Turkey’s Erdogan says may shut Iraqi border any moment: Hurriyet

Turkey's Erdogan says may shut Iraqi border any moment: Hurriyet

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey may shut its border with northern Iraq “at any moment” after closing its air space to the region, Hurriyet newspaper reported on Thursday, reviving a threat first made after Kurds there voted for independence.

“We have completely closed our air space to the regional government in northern Iraq,” the paper cited Erdogan as telling reporters on his plane returning from a trip to Poland.

“Talks are continuing on what will be done regarding the land (border) … We have not shut the border gates yet but this could happen too at any moment,” he added.

Turkey announced on Monday it was closing its air space to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and said it would work to hand control of the main border crossing into the region to the central Iraqi government.

The Habur gate is the main transit point between Turkey and Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government.

A Sept. 25 referendum, in which Kurds in northern Iraq voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence, alarmed Baghdad, Iraq’s neighbors and Western powers, all of whom feared further regional conflict could arise from the vote.

Subsequently Kurdish Peshmerga forces retreated to positions they held in northern Iraq in June 2014 in response to an Iraqi army advance into the region after the referendum, a senior Iraqi commander said on Wednesday.

Ankara, which has been battling a three-decade insurgency in its own mainly Kurdish southeast, fears an independent Kurdish state on its borders would heighten separatist tension at home.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans)

From Damascus, Iran vows to confront Israel

From Damascus, Iran vows to confront Israel

By Ellen Francis and Babak Dehghanpisheh

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iran’s military chief warned Israel against breaching Syrian airspace and territory on a visit to Damascus on Wednesday, raising tensions with Israel as it voices deep concern over Tehran’s influence in Syria.

General Mohammad Baqeri pledged to increase cooperation with Syria’s military to fight Israel and insurgents, Iranian and Syrian state media said.

Iranian forces and Iran-backed Shi’ite militias, including Hezbollah, have provided critical military support to Damascus, helping it regain swathes of Syria from rebels and militants.

“It’s not acceptable for the Zionist regime to violate the land and airspace of Syria anytime it wants,” Baqeri said at a news conference with his Syrian counterpart.

“We are in Damascus to assert and cooperate to confront our common enemies, the Zionists and terrorists,” he said, a reference to Israel and Sunni Muslim jihadists including Islamic State.

“We drew up the broad lines for this cooperation,” Syrian state media cited the Iranian military chief of staff as saying.

Iran’s expanding clout during Syria’s more than six-year war has raised alarm in Israel, which has said it would act against any threat from its regional arch-enemy Tehran.

Israel’s air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and Hezbollah nearly 100 times during the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Iran was strengthening its foothold in Syria and that Israel would “do whatever it takes” to protect its security.

Tensions have risen this year between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel, which have avoided a major conflict since 2006.

This week, the Israeli military said it attacked a Syrian anti-aircraft battery that had fired at its planes over Lebanon. But the Syrian army said it hit an Israeli warplane after it breached its airspace at the Syria-Lebanon border. [nL8N1MR2EX

“Our job is to prevent war, and you do that through deterrence. What we saw in Syria (on Monday) fell within this framework,” the Israeli defense minister told Israel Radio on Wednesday before the Iranian military chief’s comments.

“We will do whatever is necessary for (our) security,” Avigdor Lieberman added. “We will not change our operating procedures because of shooting or a threat of this type or another.”

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Tom Perry and Richard Balmforth)

Pakistan, Afghanistan in angry tangle over border fence to keep out militants

A view of the border fence outside the Kitton outpost on the border with Afghanistan in North Waziristan, Pakistan October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Caren Firouz

(This October 18 story has been refiled to fix dateline, amend headline and first paragraph)

ANGOOR ADDA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan is betting that a pair of nine-foot chain-link fences topped with barbed wire will stop incursions by Islamist militants from Afghanistan, which opposes Islamabad’s plans for a barrier along the disputed frontier.

Pakistan plans to fence up most of the 2,500 km (1,500 mile) frontier despite Kabul’s protests that the barrier would divide families and friends along the Pashtun tribal belt straddling the colonial-era Durand Line drawn up by the British in 1893.

Pakistan’s military estimates that it will need about 56 billion rupees ($532 million) for the project, while there are also plans to build 750 border forts and employ high-tech surveillance systems to prevent militants crossing.

In the rolling hills of the Angoor Adda village in South Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), three rolls of barbed wire are sandwiched in the six-foot gap between the chain-link fences.

“(The fence) is a paradigm change. It is an epoch shift in the border control management,” said a Pakistani army officer in command of South Waziristan during a presentation to foreign media on Wednesday.

“There will not be an inch of international border (in South Waziristan) which shall not remain under our observation.”

Pakistan’s military has so far fenced off about 43 km of the frontier, starting with the most violence-prone areas in FATA, and is expected to recruit tens of thousands of new troops to man the border. It is not clear how long it will take to fence the entire boundary.

But Pakistan’s plans have also drawn criticism from across the border.

Gulab Mangal, governor of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, told Reuters the wall will create “more hatred and resentment” between two neighbors and will do neither country any good.

“The fence will definitely create a lot of trouble for the people along the border on both sides but no wall or fence can separate these tribes,” he said.

“I urge the tribes to stand against this action.”

Pakistan has blamed Pakistani Taliban militants it says are based on Afghan soil for a spate of attacks at home over the past year, urging Kabul to eradicate “sanctuaries” for militants.

Afghanistan, in turn, accuses Islamabad of sheltering the leadership of the Afghan Taliban militants who are battling the Western-backed government in Kabul.

Both countries deny aiding militants, but relations between the two have soured in recent years. In May, the tension rose when 10 people were killed in two border villages in Baluchistan region.

The clashes occurred in so-called “divided villages”, where the Durand Line goes through the heart of the community, and where residents are now bracing for the fence to split their villages in two.

Pakistan’s previous attempts to build a fence failed about a decade ago and many doubt whether its possible to secure such a lengthy border.

But Pakistani army officials are undeterred by the scepticism and insist they will finish the job as the country’s security rests on this fence.

“By the time we are done, inshallah, we will be very sure of one thing: that nobody can cross this place,” said the Pakistani officer in charge of South Waziristan.

(Reporting by Reuters TV in South Waziristan and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Writing by Drazen Jorgic)

100,000 Kurds flee Kirkuk since Iraqi army takeover: Kurdish officials

Iraqi soldiers ride in military vehicles in Zumar, Nineveh province, Iraq October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Ari Jalal

By Raya Jalabi and Maher Chmaytelli

ERBIL/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) – About 100,000 Kurds have fled Kirkuk for fear of sectarian reprisals since Iraqi government forces took over the city after a Kurdish independence referendum condemned by Baghdad, regional Kurdish officials said on Thursday.

Baghdad’s forces swept into the multi-ethnic city of more than 1 million people, hub of a major oil-producing area, largely unopposed on Monday after most Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew rather than fight.

Iraqi forces also took back control of Kirkuk oilfields, effectively halving the amount of output under the direct control of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in a serious blow to the Kurds’ independence quest.

Baghdad’s recapture of Kirkuk, situated just outside the KRG’s official boundaries on disputed land claimed by Kurds, ethnic Turkmen and Arabs, put the city’s Kurds in fear of attack by Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries, known as Popular Mobilization, assisting government forces’ operations in the region.

Nawzad Hadi, governor of Erbil, the KRG capital, told reporters that around 18,000 families from Kirkuk and the town of Tuz Khurmato to the southeast had taken refuge in Erbil and Sulaimaniya, inside KRG territory. A Hadi aide told Reuters the total number of displaced people was about 100,000.

Hemin Hawrami, a top aide to KRG President Masoud Barzani, tweeted that people had fled “looting and sectarian oppression” inflicted by Popular Mobilisation militia.

“Where is @UNIraq @UNHCRIraq?,” Hawrami said in another tweet, suggesting U.N. humanitarian agencies were doing little to help newly displaced people.

Lisa Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, had urged all parties on Wednesday to do their utmost “to shield and protect all civilians impacted by the current situation”.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Wednesday that security was being maintained in Kirkuk by local police backed by the elite Counter Terrorism Service, trained and equipped by the United States mainly to fight Islamic State militants. “All other armed group should not be allowed to stay,” Abadi said.

Sunni Muslim Kurds comprise the largest community in Kirkuk followed by Shi’ite Turkmen, Sunni Arabs and Christians, according to the Iraqi Planning Ministry in Baghdad.

IRAQ ORDERS ARREST OF KURDISH VP

In another sign of rising tensions, Iraq’s Supreme Justice Council ordered the arrest of Kurdistan Regional Government Vice President Kosrat Rasul for allegedly saying Iraqi troops were “occupying forces” in Kirkuk.

KRG Peshmerga forces deployed into Kirkuk in 2014 when Iraqi government forces fell apart in the face of an offensive by Islamic State insurgents, preventing the oilfields from falling into jihadist hands.

An Iraqi military statement on Wednesday said government forces had also taken control of Kurdish-held areas of Nineveh province, including the Mosul hydro-electric dam, after the Peshmerga pulled back.

Iran and Turkey joined the Baghdad government in condemning the Iraqi Kurds’ Sept. 25 referendum, worried it could worsen regional instability and conflict by encouraging their own Kurdish populations to push for homelands. The Kurds’ long-time big power ally, the United States, also opposed the vote.

With the referendum having given Abadi a political opening to regain contested land and shift the balance of power in his favor, it may prove a gamble that makes the KRG’s quest for statehood more elusive.

KRG Foreign Minister Fala Mustafa Bakir told broadcaster CNN that his side never meant to engage in war with the Iraqi army. He said there was a need for dialogue between the KRG and Iraq to enable a common understanding. The dispute, he added, was not about oil or the national flag but the future of two nations.

Crude oil flows through the KRG pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan have been disrupted by a gap between incoming and outgoing personnel since Baghdad’s retaking of Kirkuk.

An Iraqi oil ministry official in Baghdad said on Thursday that Iraq would not be able to restore Kirkuk’s oil output to levels before Sunday because of missing equipment at two fields.

The official accused the Kurdish authorities previously in control of Kirkuk of removing equipment at the Bai Hasan and Avana oil fields, northwest of the city.

Kurds have sought independence since at least the end of World War One when colonial powers carved up the Middle East after the multiethnic Ottoman Empire collapsed, leaving Kurdish-inhabited land split between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Philippine president declares Marawi liberated as battle goes on

FILE PHOTO: Government soldiers stand guard in front of damaged building and houses in Sultan Omar Dianalan boulevard at Mapandi district in Marawi city, southern Philippines September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Neil Jerome Morales and Manolo Serapio Jr

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared the southern city of Marawi liberated from pro-Islamic State militants on Tuesday, although the military said 20-30 rebels were holding about 20 hostages and still fighting it out.

In a rousing address to soldiers a day after the killing of two commanders of the rebel alliance, Duterte said he would never again allow militants to stockpile so many weapons, but Marawi was now free and it was time to heal wounds and rebuild.

“I hereby declare Marawi City liberated from terrorist influence, that marks the beginning of rehabilitation,” Duterte, wearing a camouflage cap and dark sunglasses, said during his unannounced visit.

Isnilon Hapilon, who was wanted by the United States and was Islamic State’s Southeast Asian “emir”, and Omarkhayam Maute, one of two brothers central to the alliance, were killed in a targeted operation on Monday. Their bodies were recovered and identified, authorities said.

The 148-day occupation marked the Roman Catholic-majority Philippines’ biggest security crisis in years and triggered concerns that with its mountains, jungles and porous borders, the island of Mindanao could become a magnet for Islamic State fighters driven out of Iraq and Syria.

More than 1,000 people, mostly rebels, were killed in the battle and the heart of the city of 200,000 has been leveled by air strikes.

Duterte said the liberation was not a cause for celebration and later apologized to the people of Marawi for the destruction.

“We had to do it,” he said. “There was no alternative.”

Armed forces chief Eduardo Ano said the remaining gunmen were now a “law enforcement matter”, while military spokesman Restituto Padilla described them as “stragglers”.

“There is no way that they can get out anymore, there is no way for anyone to get in,” Padilla told news channel ANC.

NOT A FIGHTER, NOT A PROBLEM

Padilla said the military believed Malaysian operative Mahmud Ahmad was in Marawi, but it could not be certain. He said Mahmud was no threat.

“Dr. Mahmud is an academic, he’s not a fighter,” Padilla said. “We don’t feel he is a problem.”

But some security experts say otherwise and believe Mahmud, 39, a recruiter and fundraiser who trained at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, could replace Hapilon as Islamic State’s point-man in Southeast Asia.

Another leader, Abdullah Maute, has yet to be accounted for. Intelligence indicated he died in an August air strike, though no body was found.

Defence officials say the core leadership was key to recruiting young fighters and arranging for extremists from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and beyond to join the push to carve out an East Asian “Wilaya”, or Islamic State province.

Hapilon had teamed up with the moneyed Maute clan in their stronghold of Lanao del Sur, one of the Philippines’ poorest provinces, and brought with him fighters from his radical faction of Abu Sayyaf, a group better known for banditry.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who estimated Marawi operations to have cost 5 billion pesos ($97.5 million), said reconstruction could start in January.

“There are still stragglers and the structures are still unsafe because of unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices,” he said on radio.

The Marawi occupation set alarm bells ringing in the Philippines, with militants surprising security forces with their combat prowess, the volume of arms and ammunition they stockpiled and their ability to withstand intensive air strikes aided by U.S. surveillance drones and technical support.

($1 = 51 pesos)

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S.-backed campaign against IS in eastern Syria to speed up: SDF militia

A view of a part of downtown Raqqa after it was liberated from the Islamic State militants, in Raqqa, Syria October 17, 2017. Picture taken October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S.-backed campaign against Islamic State in eastern Syria will accelerate now the jihadist group has been defeated in its former capital Raqqa, a spokesman for U.S.-allied Syrian militias said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which announced the defeat at Raqqa on Tuesday, will redeploy fighters from the city to frontlines with Islamic State in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, Talal Silo told Reuters by telephone.

The SDF is fighting Islamic State in Deir al-Zor in areas to the east of the Euphrates River. The Syrian government, supported by the Russian air force and Iran-backed militias, is waging a separate campaign against the jihadists in the province, focused mostly in areas to the west of the river.

Islamic State has lost ground rapidly there in recent weeks. The Syrian army and its allies are battling for control of the last remaining IS-held areas of Deir al-Zor city, and have also captured the town of al-Mayadin from IS.

Silo said the Raqqa victory would have a “positive impact” on the SDF’s campaign in Deir al-Zor because it meant fighters could be redeployed as internal security forces take control of Raqqa.

“Most of the military forces will head towards these areas to continue the participation in the campaign with the Deir al-Zor Military Council,” he said. The Council is a militia leading the SDF’s campaign in the province.

“This is all to the benefit of the campaign and accelerating the end of this campaign,” he said.

(Reporting by Tom Perry; editing by John Stonestreet)

Taliban attacks kill at least 69 across Afghanistan

Smoke rises from police headquarters while Afghan security forces keep watch after a suicide car bomber and gunmen attacked the provincial police headquarters in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, Afghanistan October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban militants struck government targets in many provinces of Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 69 people, including a senior police commander, and wounding scores of others.

The deadliest attack hit a police training centre attached to the police headquarters in Gardez, main city of Paktia province.

Two Taliban suicide car bombers paved the way for a number of gunmen to attack the compound, officials and militants said. At least 21 police officers were killed, including the Paktia provincial police chief, with 48 others wounded, according to government officials.

The attack also left at least 20 civilians dead and 110 wounded, the Interior Ministry said. Security forces killed at least five attackers.

Dozens of dead and wounded were taken to the city hospital, even as many more lay where they fell during the fighting, deputy public health director Hedayatullah Hameedi said.

The Taliban, seeking to reimpose strict Islamic law after their 2001 ouster by U.S.-led forces, claimed responsibility.

The militant group also attacked a district centre in neighbouring Ghazni province on Tuesday, detonating an armoured Humvee vehicles packed with explosives near the provincial governor’s office.

Provincial officials said at least 15 government security forces were killed and 12 wounded in the Ghazni attacks, with 13 civilians killed and seven wounded.

The Taliban said they had killed 31 security forces and wounded 21 in those clashes.

Fighting was also reported near local government centres in Farah and Kandahar provinces.

 

(Additional reporting by Mustafa Andalib in Ghazni; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

Islamic State defeated in its Syrian capital Raqqa

Islamic State defeated in its Syrian capital Raqqa

By John Davison and Rodi Said

RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) – U.S.-backed militias said they had defeated Islamic State in its former capital Raqqa on Tuesday, raising their flags over the jihadist group’s last footholds in the city after a four-month battle.

The fighting was over but the alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias was clearing the stadium of mines and any remaining militants, said Rojda Felat, commander of the Raqqa campaign for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

A formal declaration of victory in Raqqa will soon be made, once the city has been cleared of mines and any possible Islamic State sleeper cells, said Talal Silo, the SDF spokesman.

The fall of Raqqa, where Islamic State staged euphoric parades after its string of lightning victories in 2014, is a potent symbol of the jihadist movement’s collapsing fortunes.

Islamic State has lost most of its territory in Syria and Iraq this year, including its most prized possession, Mosul. In Syria, it has been forced back into a strip of the Euphrates valley and surrounding desert.

The SDF, backed by a U.S.-led international alliance, has been fighting since June to take the city Islamic State used to plan attacks abroad.

Another Reuters witness said militia fighters celebrated in the streets, chanting slogans from their vehicles.

The fighters and commanders clasped their arms round each other, smiling, in a battle-scarred landscape of rubble and ruined buildings at a public square.

The flags in the stadium and others waved in the city streets were of the SDF, its strongest militia the Kurdish YPG, and the YPG’s female counterpart, the YPJ.

Fighters hauled down the black flag of Islamic State, the last still flying over the city, from the National Hospital near the stadium.

“We do still know there are still IEDs and booby traps in and amongst the areas that ISIS once held, so the SDF will continue to clear deliberately through areas,” said Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition.

In a sign that the four-month battle for Raqqa had been in its last stages, Dillon said there were no coalition air strikes there on Monday.

TRAPPED BY FIGHTING

Fatima Hussein, a 58-year-old woman, sitting on a pavement smoking a cigarette said she had emerged from her house after being trapped for months by the fighting. Islamic State had killed her son for helping civilians leave the city, she said.

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, took the National Hospital in fierce fighting overnight and early on Tuesday, said spokesman Mostafa Bali in a statement.

“During these clashes, the National Hospital was liberated and cleared from the Daesh mercenaries, and 22 of these foreign mercenaries were killed there,” said Bali, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

An SDF field commander who gave his name as Ager Ozalp said three militiamen had been killed on Monday by mines that have become an Islamic State trademark in its urban battles.

Another field commander, who gave his name as Abjal al-Syriani, said SDF fighters had found burned weapons and documents in the stadium.

The stadium and hospital became the last major positions held by Islamic State after the departure of some of its fighters on Sunday, leaving only foreign jihadists to mount a last stand.

The SDF has been supported by a U.S.-led international coalition with air strikes and special forces on the ground since it started the battle for Raqqa city in early June.

The final SDF assault began on Sunday after a group of Syrian jihadists quit the city under a deal with tribal elders, leaving only a hardcore of up to 300 fighters to defend the last positions.

PASSPORTS AND MONEY

Raqqa was the first big city Islamic State captured in early 2014, before its rapid series of victories in Iraq and Syria brought millions of people under the rule of its self-declared caliphate, which passed laws and issued passports and money.

It used the city as a planning and operations centre for its warfare in the Middle East and its string of attacks overseas, and for a time imprisoned Western hostages there before killing them in slickly produced films distributed online.

The SDF advance since Sunday also brought it control over a central city roundabout, where Islamic State once displayed the severed heads of its enemies, and which became one of its last lines of defence as the battle progressed.

The offensive has pushed Islamic State from most of northern Syria, while a rival offensive by the Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi’ite militias, has driven the jihadists from the central desert.

On Tuesday, a military media unit run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said the Syrian army on whose side Hezbollah fights had pushed into the last Islamic State districts in Deir al-Zor.

The only populated areas still controlled by the jihadist group in Syria are the towns and villages downstream of Deir al-Zor along the Euphrates valley. They are areas that for the past three years Islamic State ran from Raqqa.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Francis and Dahlia Nehme in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Kurds abandon territory in the face of Iraq government advance

Kurds abandon territory in the face of Iraq government advance

By Ahmed Rasheed and Mustafa Mahmoud

BAGHDAD/KIRKUK (Reuters) – The Baghdad government recaptured territory across the breadth of northern Iraq from Kurds on Tuesday, making startingly rapid gains in a sudden campaign that has shifted the balance of power in the country almost overnight.

In the second day of a lightning government advance to take back towns and countryside from forces of the Kurdish autonomous region, Kurdish troops known as Peshmerga pulled out of the long disputed Khanaqin area near the Iranian border.

Government troops took control of the last two oilfields in the vicinity of Kirkuk, a city of 1 million people that the Peshmerga abandoned the previous day in the face of the government advance. A Yazidi group allied to Baghdad also took control of the town of Sinjar.

The government advances have redrawn the map of northern Iraq, rolling back gains by the Kurds who infuriated Baghdad last month by holding a referendum on independence.

The Kurds govern three mountainous northern provinces in an autonomous region, and have also held a wide crescent of additional territory in northern Iraq, much of which they captured after helping drive out Islamic State fighters.

Prime Minister Haidar Abadi ordered his troops on Monday to raise their flag over all Kurdish-held territory outside the autonomous region itself. They achieved a swift victory in Kirkuk, reaching the centre of the city in less than a day.

The fighting in one of Iraq’s main oil-producing areas has helped return a risk premium to oil prices. After months of range-bound trading, benchmark Brent crude is now above $58 a barrel, up almost a third from its mid-year levels.

Oil officials in Baghdad said all the fields near Kirkuk were working normally on Tuesday after the last came under government control. Kirkuk is the base of Iraq’s Northern Oil Company, one of the two giant state energy firms that provide nearly all government revenue.

DILEMMA FOR WASHINGTON

The advances create a dilemma for Washington, which has armed and trained both sides in its successful campaign to drive Islamic State fighters out of Iraq.

“We don’t like the fact that they’re clashing,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “We’ve had for many years a very good relationship with the Kurds as you know, and we’ve also been on the side of Iraq.”

So far most of the advances appear to have come unopposed, with Kurds withdrawing before government forces move in. There have been reports of just one major clash, in the early hours of Monday on the outskirts of Kirkuk.

In Kirkuk, one of Iraq’s most diverse cities, members of the Turkmen ethnic group who have opposed Kurdish rule had celebrated on Monday, driving through the streets in convoys and firing weapons in the air.

By Tuesday, the once ubiquitous green, red and white Kurdish flag with a blazing yellow sun had vanished from the streets. U.S.-trained Iraqi special forces and local police patrolled to maintain order. Markets, shops and schools were open as normal.

Some Kurdish families who had left the city on Monday were already returning home. They said thousands of Kurdish fighters in convoys were lining up in a long queue attempting to flee Kirkuk towards the Kurdish regional capital Erbil, which clogged the road and made it difficult for civilians to leave.

For the Kurds, the loss of territory, particularly Kirkuk which Kurdish folklore views as the heart of their homeland, is a severe blow just three weeks after they voted to declare the independent state that had been their goal for decades.

“Our leaders abandoned us in the middle of nowhere. Our future is dark,” said Malla Bakhtiyar, a retired schoolteacher in Kirkuk.

He said he tried to escape on Monday but returned with his wife and sons after an Arab neighbour phoned, begging him not to leave and assuring him the city was safe.

University lecturer Salar Othman Ameen blamed the Kurdish authorities for calling the independence referendum prematurely.

“We feel broken now. The referendum was a catastrophic decision…Our Kurdish leadership was supposed to think of the consequences before moving along with independence vote. Now we have lost what we have achieved over three decades.”

The setbacks led to recriminations among the two main Kurdish political parties, which each control separate units of Peshmerga fighters. Officials in the KDP of Kurdish regional government leader Masoud Barzani accused the PUK of his longterm rival Jalal Talabani of “treason” for abandoning Kirkuk.

Talabani, who served as ceremonial Iraqi president in Baghdad from 2003-2014, died two weeks ago. His widow denied blame for the fall of Kirkuk and said her party had tried to avert the advance through contact with U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Barzani was expected to issue a statement calling on Kurdish factions to avoid “civil war”, according to Kurdish Rudaw TV.

The advances were a second major triumph for Abadi, the soft-spoken Iraqi prime minister, months after his forces recaptured Mosul from Islamic State. Abadi had faced threats from Iran-backed Shi’ite armed groups to take matters into their own hands if he did not act decisively to take on the Kurds.

“If elections were held tomorrow, I would vote with ten fingers for Abadi. He succeeded in keeping Iraq a single state,” said Adel Abdul Kareem, a Baghdad lawyer.

“When Kurdish leaders were threatening Baghdad, Abadi was always smiling,” he said. “We did not expect he was hiding a tornado behind this smile. He proved he was a smart leader, and with his wisdom he won against Masoud (Barzani) with a knockout in the second round.”

In Sinjar, home to the small Yazidi religious minority that faced genocide in 2014 when the area was captured by Islamic State fighters, a Yazidi group called Lalesh took control of the town after Kurdish Peshmerga withdrew.

“There was no violence. The Lalesh group moved after the Peshmerga pulled out,” said a resident reached by telephone.

The decision by the Kurds to hold an independence referendum had angered neighbours Turkey and Iran. Washington, friendly to the Kurds for decades, had also called on them to cancel the vote, fearing it could trigger war.

(Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Islamic State faces imminent Raqqa defeat, Syrian YPG says

By John Davison and Tom Perry

AIN ISSA, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State is on the verge of defeat in Raqqa, once its de facto Syrian capital, and the city may finally be cleared of the jihadists on Saturday or Sunday, the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia told Reuters.

A local official said tribal elders were seeking to broker a deal where remaining Islamic State fighters, including foreigners, would leave the city, taking civilians with them as human shields.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by air strikes and special forces from a U.S.-led international coalition, have been battling since June to oust Islamic State from Raqqa, a base that it had used to plan attacks against the West.

The retaking of Raqqa will be a major milestone in efforts to roll back the theocratic “caliphate” that Islamic State declared in Syria and Iraq, where earlier this year it was driven from the city of Mosul.

“The battles are continuing in Raqqa city,” YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud, whose group dominates the SDF, told Reuters by telephone. “Daesh (Islamic State) is on the verge of being finished. Today or tomorrow, the city may be liberated.”

The U.S.-led coalition said a convoy was set to depart Raqqa on Saturday under an arrangement brokered by local officials.

Its statement said the coalition was not involved in the discussions, and described the arrangement as “a civilian evacuation”.

Its spokesman, Col. Ryan Dillon, said the coalition’s stance was that IS fighters must surrender unconditionally, but added that he could not comment on who would be in the convoy. He said difficult fighting was expected in the days ahead.

“SAVING INNOCENT LIVES”

The coalition statement said the arrangement brokered by the Raqqa Civil Council and local Arab tribal elders on Oct. 12 was “designed to minimize civilian casualties and purportedly excludes foreign Daesh terrorists”.

The coalition believed the arrangement would “save innocent lives and allow Syrian Democratic Forces and the coalition to focus on defeating Daesh terrorists in Raqqa with less risk of civilian casualties”, it said.

Omar Alloush, a member of the Raqqa Civil Council, set up to run Raqqa after it is freed from IS, said the 100 Islamic State fighters who had already surrendered had been convinced to do so during talks with the tribal elders.

“Others didn’t surrender, so now they’re looking for a plan where they (IS) leave and take civilian hostages with them to another place far from the city, and then release the civilians,” he told Reuters in an interview in Ain Issa, north of Raqqa. The IS fighters would go to remaining territory held by the group in Syria, he said.

The deal could happen as soon as Saturday, he said.

A tribal leader said he expected the evacuation to take place on Saturday or Sunday.

BUSES ARRIVE

An activist group that reports on Raqqa, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, said on its Facebook page that dozens of buses had entered Raqqa city overnight from the countryside to the north.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that reports on the war, said Syrian Islamic State fighters and their families had already left the city, and buses had arrived to evacuate remaining foreign fighters and their families.

The Syrian army, which is supported by Iran-backed militias and the Russian air force, declared another significant victory over Islamic State on Saturday, saying it had captured the town of al-Mayadin in Deir al-Zor province.

The eastern province is Islamic State’s last major foothold in Syria, and it is under attack there from the SDF on one side and Syrian government forces supported by Iran-backed militias and Russian air strikes on the other.

Islamic State fighters had previously agreed to an evacuation last August, from an area on the Syrian-Lebanese border.

But as their convoy moved towards Islamic State-held territory in eastern Syria, coalition planes blocked its route by cratering roads, destroying bridges and attacking nearby Islamic State vehicles.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut; Editing by Kevin Liffey)