Tag Archives: War

Philippine politician says residents report scores of bodies in embattled city

Smoke comes from a burning building as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group, who have taken over large parts of Marawi city, Philippines June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Neil Jerome Morales and Simon Lewis

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – A Philippines politician said on Thursday residents fleeing besieged Marawi City had seen scores of dead bodies in an area where intense fighting has taken place between security forces and Islamist militants over the past three weeks.

“Dead bodies, at least 100, scattered around the encounter area,” Zia Alonto Adiong, a politician in the area who is helping in rescue and relief efforts, told reporters, referring to accounts he had received from fleeing residents.

The military said it could not confirm the report.

The army has said 290 people have been killed in the more than three weeks of fighting, including 206 militants, 58 soldiers and 26 civilians.

Lieutenant Colonel Jo-Ar Herrera, a military spokesman, said troops were advancing toward the commercial center of Marawi City, which is held by the militants who have sworn allegiance to Islamic State.

“We intend to finish the fight as soon as possible. Our tactical commanders are doing their best,” Herrera said.

But troops still faced up to 200 fighters, many of whom had taken up sniper positions, he said.

“The battlefield is very fluid,” he said.

Earlier, the military said it had arrested a cousin of the top militant commanders leading the Islamists in their fight against the government.

The man, Mohammad Noaim Maute, alias Abu Jadid, was arrested at a checkpoint near the coastal city of Cagayan de Oro just after dawn, Herrera said.

Herrera had earlier identified him as a brother of Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute, who head the Maute gang that is at the forefront of the battle for Marawi City.

Marawi is about 100 km (60 miles) south of Cagayan de Oro, but it was not clear whether Mohammad was coming from the embattled city.

Most of the seven Maute brothers, including Omarkhayam and Abdullah, are believed to be in Marawi.

Their parents were taken into custody last week in separate cities.

Brigadier-General Gilbert Gapay, spokesman for the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command, said Mohammad Noaim Maute was a suspected bomb-maker for the group.

He said Maute was holding a fake student card of the Mindanao State University, based in Marawi, when stopped at the checkpoint. He was not armed.

Police said Maute, an Arabic-language teacher, readily admitted his identity when questioned.

(Additional reporting by Manny Mogato; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Mosul Old City residents spend hungry and fearful Ramadan under IS rule

Displaced Iraqi family from Mosul eat a simple meal for their Iftar, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at a refugee camp al-Khazir in the outskirts of Erbil, Iraq June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – For Salam, a resident in the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul, the holy fasting month of Ramadan this year is the worst he’s seen in a lifetime marked by wars and deprivations.

“We are slowly dying from hunger, boiling mouldy wheat as soup” to break the fast at sunset, the 47 year-old father of three said by phone from the district besieged by Iraqi forces, asking to withhold his name fearing the militants’ retribution.

The only wish he makes in his prayers is for his family to survive the final days of the self-proclaimed caliphate declared three years ago by IS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from a nearby mosque.

The eight-month old U.S.-backed campaign to capture Mosul, IS’s de-facto capital in Iraq, reached its deadliest phase just as the holy Muslim month started at the end of May, when militants became squeezed in and around the densely populated Old City.

Up to 200,000 people are trapped behind their lines, half of them children, according to the United Nations.

Hundreds have been killed while trying to escape to government-held lines, caught in the cross-fire or gunned down by Islamic State snipers. The militants want civilians to remain in areas under their control to use them as human shields.

Many bodies of the dead remain in the street near the frontlines. Four of them are relatives of Khalil, a former civil servant who quit his job after IS took over Mosul.

“Daesh warned us not to bury them to make them an example for others who try to flee,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Those who decide not to run the risk of fleeing are living in fear of getting killed or wounded in their homes, with little food and water and limited access to healthcare.

“Seeing my kids hungry is real torture,” said Salam, who closed his home appliances shop shortly after the start of the offensive as sales came to a complete stop.”I wish the security forces would eliminate all Daesh fighters in a flash; I want my family to have normal life again.”

Where food can be found, the price has risen more than 20-fold. A kilo of rice is selling for more than $40. A kilo of flour or lentils is $20 or more.

The sellers are mainly households who stockpiled enough food and medicine to dare sell some, but only to trusted neighbors or relatives, or in return for items they need. If militants find food they take it.

Residents fill water from a few wells dug in the soil. The wait is long and dangerous as shelling is frequent.

“The well-water has a bitter taste and we can smell sewage sometimes, but we have to drink to stay alive,” said Umm Saad, a widow and mother of four, complaining that the militants are often seen with bottled water and canned food.

“We have been under compulsory fasting even before the start of Ramadan,” she said. “No real food to eat, just hardened old bread and mouldy grains.”

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war city’s population, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps. But in areas still held by the militants escape has become harder than ever.

“Fleeing is like committing suicide,” said Khalil, the ex-civil servant, who lives near the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, the offensive’s symbolic focus, where Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph.

IS’s black flag has been flying over its landmark leaning minaret since June 2014, when the Iraqi army fled in the face of the militants, giving them their biggest prize, a city at least four times bigger than any other they came to control in both Iraq and neighboring Syria.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; editing by Peter Graff)

Revenge for Sinjar: Syrian Kurds free Islamic State slaves

Noura Khodr Khalaf, 24, a Yazidi woman who was recently freed from Islamic State, stands with her children in a centre belonging to the Kurdish-led administration in Qamishli, Syria June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said and Ellen Francis

QAMISHLI, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State militants enslaved Noura Khalaf for three years, dragging her from her small Iraqi village across their territory in Syria. They bought and sold her five times before she was finally freed with her children last week.

Khalaf is one of many Yazidi women that Kurdish fighters in northern Syria have set out to free from Islamic State in covert operations, a female Kurdish militia commander told Reuters.

They have dubbed the operation “revenge for the women of Sinjar”, the homeland of Iraq’s ancient Yazidi minority which Islamic State overran in the summer of 2014.

The militants slaughtered, enslaved and raped thousands of people when they rampaged through northern Iraq, purging its Yazidi community. They abducted Yazidi women as sex slaves and gunned down male relatives, witnesses and Iraqi officials say. Nearly 3,000 women are believed to be still in captivity.

Nisreen Abdallah, a commander in the YPJ militia, said around 200 women and children from northern Iraq have been freed in various parts of Syria so far.

The Kurdish YPG militia and its all-female YPJ brigade rescued them in what she described as covert operations into IS territory that began last year. Abdallah declined to divulge more details for security reasons.

The Syrian militias launched this mission as part of their U.S.-backed offensive on Raqqa, Islamic State’s base of operations in Syria, she said.

With the YPG at its forefront, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias began pushing into Raqqa last week, after advancing on the city since November.

“Since then, we have been working to liberate the Yazidi women held captive by Daesh,” Abdallah said. In the case of Khalaf, she said Kurdish fighters made contact with her and drew up “an appropriate plan” to free her unharmed.

CODE WORD

Noura Khalaf said she had been living with her children as the slave of an Islamic State militant in Syria’s Hama province for a year, when an unidentified man smuggled them out in the YPG-coordinated operation.

The plan took shape thanks to IS rules forbidding fighters from taking mobile phones to the frontlines, she said. The jihadist holding Khalaf left his at home, allowing her to call her brother who in turn asked the YPG for help.

“Abu Amir used to leave his phone at home when he went to the frontline,” said 24-year-old Khalaf. “I had memorized my brother’s number.”

Khalaf was eventually told to await contact from a man who would come to rescue her. He uttered a pre-agreed code word, so she would know it was safe to leave with him.

“I’m happy to be staying here,” she said, speaking to Reuters in the Syrian city of Qamishli in the Kurdish-controlled northeast. She will soon return to the Sinjar mountain region. “After I rest here, I will go meet my brother,” she said.

After Islamic State kidnapped Khalaf with her four children in 2014, they bussed her around northern Iraq, including Mosul, along with dozens of women from her hometown of Kojo in Sinjar. “I still don’t know what happened to my husband,” she said.

At one point in her captivity, militants kept her in an underground jail in Raqqa, she said, and at another, they held her in a prison in Palmyra.

“They took us to an underground market for selling women, where they displayed us for Islamic State members and each one picks the girl he likes,” she said. Fighters forced her to serve and cook for them, some beating and raping her repeatedly.

Now, Khalaf and her children are staying at a shelter run by the women’s council of the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria.

Abdallah, the YPJ commander, said they deliver the women to their relatives in northern Iraq by coordinating with a Yazidi committee around Sinjar.

Two months earlier, Kurdish fighters also rescued Khalaf’s seven-year-old daughter, who had been sold off near Raqqa, and sent her to relatives in Sinjar, she said.

“We will also send Noura, through the women’s council. So she will see her daughter again,” Abdallah said.

“Those who are freed have been away from their relatives, living among Daesh for years…in alienation and degradation,” Abdallah said. “They have psychological complexes and they need care.”

The beliefs of the Yazidi community, which Islamic State regards as devil-worship, combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. Mass Yazidi graves have been found since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces seized Sinjar in 2015.

(Reporting by Rodi Said in Syria, Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff)

Philippines says U.S. troops near besieged Marawi, but not fighting

Damaged buildings and houses are seen at Moncado Colony village after intense fighting between government troops against insurgents from the Maute group, who have taken over large parts of Marawi city, Philippines, June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Neil Jerome Morales and Simon Lewis

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – U.S. troops are on the ground near Marawi City in the southern Philippines, but are not involved in fighting Islamist militants who have held parts of the city for more than three weeks, a Philippines military spokesman said on Wednesday.

The Philippines military has previously said the United States was providing technical assistance to end the occupation of parts of Marawi City by fighters allied to the Islamic State group, but it had no boots on the ground.

“There are some U.S. personnel who are operating equipment to provide information on situation awareness to our troops,” Brigadier General Restituto Padilla told a news conference.

“I do not know the exact number and the specific mission. They are allowed to carry rifles for self-defense. But they are not allowed to fight, they only provide support,” he said.

It was not clear how close to the battle zone the U.S. troops were. They were from a contingent of Special Forces based in the southern city of Zamboanga, the Philippines military has said previously.

The U.S. embassy in Manila did not respond to a request for comment.

A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was providing a P-3 surveillance plane as well as intelligence gathering from a drone. That drone, however, crashed on Saturday after it lost communication links with its operator, the official said.

On Wednesday, government forces attacked rebel positions in Marawi with bombs, tank fire and helicopter gunships, and plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the battered city. Some sniper shots could be heard.

Fighting died down in the afternoon when heavy rain fell.

It was the 23rd day of fighting in Marawi, and there was no sign that it would end any time soon.

“There will be no more deadlines,” said Padilla, referring to a promise by the military to clear the city by June 12, the country’s independence day. “It may take some time.”

In Washington, a security official who is familiar with the region said the battle in Marawi appeared to be locked in a stalemate.

“At the very least, it is not at all clear that government forces are presently winning or even gaining significant ground,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Islamic State demonstrated significant determination and success in capturing and holding Mosul in Iraq and their effort in Marawi is of a similar notable quality.”

HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS

The seizure of Marawi has alarmed Southeast Asian nations which fear Islamic State – on the back foot in Iraq and Syria – is trying to set up a stronghold on Mindanao island that could threaten their region.

Another Philippines military spokesman said troops had gained a significant advantage by taking control of eight high-rise building in the battle zone where the militants had set up snipers and machine-gun posts.

“This is very important,” Colonel Edgard Arevalo told reporters.

“We are in the final stage of our operation in Marawi. But we have to be very careful with our actions because there are still civilians in the area, they still have hostages and there are still people trapped in the firefight.The military said 290 people had been killed, including 206 militants, 58 soldiers and 26 civilians.

About 100 militants are in the besieged area, the military has said. There are also an estimated 300-600 civilians trapped or being held hostage in the city.

Islamic State’s news agency, Amaq, said its fighters controlled two-thirds of the city.

Responding to the report, Lieutenant General Carlito Galvez, head of military command in Western Mindanao, told Reuters the militants controlled 20 percent of the town.

“The truth is probably somewhere in between,” said the U.S. security official.

The Philippines has been fighting twin insurgencies from Maoist-led rebels and Muslim separatists in the south for nearly 50 years.

Critics say military action is not enough to bring peace to a region that has long suffered from political neglect and poverty.

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in MANILA, Idrees Ali and Mark Hosenball in WASHINGTON; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Iraqi armed forces announce progress in Mosul campaign, say district north of old city captured

Displaced Iraqi residents flee their homes due to fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, near the Old City in western Mosul, Iraq June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces on Tuesday reported progress in the U.S.-backed campaign to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul, announcing the capture of a district just north the city’s historic center.

With the loss of the Zanjili neighborhood, the enclave still held by Islamic State in the northern Iraqi city has shrunk to two districts along the western banks of the Tigris river – the densely populated Old City center and the Medical City.

Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a new push on May 27 to capture the remaining enclave, where up to 200,000 people are trapped.

The Mosul offensive started in October with air and ground support from a U.S.-led international coalition. It has taken much longer than expected as Islamic State is fighting in the middle of civilians, slowing the advance of the assailants.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and Syria by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a speech from a historic mosque in the old city.

In Syria, Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-air strikes are besieging Islamic State forces in the city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in that country.

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of Mosul, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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

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

By Stephanie Nebehay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gulf crisis seen widening split in Syria rebellion

FILE PHOTO: A rebel fighter from the Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement reacts as they fire grad rockets from Idlib countryside, towards forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad stationed at Jureen town in al-Ghab plain in the Hama countryside, Syria, April 25, 2015. REUTERS/Mohamad Bayoush/File Photo

By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – Confrontation between Qatar and Saudi Arabia is creating unease among Syrian rebels who expect the crisis between two of their biggest state backers to deepen divisions in the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

Together with Turkey and the United States, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been major sponsors of the insurgency, arming an array of groups that have been fighting to topple the Iran-backed president. The Gulf support has however been far from harmonious, fuelling splits that have set back the revolt.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar a week ago, accusing it of fomenting regional unrest, supporting terrorism and getting too close to Iran, all of which Doha denies.

It is the biggest rift among Gulf Arab states in years.

“God forbid if this crisis is not contained I predict … the situation in Syria will become tragic because the factions that are supported by (different) countries will be forced to take hostile positions towards each other,” said Mustafa Sejari of the Liwa al Mutasem rebel group in northern Syria.

“We urge our brothers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar not to burden the Syrian people more than they can bear.”

The Syrian rebellion can ill afford more internal conflict.

The opposition has been losing ground to Damascus ever since the Russian military deployed to Syria in support of Assad’s war effort in 2015. Assad now appears militarily unassailable, though rebels still have notable footholds near Damascus, in the northwest, and the southwest.

In the fractured map of the Syrian insurgency, Qatari aid has gone to groups that are often Islamist in ideology and seen as close to the Muslim Brotherhood – a movement that is anathema to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Turkey, which has swung firmly behind Qatar in the Gulf crisis, is thought to have backed the same groups as Qatar in northern Syria, including the powerful conservative Islamist faction Ahrar al-Sham.

Qatar is also widely believed to have ties to al Qaeda-linked jihadists of the group once known as the Nusra Front, which has rebranded since formally parting ways with al Qaeda and is now part of the Tahrir al-Sham Islamist alliance.

While Qatar has officially denied Nusra ties, it has mediated the release of hostages held by the group including Americans, Greek Orthodox nuns and members of the Lebanese security forces.

Saudi aid has meanwhile been seen as targeted more closely at groups backed through programs run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency – programs in which Qatar has also participated even as it has backed groups outside that channel.

The United Arab Emirates has also played an influential role in that program, together with staunch U.S. ally Jordan. These powers wield more influence in southern Syria than the north.

NORTH-SOUTH SPLIT

“It will increase the split between north and south, as the north is mainly funded by Qatar and Turkey, and the south is supported by Jordan and the (U.S.-led) coalition,” said an opposition source familiar with foreign support to the rebels.

A second opposition source, a senior rebel official, said the Gulf crisis “will certainly affect us, people are known to be with Saudi, or Qatar, or Turkey. The split is clear.”

Adding to rebel concerns, the crisis has also nudged Qatar closer to Iran, which has sent planes loaded with food to Doha. “Any rapprochement between Qatar and Iran, or any other state and Iran, is very concerning for us,” the rebel official said.

A senior Turkish official said it was very important that the Qatar crisis did not take on “further dimensions”.

“These developments will have certain effects on the developments in Syria, its effects will be seen on the field. The elements which Qatar supports may slightly weaken on the field,” the official said.

Opposition sources fear the Gulf crisis could spark new bouts of conflict, particularly in the Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus where the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam has been fighting the Qatari-backed Failaq al-Rahman intermittently for more than a year. That quarrel has helped government forces regain parts of the area.

The four Arab states that have turned against Qatar last week issued a list of dozens of people named as terrorists with links to Qatar, including prominent Islamist insurgent Sheikh Abdullah al-Muhaysini, a Saudi national based in Syria known for mobilizing support for jihadist groups.

The U.S. Treasury last year blacklisted him for acting on behalf of and supporting the Nusra Front, saying he had raised millions of dollars for the group.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun in Turkey; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Peter Graff)

U.S. ‘not winning’ in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary tells Congress

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is “not winning” the war against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress on Tuesday, promising to brief lawmakers on a new war strategy by mid-July that is widely expected to call for thousands more U.S. troops.

The remarks were a blunt reminder of the gloom underscoring U.S. military assessments of the war between the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the Islamist militant group, classified by U.S. commanders as a “stalemate” despite almost 16 years of fighting.

“We are not winning in Afghanistan right now. And we will correct this as soon as possible,” Mattis said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mattis acknowledged that he believed the Taliban were “surging” at the moment, something he said he intended to address.

Some U.S. officials questioned the benefit of sending more troops to Afghanistan because any politically palatable number would not be enough to turn the tide, much less create stability and security. To date, more than 2,300 Americans have been killed and more than 17,000 wounded since the war began in 2001.

The Afghan government was assessed by the U.S. military to control or influence just 59.7 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts as of Feb. 20, a nearly 11 percentage-point decrease from the same time in 2016, according to data released by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

A truck bomb explosion in Kabul last month killed more than 150 people, making it the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 by a NATO-led coalition after ruling the country for five years.

On Saturday, three U.S. soldiers were killed when an Afghan soldier opened fire on them in eastern Afghanistan.

Reuters reported in late April that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump was carrying out a review of Afghanistan, and conversations were revolving around sending between 3,000 and 5,000 U.S. and coalition troops there.

Deliberations include giving more authority to forces on the ground and taking more aggressive action against Taliban fighters.

Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate committee, pressed Mattis on the deteriorating situation, saying the United States had an urgent need for “a change in strategy, and an increase in resources if we are to turn the situation around.”

“We recognize the need for urgency,” Mattis said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Grant McCool)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Philippines army struggles as city siege enters fourth week

A joint group of police and military forces use a mallet to open a door while conducting a house to house search as part of clearing operations in different sections of Marawi city. REUTERS/Stringer

By Neil Jerome Morales and Simon Lewis

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Fighting in Marawi City in the southern Philippines entered its fourth week on Tuesday with military officials conceding that troops were struggling to loosen the grip of Islamist fighters on downtown precincts despite relentless bombing.

Military spokesman Brigadier General Restituto Padilla said the urban terrain was hampering the army’s progress because the rebels had hunkered down in built-up neighborhoods, many of them with civilians they had taken as human shields.

Hundreds of other civilians were still trapped in the ruins of the town and – facing capture, starvation or bombardment from above – several have braved sniper fire to dash across a bridge to safety. Some were shot dead, a few made it alive.

Asked when the fighting would end, Padilla said: “I can’t give you an estimate because of compounding developments faced by ground commanders.”

The military had set Monday, the Philippines’ independence day, as a target date to flush out the militants, both local and foreign fighters who have pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Flags were raised at ceremony in the town on the insurgency-plagued island of Mindanao, but heavy gunfire resumed early on Tuesday, and the military continued to target the militants with mortars and helicopter-mounted machineguns.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who declared martial law in Mindanao on May 23 – hours after several hundred fighters overran parts of the town and tried to seal it off to create an Islamic caliphate – did not show at any independence day events.

Duterte is best known for a brutal war on drugs since he took office a year ago, and he has suggested that funding for the Islamist militants came from the narcotics trade.

Some media reports highlighted the absence of the president at a time of serious conflict, but a spokesman said he was tired and needed to rest.

The Philippines has been fighting twin insurgencies from Maoist-led rebels and Muslim separatists in the south for nearly 50 years. Critics say military action is not enough to bring peace to a region that has long suffered from political neglect and poverty.

‘PURE PROPAGANDA’

The seizure of Marawi has alarmed Southeast Asian nations which fear Islamic State – on a backfoot in Iraq and Syria – is trying to set up a stronghold on Mindanao that could threaten their region.

The ultra-radical group’s news agency, Amaq, said the military in the largely Christian Philippines had “completely failed” to take back Muslim-majority Marawi.

“Islamic State fighters are spread in more than two-thirds of Marawi and tighten the chokehold on the Philippine army that is incapable of maintaining control of the situation,” it said.

Padilla branded the Amaq report “pure propaganda”.

Responding to the report, Lieutenant General Carlito Galvez, head of military command in Western Mindanao, told Reuters the militants controlled 20 percent of the town.

That is at least twice the area that the military had given a week ago, when it had said the rebels were holed up in a sliver of urban terrain equal to 10 percent and shrinking.

Almost the entire population of about 200,000 fled after the militants tried to overrun it, but the military believes that beyond the checkpoints now fencing off its main roads there are still some 300-600 civilians trapped or being held hostage.

Padilla said about 100 militants were still fighting, down from the estimated 400-500 who stormed the town.

Former military chief Rodolfo Biazon told ABC-CBN television on Monday that the government seemed to be struggling to control the situation because rebel forces could move freely in an out of the town, raising the prospect of reinforcements.

“Marawi has porous boundaries. You see them in one place of Mindanao today, you see them in another place tomorrow,” said Biazon, also a former legislator.

As of Tuesday, the number of security forces and civilians who had died in the battle for Marawi officially stood at 58 and 26, respectively. The death toll of militants was put at 202.

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency said that at least 200 government troops had been killed and many had abandoned their posts, leaving behind weapons that were seized by the militants.

It released a video showing the insurgents fighting and what it said was the execution of six Christians who were shot simultaneously in the back of the head. Reuters was not able to independently confirm the authenticity of the video.

At dawn on Tuesday, five police officers and five Christian civilians ran through the city’s commercial district to reach a government-controlled area on the Agus River’s west bank.

The military said that, in another incident, the insurgents knocked on the door of a house where 18 people were hiding. They escaped through a back door, but five were shot dead, eight were captured and only five made it to safety at the river.

(For graphic on Islamic State-linked groups in the Philippines south, click: tmsnrt.rs/2rYIHTj)

(For graphic on battle of Marawi, click: tmsnrt.rs/2qBkSPk)

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema and Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel)