Tag Archives: Turkey

Erdogan could govern until 2029 under plans to change constitution

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan adjusts earphones during a news conference in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China,

By Ercan Gurses and Orhan Coskun

ANKARA (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan could govern Turkey until 2029 with expanded executive powers under proposals the ruling AK Party hopes will go to a referendum next spring, officials who have seen the latest draft told Reuters on Wednesday.

Erdogan and his supporters argue Turkey needs the strong leadership of an executive presidency, akin to the system in the United States or France, to avoid the fragile coalition governments that hampered its development in the past.

Opponents see the proposed change as a vehicle for Erdogan’s ambition, and fear it will bring increasing authoritarianism to a country already under fire from Western allies over its deteriorating record on rights and freedoms, especially after widespread purges in the wake of a failed military coup in July.

The AKP, founded by Erdogan a decade and a half ago, is aiming to hold a referendum on the issue next spring and is seeking support from the nationalist MHP opposition order to win parliamentary approval for such a vote.

Under the latest draft, presented to the MHP on Tuesday, Erdogan could assume the position of “acting” executive president immediately after the referendum if the changes are approved. A presidential election would then be held, as scheduled, when his term expires in 2019.

Under the constitution’s current two-term limit and provided he wins the 2019 election, Erdogan would be able to rule until 2024 only. But under the proposed executive presidency, the clock would reset, allowing him another two terms.

“We have come to a conclusion in our work on constitutional changes and will bring it to the parliament in the coming days,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a conference of AKP provincial heads in Ankara on Wednesday, without giving details.

“We will continue to seek a base for consensus with the other parties. After that, the decision lies with the people.”

According to two senior officials who have seen the draft, the president would be eligible to serve a maximum of two five-year terms and would be able to issue presidential decrees on most executive matters without the need to consult parliament.

The president would have up to two deputies and would directly appoint the heads of the military and intelligence agencies, university rectors, senior bureaucrats, and some top judicial bodies, expanding the powers of the role, the officials said.

WESTERN CONCERNS

Such changes would likely alarm the European Union, which has been critical of the post-coup attempt crackdown.

Turkey, which aspires to join the EU, has dismissed or detained more than 110,000 civil servants, members of the security forces and other officials in a crackdown it says is justified by the gravity of the threat from the July 15 putsch.

Erdogan has ridden a wave of nationalist support since the abortive coup, vowing to crack down on Turkey’s enemies at home and abroad, and support from the MHP will be vital for realizing his ambition of a stronger presidency.

MHP leader Devlet Bahceli has indicated his party could support the reforms and said on Tuesday that party lawyers were assessing the AKP’s latest draft.

Any constitutional change needs the support of at least 367 deputies in the 550-seat assembly to pass directly, and of 330 to go to a referendum. The AKP has 317 seats, and the MHP 39.

Other opposition parties oppose a stronger presidency.

Erdogan, speaking at a press conference before leaving for an official visit to Pakistan on Wednesday, said the executive president should not have to cut ties to his political party.

Under the current constitution, the head of state is supposed to be impartial and renounce party ties as part of a system of checks and balances. Erdogan’s comments suggest he could seek to resume leadership of the AKP, by far Turkey’s largest political movement, if elected in 2019.

(Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Under siege in Mosul, Islamic State turns to executions and paranoia

Iraqi special forces soldiers sit on top of an armoured vehicle next to a flag of Imam Hussein in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq

By Samia Nakhoul and Michael Georgy

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – A few weeks ago, a person inside Mosul began to send text messages to Iraqi military intelligence in Baghdad.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State, “has become intemperate,” said the early November message, written by an informant inside the city who has contact with the group but is not a member of it.

“He has cut down on his movements and neglects his appearance,” the message read. “He lives underground and has tunnels that stretch to different areas. He doesn’t sleep without his suicide bomber vest so he can set it off if he’s captured.”

The text message, which Reuters has seen, was one of many describing what was happening inside Islamic State as Iraqi, Kurdish and American troops began their campaign to retake the group’s northern Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.

The texts, along with interviews with senior Kurdish officials and recently captured Islamic State fighters, offer an unusually detailed picture of the extremist group and its leader’s state of mind as they make what may be their last stand in Iraq. The messages describe a group and its leader that remain lethal, but that are also seized by growing suspicion and paranoia.

Defectors or informants were being regularly executed, the person texted. Baghdadi, who declared himself the caliph of a huge swathe of Iraq and Syria two years ago, had become especially suspicious of people close to him. “Sometimes he used to joke around,” one text said. “But now he no longer does.”

While Reuters has verified the identity of the informant who has been texting Iraqi military intelligence, the news agency couldn’t independently confirm the information in the messages. But the picture that emerges fits with intelligence cited by two Kurdish officials – Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Security Council,  and Lahur Talabany, who is chief of counter-terrorism and director of the KRG intelligence agency.

Talabany and other intelligence chiefs said the military coalition is making slow but steady progress against Islamic State. The coalition has formidable assets inside Mosul, they said, including trained informers and residents who provide more basic surveillance by texting or phoning from the city’s outskirts. Some of the informants have families in Kurdistan whom the KRG pays.

The Kurds believe that the military assault on Mosul, which began on October 17, is fueling Islamic State’s sense of fear and mistrust. In the short term, they said, the group’s obsession with rooting out anyone who might betray it may help rally fighters to defend Mosul. But the obsession also means the group has turned inwards right as it faces the most serious threat to its existence in Iraq since seizing around a third of the country’s territory in the summer of 2014.

The number of executions is a clear sign Islamic State is beginning to hurt, said Karim Sinjari, interior minister and acting defense minister with the KRG, which controls the Kurdish area in northern Iraq.

As well, he said, many of the group’s local Iraqi fighters lack the “strong belief in martyrdom that the jihadis have.”

“Most of the die-hard Islamists who are fighting to the death are foreign fighters, but their numbers at the frontline are less than before because they are getting killed in battle and in suicide attacks,” he said.

Barzani said the growing paranoia has pushed Baghdadi and his top lieutenants to move around a lot, further hurting the group’s ability to defend the city. Baghdadi, Barzani said, “is using all the different tactics to hide and protect himself: changing positions, using different ways of traveling, living in different locations, using different communications.”

If the military coalition does push Islamic State from Mosul, the Kurdish officials said, the group is likely to flee to Syria, from where it will pose a nagging threat to Iraq through regular suicide attacks and other guerilla tactics.

Iraqi soldiers pose with the Islamic State flag along a street of the town of al-Shura, which was recaptured from Islamic State

Iraqi soldiers pose with the Islamic State flag along a street of the town of al-Shura, which was recaptured from Islamic State (IS), south of Mosul, Iraq October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo

DANGERS OF A SIM CARD

Islamic State has always been paranoid. Its rule in Syria and Iraq has relied in large part on a vast intelligence network that uses everyone from children to battle-hardened former Baathists to spy on both subjects and its own officials. [Link to: http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mideast-crisis-iraq-islamicstate/]

That paranoia appears to have reached new levels as Islamic State’s enemies advance. Suspicion grew in the weeks before government troops began to encircle Mosul in mid October.

Early last month, Islamic State leaders uncovered an internal plot against Baghdadi, according to Mosul residents and Iraqi security officials. Hatched by a leading Islamic State commander, the plot was foiled when an Islamic State security official found a telephone SIM card that contained the names of the plotters and showed their links to U.S. and Kurdish intelligence officers.

Retribution was brutal. Islamic State killed 58 suspected plotters by placing them in cages and drowning them, according to residents and Iraqi officials.

Since then, Islamic State has executed another 42 people from local tribes, Iraqi intelligence officers said. Those people were also caught with SIM cards.

Possession of SIMs or any form of electronic communication now amounts to an automatic death sentence, according to residents in Islamic State areas. The group has set up checkpoints where its militants search people, and regularly mount raids on areas hit by U.S. air strikes because Islamic State officials assume locals have helped to identify targets.

The informant texting from Mosul is aware of the dangers. “I am talking to you from the rooftop,” began one recent message. “The planes are in the skies. Before I go back down I will delete the messages and hide the SIM card.”

“THE CUBS OF THE CALIPHATE”

Islamic State relies on a network of child informers, the so called ashbal al khilafa or “cubs of the caliphate.”

“These young boys eavesdrop and find out information from other kids about their fathers, brothers, and their activities”, said Hisham al-Hashemi, an Iraq government adviser and Islamic State expert. “In every street there are one or two ashbal al khilafa who spy on the adults.”

The huge network of informants also hurts Islamic State, according to Lahur Talabany, chief of counter-terrorism for the KRG.  Overwhelmed by information, the group is devoting a lot of its energy to its own people rather than its enemies. That fuels further paranoia.

“There are regular (internal) plots against Baghdadi” Talabany told Reuters. “We see incidents like that on a weekly basis, and they take out their own guys.”

Until a few months ago, Talabany said, he had a mole inside Baghdadi’s inner circle: an Islamic State commander who had once belonged to al-Qaeda.

“He was a Kurd born in Hawija”, the Kurdish spy chief said, declining to name the man. “He was one of my detainees. I released him a year before Daesh (Islamic State) arrived.”

After Islamic State seized Mosul, the commander-turned-agent infiltrated the group and was made a military officer. From that position, he began feeding the Kurds “valuable daily information.”

The agent told Talabany that Baghdadi consulted closely with top aides, including Saudis who he said were experts on Sharia law. Saudi Arabia has said that there are Saudi nationals in Islamic State.

“He told me Baghdadi has got charisma, and has connections, but that he is a front. And that the committees around him take the main decisions, even on the military side,” Talabany said.

The agent told Talabany he had met Baghdadi a few times and was plotting to kill the Islamic State leader. But before the commander could act, Islamic State discovered he was working as an agent. A few months ago, Talabany said, Islamic State publicly executed him.

CUTTING THROATS

The group’s brutal methods were recounted in a rare interview with two captured Islamic State fighters last week. Reuters met the fighters at a Kurdish counter-terrorism compound in the town of Sulaimaniya. A Kurdish intelligence official and an interrogator sat in on the interviews but did not interfere.

Ali Kahtan, 21, was captured after he killed five Kurdish fighters at a police station seized by Islamic State in the northern town of Hawija.

Kahtan’s path to militancy began at the age of 13, he said. He became a member of al Qaeda and then joined Islamic State when a friend took him for religious lessons and military training at a Hawija mosque. The training, he said, involved learning how to use a machine gun and pistol. Trainees were also shown how to cut someone’s throat with the bayonet from an AK-47.

Kahtan said that a year ago, a local emir ordered him to cut the throats of five Kurdish fighters. The emir stood over him while he did it, he said.

“One after the other with a knife, a Kalashnikov blade, I did it. Really, I felt nothing.” Afterwards, he said, he returned home. “I cleaned up and sat down to have dinner with my parents.”

Kahtan said Islamic State fighters no longer talk about taking over Baghdad, but focus solely on Mosul, and how to recruit more fighters to protect it.

A second detainee, Bakr Salah Bakr, 21, who was caught as he prepared to carry out a suicide attack in Kurdistan, said Islamic State initially tried to recruit him through Facebook to join the fight in Mosul. They are desperate for Iraqi fighters, he indicated, because the influx of foreign fighters dried up after Turkey slowly closed its borders a year ago.

Civilians return to their village after it was liberated from Islamic State militants, south of Mosul, Iraq

Civilians return to their village after it was liberated from Islamic State militants, south of Mosul, Iraq October 21, 2016. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudaini/File Photo

THE BATTLE

Iraqi intelligence officials say they believe Baghdadi is not in Mosul but in al-Ba’aj district, a bedouin town on the edge of Nineveh province, which borders Syria. Ba’aj has a population of about 20,000 and is dominated by extremists loyal to Islamic State.

The area is heavily fortified, with long tunnels that were built after the fall of Saddam when the town became a staging post for smuggling weapons and volunteers from Syria into Iraq.

Even if Mosul and Baghdadi fall, said Kurdish counter-terrorism chief Talabany, Islamic State is likely to persist. “They will go back to more asymmetric warfare, and we will be seeing suicide attacks inside KRG, inside Iraqi cities and elsewhere.”

Security chief Barzani agreed. “The fight against IS is going to be a long fight,” he said. “Not only militarily, but also economically, ideologically.”

Barzani, who is the son of veteran Kurdish leader and KRG President Masoud Barzani, estimated there are around 10,000 Islamic State suicide bombers in Iraq and Syria. He said Islamic State had prepared waves of fighters it was now deploying to defend Mosul.

“You see the first group come to the frontline and they know they’re going to be killed by the planes overhead, but they still come. And then the second group come to the same place where the others were hit,” he said. “They see the limbs and the bodies all over and they know they will die, but they still do it. They see victory in dying for their own cause.”

(Edited by Simon Robinson)

Turkey could put EU talks to a referendum next year

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during his meeting with mukhtars at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, October 26, 2016.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey could hold a referendum on whether to continue membership talks with the European Union next year, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, and repeated his warning to Brussels that it needed to “make up its mind” on Turkish accession.

European Union foreign ministers were meeting on Monday to consider shelving membership talks with Turkey over what they see as its lurch away from democracy after a failed coup in July, although there is no consensus for such a move.

In a speech in Ankara broadcast live on television, Erdogan urged Turks to be patient until the end of the year and then said a vote could be held on EU membership.

“Let’s wait until the end of the year and then go to the people. Let’s go to the people since they will make the final call. Even Britain went to the people. Britain said ‘let’s exit’, and they left,” Erdogan said.

He lambasted European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who said this month the detention of opposition politicians and the extent of post-coup purges “call into question the basis for the sustainable relationship between the EU and Turkey”.

“What are you? Since when do you have the authority to decide for Turkey? How can you, who have not taken Turkey into the EU for 53 years, find the authority to make such a decision?” Erdogan said.

“This people makes its own decisions, cuts its own umbilical cord,” he said.

Erdogan also said he would approve reinstating the death penalty – a move that would likely end any hope of Turkish membership in the EU – if parliament passed a law on it, and said that too could be part of a referendum.

Turkey is expected to hold a national vote on constitutional changes next spring, including boosting the powers of Erdogan’s office to create a Turkish version of the presidential system in the United States or France.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Humeyra Pamuk and David Dolan)

Pressure growing in EU to halt Turkish membership talks but no decision yet

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during a congress in Istanbul, Turkey,

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union foreign ministers will on Monday consider shelving membership talks with Turkey over what they see as its disturbing lurch away from democracy after a botched coup there, though there is no consensus for such a tough step yet.

Despite EU alarm at the scale of Ankara’s post-coup security crackdown, EU diplomats say they must keep talking to President Tayyip Erdogan to retain his crucial help in curbing migration to Europe and fighting Islamist militants in the Middle East.

But the fact that Austria, Luxembourg and some European lawmakers now openly call for suspending the Turkey talks marks a sea change in tone just eight months after the bloc promised Ankara the process would be sped up in exchange for its collaboration in reducing migration from its territory.

“Suspending membership talks with Turkey is not formally on the agenda but we expect some ministers to bring this up,” one EU official said of the 28 foreign ministers’ meeting scheduled in Brussels on Monday.

“It is true some deeply troubling things are happening in Turkey. But you have to ask yourself the question what exactly would we achieve by suspending the process now? How would that help? We need to keep communication channels open.”

An EU report this week accused Turkey of backsliding on its road to membership since the July coup attempt, since which Ankara has suspended, dismissed or arrested over 110,000 people including soldiers, judges, teachers, journalists and Kurdish leaders over alleged support of the putsch.

The EU’s top enlargement official said Turkey’s EU candidacy was now hanging in the balance.

“This is something that could happen,” one diplomat in Brussels said. “But not just yet, definitely not until EU leaders meet in December.”

Berlin, as well as several other EU capitals, have so far poured cold water on talk of aborting Turkey membership talks.

“COOL HEADS” NEEDED

“Yes, we have to be critical about developments in Turkey. But we also have to be cool-headed about it and not just jump in and get too much involved in criticizing Turkey’s domestic affairs,” another diplomat said.

“There is Turkey’s role in the region. But if we push too far we also risk being back to where we were last year on migration and it was tearing us apart.”

An EU-Turkey deal reached in March has cut to a trickle the number of refugees and migrants reaching Europe via Greece from Turkish shores after more than a million arrivals last year.

It has been sharply criticized by rights groups for undercutting international humanitarian standards. But it has also given breathing space to EU leaders under increasing popular pressure at home for failing to control the influx and embroiled in rows among themselves over how to handle it.

Turkey has told the EU it will have to “live with the consequences” if it halts membership talks.

Ankara’s EU membership has always been a long shot. Growing public unease about immigration and Islam in Europe, together with the post-coup clampdown in Turkey, make a Turkish entry into the EU even less likely in the forseeable future.

Turkey has set its sights on getting visa-free travel for its citizens to the EU by the end of the year in return for making sure migrants do not leave its shores for Europe. That prospect, however, is also looking increasingly dim.

Turkey reinstating death penalty would mark crossing a red line for EU leaders. “If Turkey pushes through death penalty legislation, then the halt of the accession process will be automatic,” a senior EU diplomat said.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald; writing by Gabriela Baczynska; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Trial begins of Islamic State suspects in Turkey’s worst suicide bombing

Carnations are seen placed on the ground during a protest against explosions at a peace march in Ankara, in central Istanbul, Turkey,

By Ece Toksabay

ANKARA (Reuters) – More than a dozen suspected members of Islamic State appeared under police protection in an Ankara courtroom on Monday accused of involvement in Turkey’s deadliest suicide bombing, which killed more than 100 people in the capital just over a year ago.

The defendants were brought into the courtroom under the protection of riot police in body armor and helmets, as families and lawyers of the victims chanted “murderers” and demanded the state also accept responsibility.

“If the security measures used to protect the killers today were taken during the rally, the Ankara train station massacre wouldn’t have taken place,” said Mahmut Tanal, a member of parliament for main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

The defendants were among 36 suspects, some still at large, on trial for plotting the double suicide bombing outside the main train station in Ankara on Oct. 10, 2015, which killed mainly young pro-Kurdish and left-wing activists at a rally.

The 35 Turks and one Kazakh face charges of murder, membership of a terrorist organization and seeking to change the constitutional order, according to the indictment. Some face multiple sentences of up to 11,750 years in prison.

The twin suicide bombing took place in NATO member Turkey 20 days before a fiercely contested general election, raising tensions between the authorities and opposition supporters among the Kurdish community, Turkey’s largest minority.

“A comprehensive and effective investigation has not been carried out into the bombing. No state officials are accused of neglect in the indictment. How can we expect justice from such a trial?” lawyer Mehtap Sakinci Cosgun, whose husband was killed in the bombing, told Reuters outside the courtroom.

Turkish forces have been combating an armed campaign by Kurdish militants while Kurdish political organizations have also been the subject of arrests over the last week.

One of the suicide bombers was identified as Turkish citizen Yunus Emre Alagoz and the other as a Syrian citizen who has yet to be identified, according to the indictment seen by Reuters.

Three of the suspects on trial on Monday appeared by video link from the southern city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border, where the Islamic State cell responsible for the attack is thought to have been based.

Islamic State has grown increasingly active in Turkey. A gun-and-bomb attack blamed on the group at Istanbul’s main airport in June killed 47 people, while the bombing of a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep in August killed 57.

Turkey launched a military incursion into Syria shortly after the wedding attack in a bid to push the radical jihadist group away from its border and prevent Kurdish militia fighters from gaining ground in their wake.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Ralph Boulton)

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)

Turkey’s Erdogan says Germany has become ‘haven for terrorists’

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during his meeting with mukhtars at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, October 19, 2016. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday Germany had become a haven for terrorists and would be “judged by history”, accusing it of failing to root out supporters of a U.S.-based cleric Ankara blames for July’s failed military coup.

Erdogan said Germany had long harbored militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, and far-leftists from the DHKP-C, which has carried out armed attacks in Turkey.

“We are concerned that Germany, which has protected the PKK and DHKP-C for years, has become the backyard of the Gulenist terror organization,” Erdogan said, referring to the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

“We don’t have any expectations from Germany but you will be judged in history for abetting terrorism … Germany has become an important haven for terrorists,” he told a ceremony at his palace in the capital Ankara.

Ankara blames Gulen for the coup attempt and has suspended or dismissed more than 110,000 of his suspected followers from the civil service, security forces and other institutions in a crackdown. Gulen has denied involvement in the putsch.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas told reporters on Tuesday that he did not want to judge whether the Gulenist movement was political in nature or not. He also said Berlin would not extradite suspects if they faced political charges.

“That would certainly not happen,” he said. For any extradition to take place, there had to be firm indications of “classic criminal activity”.

Erdogan said he was concerned by Germany’s reluctance, and warned that “the menace of terrorism would come back and strike it like a boomerang.”

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Madeline Chambers in Berlin; Editing by Nick Tattersall)

Islamic State leader says ‘no retreat from Mosul assault’

Military vehicles of Iraqi army take part in an operation against Islamic State militants in Qaraqosh, near Mosul, Iraq,

By Stephen Kalin and Dominic Evans

KOKJALI/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) – With Iraqi troops battling inside the Islamic State bastion of Mosul, the militants’ leader told his followers there could be no retreat in a “total war” against the forces arrayed against them.

Expressing confidence that his Islamic State fighters would prevail against Shi’ite Islam, Western “crusaders” and the Sunni “apostate” countries of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on the jihadists to “wreak havoc”.

“This raging battle and total war, and the great jihad that the state of Islam is fighting today only increases our firm belief, God willing, and our conviction that all this is a prelude to victory,” Baghdadi said in an audio recording released online by supporters on Thursday.

Iraqi regular troops and special forces, Shi’ite militias, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and other groups backed by U.S.-led air strikes launched a campaign two weeks ago to retake Mosul.

Winning back the country’s second biggest city would mark the defeat of the Iraq wing of a crossborder caliphate which Baghdadi declared from the pulpit of a Mosul mosque two years ago. Islamic State also holds large parts of neighboring Syria.

In his first audio message released in nearly a year, Baghdadi called on the population of Mosul’s Nineveh province “not to weaken in the jihad” against the “enemies of God”.

He also called on the group’s suicide fighters to “turn the nights of the unbelievers into days, to wreak havoc in their land and make their blood flow as rivers”.

Addressing those who might consider fleeing, he said: “Know that the value of staying on your land with honor is a thousand times better than the price of retreating with shame.”

ROCKET FIRE

Shortly after Baghdadi’s speech was released at around 2 a.m., residents said heavy explosions shook eastern Mosul. One said the militants fired dozens of rockets toward the Intisar, Quds and Samah districts where soldiers have been closing in.

“We heard the sounds of rockets firing one after the other and saw them flashing through the air. The house was shaking and we were terrified, not knowing what was taking place.”

Fighters were on the street, unusually showing their faces, he said. “They were saying ‘We will fight till death. The caliph gave us a morale boost to fight the infidels’,” he said.

Another witness from the Hadba neighborhood of north Mosul said that Islamic State vehicles patrolled the area and blasted out Baghdadi’s speech, urging fighters to hold their positions.

Outside the city’s eastern limits, hundreds of civilians streamed away from the conflict, packed into cars, pickups and trucks, waving white flags and hooting horns. Cows and sheep also filled the road from Kokjali, on the eastern edge of Mosul.

Many were from Kokjali itself, which was cleared of Islamic State fighters by Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service troops earlier this week.

Fleeing residents said there had been heavy mortar fire launched by retreating Islamic State fighters.

By mid-morning, a Reuters correspondent in the Kokjali district of the city saw smoke rising from inside Mosul but there were no sounds of fighting.

Lieutenant-General Talib Shaghati said CTS troops were on the edge of the eastern Karama, Intisar and Samah districts.

The exact location of Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, is not clear. Reports have said he may be in Mosul itself, or in Islamic State-held land to the west of the city, close to the border with Syria.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said intelligence suggested that Baghdadi had “vacated the scene”, but he did not say where the Islamic State leader might be.

The authenticity of the 31-minute-long recording could not be immediately verified, but the voice and style closely resembled those of previous speeches Baghdadi has delivered.

The recording appeared to be recent as it focused on the Mosul offensive, although he did not mention the city by name.

Mosul still has a population of 1.5 million people, much more than any of the other cities captured by Islamic State two years ago in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Iraqi troops and Kurdish peshmerga fighters have been advancing on Mosul for two weeks from the north, from the eastern Nineveh plains and up the Tigris river from the south.

The Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) forces of mainly Shi’ite militias joined the campaign on Saturday, launching an offensive to cut off any supply or escape to the west.

The leader of the Badr Organisation, the largest of the Popular Mobilisation militias, said his forces would cut off the main western supply route on Thursday, leaving Islamic State surrounded.

Brett McGurk, U.S. President Barack Obama’s counter-Islamic State envoy, said the Mosul campaign was ahead of schedule. “Iraqi forces enter eastern neighborhoods of Mosul this morning. New advances on all axes,” McGurk tweeted.

Senior Kurdish politician Hoshiyar Zebari said in a tweet that Islamic State blew up parts of a bridge linking the eastern and western sides of the city to try to prevent its fighters abandoning the eastern districts. Residents said there had been an explosion at the bridge but said the cause was not clear.

TARGETING TURKEY AND SAUDI

In a sectarian speech, Baghdadi called for attacks on both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, saying the Sunni countries had both sided with the enemy in a war he said was targeting Sunni Islam.

Islamic State fighters should “unleash the fire of their anger” on Turkish troops fighting them in Syria, and take the battle into Turkey.

“Turkey entered the zone of your operations, so attack it, destroy its security, and sow horror within it. Put it on your list of battlefields. Turkey entered the war with the Islamic State with cover and protection from Crusader jets,” he said referring to the U.S.-led air coalition.

Baghdadi also told his followers to launch “attack after attack” in Saudi Arabia, targeting security forces, government officials, members of the ruling Al Saud family and media outlets, for “siding with the infidel nations in the war on Islam and the Sunna (Sunni Muslims) in Iraq and Syria”.

Islamic State has been on the retreat since last year in both Iraq and Syria, in the face of a myriad of different forces seeking to crush the ultra-hardline group.

In addition to the forces marching on Mosul, it faces a broad range of foes in neighboring Syria. There it is fighting Turkish-backed Syrian rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad and U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters, as well as Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian army units loyal to Assad and foreign Shi’ite militias.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo, and Maher Chmaytell and Saif Hameed in Baghdad; editing by David Stamp)

Turkey issues detention warrants for 137 more academics over failed coup

A Turkish special forces police officer guards the entrance of the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey,

NKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities issued arrest warrants for 137 academics on Wednesday over suspected links to the cleric who Ankara says orchestrated an attempted coup, CNN Turk reported, widening a crackdown that has worried rights groups and Western allies.

Turkey has formally arrested more than 37,000 people and has already sacked or suspended 100,000 civil servants, judges, prosecutors, police and others in an unprecedented purge.

The government says it is rooting out supporters of Fethullah Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, from the state apparatus and other key positions.

Gulen has denied Ankara’s charges and denounced the July failed coup by rogue members of the military.

Among the latest suspects, 31 of them have already been detained and another 22 are believed to have fled abroad, CNN Turk said, citing the Ankara Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecutor’s office could not be reached for comment.

Over the weekend, Turkey dismissed more than 10,000 civil servants over alleged links to Gulen. Thousands of academics, teachers and health workers were among those removed through a new emergency rule decree published late on Saturday.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by David Dolan and Richard Balmforth)

Turkey detains editor, top staff at opposition newspaper

Supporters of Cumhuriyet newspaper, an opposition secularist daily, hold today's copies during a protest in front of its headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey,

By Humeyra Pamuk and Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish police detained the editor and senior staff of a leading opposition newspaper on Monday over its alleged support for a failed coup in July, in a move described by a top EU politician as the crossing of a red line against freedom of expression.

Updating earlier information on its website, Cumhuriyet newspaper said 11 staff including the editor were being held by authorities, and arrest warrants had been issued for five more.

Turkey’s crackdown since rogue soldiers tried to seize power on July 15 has alarmed Western allies and rights groups, who fear President Tayyip Erdogan is using the coup attempt to crush dissent. More than 110,000 people have been sacked or suspended and 37,000 arrested over the past three and a half months.

The latest detentions came a day after 10,000 more civil servants were dismissed and 15 more media outlets shut down.

The Istanbul prosecutor’s office said the staff at the paper, one of few media outlets still critical of Erdogan, were suspected of committing crimes on behalf of Kurdish militants and the network of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based cleric. Turkey accuses Gulen of orchestrating the coup attempt, in which he denies any involvement.

“An investigation was launched… due to allegations and assessments that shortly before the attempted coup, material was published justifying the coup,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Cumhuriyet said several of its staff had their laptops seized from their homes. Footage showed one writer, Aydin Engin, 75, being ushered by plain clothes police into a hospital for medical checks.

Asked by reporters to comment on his detention, Engin said: “I work for Cumhuriyet, isn’t that enough?”

Another veteran journalist, Kadri Gursel, who began writing for Cumhuriyet in May, said on Twitter that his house was being searched and that there was an arrest warrant for him.

Several hundred people gathered in front of Cumhuriyet’s Istanbul offices in support of the paper, chanting and holding banners that said “Journalism is not a crime” and “Sharp pens will tear through the dark”.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz wrote on Twitter that the detentions marked the crossing of ‘yet another red-line’ against freedom of expression in Turkey. “The ongoing massive purge seems motivated by political considerations, rather than legal and security rationale,” he said.

The government has said its measures are justified by the threat posed to the state by the coup attempt, in which more than 240 people were killed.

A court on Sunday also jailed, pending trial, the co-mayors of the largely Kurdish city of Diyarbakir. The head of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) called on opposition groups to stand together against a “tyrannical mentality”.

“We are facing a new phase in the coordinated oppression managed by the AKP headquarters to ensure no opposition remains,” Selahattin Demirtas told reporters. The AKP is the governing party.

‘COMICAL SITUATION’

Before turning himself in, veteran cartoonist Musa Kart told reporters outside Cumhuriyet’s offices that such means of pressure were not going to succeed in frightening people.

“This is a comical situation,” he said. “It is not possible for people with a conscience to accept this. You can’t explain this to the world. I am being detained solely for drawing caricatures.”

Cumhuriyet’s previous editor, Can Dundar, was jailed last year for publishing state secrets involving Turkey’s support for Syrian rebels. The case sparked censure from rights groups and Western governments worried about worsening human rights in Turkey under Erdogan.

Cumhuriyet said Dundar, who was freed in February and is now abroad, was one of those facing arrest.

“They are attacking ‘the last bastion’,” Dundar wrote on Twitter as news of the operation emerged. A month after the failed coup, Dundar told Reuters he feared the government would attempt to link him to the putsch.

Opposition groups say the purges are being used to silence all dissent in Turkey, a NATO member which aspires to membership of the European Union.

Since the attempted coup, 170 newspapers, magazines, television stations and news agencies have been shut down, leaving 2,500 journalists unemployed, Turkey’s journalists’ association said in a statement protesting the detentions.

“This operation is a new coup against freedom of expression and of the press,” it said, adding that 105 journalists were in jail pending trial and the press cards of 777 journalists had been canceled.

(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Mark Trevelyan)