say, but you’ll be surprised,” he told reporters.

(Reporting by David Alexander, David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish and Tom Brown)

Iran’s Guards flex muscle in Middle East despite Trump warning

FILE PHOTO: Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards march during a military parade to commemorate the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war in Tehran September 22, 2007. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl/File Photo

By Babak Dehghanpisheh

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A week after U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a blistering speech about Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful military and economic force in the Islamic Republic has shown it has no intention of curbing its activities in the Middle East.

In defiance of other world powers, Trump chose in a speech last Friday not to certify that Tehran is complying with a pact to curb Iran’s nuclear work and singled out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), accusing Tehran of destabilizing the region.

A senior IRGC commander said after the speech Trump was “acting crazy” and was following U.S. strategy of increasing “the shadow of war in the region”.

Iran’s Shi’ite militia proxies have made formidable military gains in recent months in Syria as well as Iraq, stretching from northern Iraq to a string of smaller cities and this week, after the Trump speech, re-captured the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

“In the short-run clearly Trump has increased the power and aggressiveness of the IRGC,” said Abbas Milani, the director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University.

“The IRGC can’t back down from a street fight. Their domestic and regional prestige is predicated on the fact that they fight a good fight and they don’t back down.”

The day after Trump spoke, the head of the Guards’ al Quds overseas operations, Major General Qassem Soleimani, traveled to Iraq’s Kurdistan region. He held talks about the escalating crisis between Kurdish authorities and the Iraqi government after a Kurdish independence referendum.

The niece of the late Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, Alaa Talabani, told the al Hadath TV channel that Soleimani met with members of her family on Saturday. He had come to pay respects to Jalal, a former Iraqi president and founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party who died this month.

Other Iraqi and Kurdish officials told Reuters Soleimani held meetings with Kurdish leaders to persuade them to retreat from Kirkuk ahead of the Iraqi army push into the city.

“I don’t deny that Mr. Qassem Soleimani gave us the advice to find a solution to Kirkuk,” she said. “He said Kirkuk should return to the (Iraqi) law and constitution and to have an agreement about Kirkuk and give up the intransigence about the referendum which was a decision not thought out.”

LIGHTNING ASSAULT

Within days, Iran’s mostly Shi’ite allies in Baghdad launched a lightning assault, pushing Kurdish fighters out of disputed territories such as Kirkuk and consequently strengthening Iran’s hand in Iraq.

Commanders of the Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, have accused Iran of orchestrating the Shi’ite-led Iraqi central government’s push into areas under their control, a charge senior Iranian officials have denied.

A video posted by the Kurdish Rudaw channel online on Wednesday showed an Iraqi Shi’ite militiaman loyal to Iran hanging a picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the Kirkuk governorate office.

Iran, which has a large Kurdish minority, has reason to be wary of Iraqi Kurdish independence. It fears it might encourage its own Kurds, who have also pushed for separatism.

After the independence vote in Iraqi Kurdistan on September 25, videos posted online showed hundreds of people celebrating in the streets in the Kurdish areas of Iran.

FRONT-LINE PLAYER

Regional analysts say the emergence of Iran in Iraq, Syria, Kurdistan and Lebanon, where it wields influence through its allied Shi’ite Lebanese Hezbollah militia, means Tehran has become a front-line player in the region which Washington could not afford to ignore.

“Trump’s stupidity should not distract us from America’s deceitfulness … If the U.S. tears up the (nuclear) deal, we will shred it,” said Khamenei. “Americans are angry because the Islamic Republic of Iran has managed to thwart their plots in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other countries in the region.”

Speaking after Trump’s speech, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Guards’ aerospace division, said: “From the start of the Islamic revolution … (presidents) have increased the shadow of war in the region …

“Dear brothers and sisters today Trump is acting crazy to gain concessions through this method.”

The ramping up of tension could put the two countries on a collision course in the Gulf where clashes have only been narrowly avoided in recent months.

Small boats from the Revolutionary Guards’ navy veered close to U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf at least twice this year, prompting the U.S. military to fire warning shots and flares.

In August, an unarmed Iranian drone came within 100 feet (31 meters) of a U.S. Navy warplane, risking a crash, according to a U.S. official.

Some recent naval showdowns between Iran and the United States took place near the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway where up to 30 percent of global oil exports pass annually.

During the presidential campaign last September, Trump vowed that any Iranian vessels that harassed the U.S. Navy in the Gulf would be “shot out of the water”.

POTENTIAL FLASHPOINT

The Guards could also target U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria through tens of thousands of loyal Shi’ite militia fighters without directly acknowledging a role in any attacks.

“The IRGC can claim ignorance of Shi’ite militia attacks against the U.S. military,” said Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has done extensive research on the Guards.

In early October, an American soldier was killed in Iraq by an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, a type of roadside bomb which was often used by Iran’s Shi’ite militia proxies in Iraq, according to the U.S. military.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen it used in this area,” U.S. Army Colonel Ryan Dillon, a coalition spokesman, said. Dillon said the U.S. military has not yet concluded who carried out the attack.

Dozens of American soldiers in Iraq were killed and injured by EFPs used by militia groups linked to Iran after the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S. forces, according to the U.S. military.

Asked about the threat posed by Shi’ite militias allied with Iran in Iraq and Syria, particularly after Trump’s speech, Dillon said: “We’re always assessing the threats no matter where they come from. During certain announcements or certain dates or when certain events happen, we make proper adjustments.”

Trump’s new plan, observers say, will also weaken a group that had made progress in curbing the Guards’ political and economic ambitions in recent years: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the pragmatist politicians in his cabinet.

Since becoming president in 2013, Rouhani and members of his cabinet repeatedly pushed back against the Guards’ economic influence and involvement in political matters.

Now, Rouhani’s push against the Guards has been tempered because of the hardening in Trump’s approach to Tehran, regional observers said. “What this has done is that even those who were critics are now defending the Revolutionary Guards,” said Nasser Hadian-Jazy, a political science professor at Tehran University.

(Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh and additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Erbil, editing by Nick Tattersall and Peter Millership)

Iraqi forces complete Kirkuk province takeover after clashes with Kurds

A cyclist gestures at Iraqi security forces, on a street of Kirkuk, Iraq October 19, 2017. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed - RC1433BB18F0

By Maher Chmaytelli and Raya Jalabi

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces on Friday took control of the last district in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk still in the hands of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters following a three-hour battle, security sources said.

The district of Altun Kupri, or Perde in Kurdish, lies on the road between the city of Kirkuk – which fell to Iraqi forces on Monday – and Erbil, capital of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq that voted in a referendum last month to secede from Iraq against Baghdad’s wishes.

A force made up of U.S-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service units, Federal Police and Iranian-backed fighters known as Popular Mobilisation began their advance on Altun Kupri at 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), said an Iraqi military spokesman.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew from the town, located on the Zab river, after battling the advancing Iraqi troops with machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, Iraqi security sources said. Neither side gave information about casualties.

The Iraqi central government forces have advanced into Kirkuk province largely unopposed as most Peshmerga forces withdrew without a fight.

The government advance has transformed the balance of power in northern Iraq and is likely to scuttle the independence aspirations of the Kurds, who voted overwhelmingly on Sept. 25 to secede from Iraq and take the oil fields of Kirkuk with them.

The fighting at Altun Kupri marked only the second instance of significant violent resistance by the Kurds in Kirkuk province. Dozens were killed or wounded in the previous clash on Monday, the first night of the government advance.

The U.S. State Department said it was concerned by reports of violent clashes around Altun Kupri.

“In order to avoid any misunderstandings or further clashes, we urge the central government to calm the situation by limiting federal forces’ movements in disputed areas to only those coordinated with the Kurdistan Regional Government,” it said in a statement.

The State Department made clear that even though federal authority was reasserted over “disputed areas”, that in no way changes their status – “they remain disputed until their status is resolved in accordance with the Iraqi resolution” in what appeared to be a nod to the Kurds and their assertion that they have a stake in these territories.

Altun Kupri is the last town in Kirkuk province on the road to Erbil, lying just outside the border of the autonomous region established after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Iraqi forces are seeking to reestablish Baghdad’s authority over territory which the Kurdish forces occupied outside the official boundaries of their autonomous region, mostly seized since 2014 in the course of the war on Islamic State militants.

Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on Friday for the state to protect Kurds in northern Iraq, a rare political intervention by a figure whose words have the force of law for most of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority.

Sistani’s call, issued at the Friday prayer in the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala by one of his representatives, came amid reports of abuses against Kurds in areas evacuated by the Kurdish Peshmerga including Kirkuk, Tuz Khormato and Khanaqin.

ACCUSATIONS

Kurdish officials said tens of thousands of Kurds fled Kirkuk and Tuz to the two main cities of the Kurdish autonomous region, Erbil and Sulaimaniya.

Iraq’s post-Saddam constitution allows the Kurds self rule in three mountainous northern provinces and guarantees them a fixed percentage of Iraq’s total oil income, an arrangement that saw them prosper while the rest of the country was at war.

Although Kirkuk is outside the autonomous region, many Kurds consider it the heart of their historic homeland and its oil to be their birthright. Its loss makes their quest for independence appear remote, since it would leave them with only about half the oil revenue they had sought to claim for themselves.

Kurdish Peshmerga moved into Kirkuk without a fight in 2014, taking over positions left by the Iraqi army as it fled in the face of Islamic State militants.

Iraqi and Kurdish forces traded accusations of using weapons that Western powers had originally given them to fight Islamic State.

“Iraqi forces use U.S. Humvees, tanks in latest offensive against Peshmerga,” tweeted Hemin Hawrami, KRG President Masud Barzani’s assistant.

“Today, Popular Mobilisation attacked us with American weaponry. What is this agreement between the Americans and the Iranians?” said Harem Shukur, a Peshmerga fighter outside Altun Kupri. “The Americans sold us to Iran,” he added, echoing widespread bitterness among Kurds who think the United States did not honor friendly ties built over several decades.

An Iraqi military spokesman accused the Peshmerga of using rockets supplied by Germany.

Germany said it hoped to resume its mission training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq on Sunday, provided the conflict did not worsen. Berlin suspended it last week as tensions mounted.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad and Mustafa Mahmoud in Kirkuk; Eric Walsh in Washington; Editing by Andrew Heavens and James Dalgleish)

Israel says it will intensify response to Syrian fire

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Five projectiles from Syria set off air raid sirens in Israeli towns on Saturday, prompting the Israeli military to say it would step up its response to stray fire from the Syrian war that has repeatedly spilled over the border.

The projectiles crossed into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the military said it targeted three Syrian artillery guns in response. No damage or injuries were reported in Israel.

The Syrian military said it came under attack in Quneitra province, which sits near the Golan Heights territory that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War.

“The Israeli enemy assaulted one of our military positions this morning, which led to material damages,” it said.

During Syria’s more than six-year-old conflict, Israel has returned fire across the border, including stray shells from fighting among Syrian combatants.

The Israeli military statement suggested it may start escalating such retaliations. “Whether errant fire or not, any future occurrences will force the Israel Defense Forces to intensify its response,” it said.

Israel “holds the Syrian regime responsible and won’t tolerate any attempt to breach Israeli sovereignty,” it added.

Syria’s foreign ministry warned of “the grave consequences of such repeated aggressive acts” which it called a flagrant violation in a letter to the United Nations, state media said. The Syrian military said it held Israel responsible.

Israel has also carried out targeted air strikes in Syria during the war, alarmed by the expanding influence of Iran, the Syrian government’s ally. The Israeli air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah nearly 100 times in recent years.

Iran’s military chief warned Israel against breaching Syria’s airspace and territory on a visit to Damascus this week. The general signed an agreement with his Syrian counterpart to further boost military cooperation, Iranian state news agency IRNA said on Saturday.

Rebel factions fighting the Damascus government in the multi-sided war hold swathes of Quneitra, while the army and allied militias control another part of the province.

Both warring Syrian sides accused each other of prompting the Israeli attack on Saturday.

The army said militants in nearby territory fired mortar rounds into the Golan Heights. A rebel official in Quneitra said pro-government fighters had been shelling insurgent-held parts of the province, when some of the shells fell on the Golan Heights.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Ellen Francis in Beirut, Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Editing by Stephen Powell)

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