Tag Archives: War

U.S. moves THAAD anti-missile to South Korean site, sparking protests

A U.S. military vehicle which is a part of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system arrives in Seongju, South Korea, April 26, 2017. Kim Jun-beom/Yonhap via REUTERS

By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – The U.S. military started moving parts of an anti-missile defense system to a deployment site in South Korea on Wednesday, triggering protests from villagers and criticism from China, amid tension over North Korea’s weapons development.

The earlier-than-expected steps to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system was also denounced by the frontrunner in South Korea’s presidential election on May 9.

South Korea’s defense ministry said elements of THAAD were moved to the deployment site, on what had been a golf course, about 250 km (155 miles) south of the capital, Seoul.

“South Korea and the United States have been working to secure an early operational capability of the THAAD system in response to North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile threat,” the ministry said in a statement.

The battery was expected to be operational by the end of the year, it said.

The United States and South Korea agreed last year to deploy the THAAD to counter the threat of missile launches by North Korea. They say it is solely aimed at defending against North Korea.

But China says the system’s advanced radar can penetrate deep into its territory and undermine its security, while it will do little to deter the North, and is adamant in its opposition.

“China strongly urges the United States and South Korea to stop actions that worsen regional tensions and harm China’s strategic security interests and cancel the deployment of the THAAD system and withdraw the equipment,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a briefing.

“China will resolutely take necessary steps to defend its interests,” Geng said, without elaborating.

China is North Korea’s sole major ally and is seen as crucial to U.S.-led efforts to rein in its bellicose, isolated neighbor.

The United States began moving the first elements of the system to South Korea in March after the North tested four ballistic missiles.

South Korea has accused China of discriminating against some South Korean companies operating in China because of the deployment.

The liberal politician expected to win South Korea’s election, Moon Jae-in, has called for a delay in the deployment, saying the new administration should make a decision after gathering public opinion and more talks with Washington.

A spokesman for Moon said moving the parts to the site “ignored public opinion and due process” and demanded it be suspended.

Television footage showed military trailers carrying equipment, including what appeared to be launch canisters, to the battery site.

Protesters shouted and hurled water bottles at the vehicles over lines of police holding them back.

The Pentagon said the system was critical to defend South Korea and its allies against North Korean missiles and deployment would be completed “as soon as feasible”.

‘WE WILL FIGHT’

More than 10 protesters were injured, some of them with fractures, in clashes with police, Kim Jong-kyung, a leader of villagers opposing the deployment, told Reuters.

Kim said about 200 protesters rallied overnight and they would keep up their opposition.

“There’s still time for THAAD to be actually up and running so we will fight until equipment is withdrawn from the site and ask South Korea’s new government to reconsider,” Kim told Reuters by telephone.

A police official in the nearby town of Seongju said police had withdrawn from the area and were not aware of any injuries.

The United States and North Korea have been stepping up warnings to each other in recent weeks over North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles in defiance of U.N. resolutions.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat is perhaps the most serious security challenge confronting U.S. President Donald Trump. He has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile.

North Korea says it needs the weapons to defend itself and has vowed to strike the United States and its Asian allies at the first sign of any attack on it.

The United States is sending the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to waters off the Korean peninsula, where it will join the USS Michigan, a nuclear submarine that docked in South Korea on Tuesday. South Korea’s navy has said it will hold drills with the U.S. strike group.

North Korea’s foreign ministry denounced a scheduled U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday, chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, saying the United States was “not morally entitled” to force members states to impose sanctions on it.

“It is a wild dream for the U.S. to think of depriving the DPRK of its nuclear deterrent through military threat and sanctions. It is just like sweeping the sea with a broom,” the North’s KCNA cited a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name.

China’s envoy on North Korea, Wu Dawei, met his Japanese counterpart, Kenji Kanasugi, for talks in Tokyo and they agreed that they would “respond firmly” to any further North Korean provocation, Japan’s foreign ministry said.

“We are against anything that might lead to war or chaos,” Wu said.

KCNA said earlier leader Kim Jong Un had supervised the country’s “largest-ever” live-fire drill to mark Tuesday’s 85th founding anniversary of its military, with more than 300 large-caliber, self-propelled artillery pieces on its east coast.

“The brave artillerymen mercilessly and satisfactorily hit the targets and the gunshots were very correct, he said, adding that they showed well the volley of gunfire of our a-match-for-a-hundred artillery force giving merciless punishment to the hostile forces,” KCNA cited Kim as saying.

There had been fears North Korea would mark the anniversary with its sixth nuclear test or a long-range missile launch.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Robert Birsel)

Mosul businesses start reconstruction without waiting for final Islamic State defeat

Workers rebulid a shop that was destroyed during fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic state fighters, eastern Mosul, Iraq, April 21, 2017. REUTERS/ Muhammad Hamed

By Mohammed Al-Ramahi

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Some businessmen in Mosul have begun rebuilding their shattered premises without waiting for financial support from the cash-strapped Iraqi government or for the final defeat of Islamic State in the city.

“If we wait for support, it could take a long time,” said Rafeh Ghanem, who owns an automotive spare-parts business in the eastern side of the city.

An airstrike in January reduced the two-storey building that houses his shop and dozens of others to a heap of rubble and twisted steel rods.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces took back the eastern side of Mosul in January, after 100 days of fighting. They are now fighting Islamic State in districts lying west of the Tigris river that bisects the city.

Ghanem said he and the 25 other businesses that rent space in the building agreed to contribute funds to help the landlord clear the debris and rebuild one of the two storeys.

Reconstruction started on April 11 and Ghanem hopes to return to business in three to four months.

He says waiting is of no use since the price of building materials is expected to rise as more reconstruction projects get under way, boosting demand for steel and cement.

The city, captured by IS in 2014, has suffered extensive damage as hundreds of houses and public buildings including the airport, the main railway station and the university have been destroyed.

Cement and steel prices have gone down steeply since the militants were defeated in eastern Mosul, as road connections have opened up with the rest of Iraq and Turkey, allowing supplies to resume.

A metric ton of cement used to sell for up to 350,000 Iraqi dinars ($300) after the militants took over nearly three years ago. It now costs 80,000 to 90,000, said an importer, Saif Ibrahim.

For Ghanem, there is no other choice but to rebuild the city which had a pre-war population of more than 2 million.

“We live in this city, we have to bring it back.” ($1 = 1,167.0000 Iraqi dinars)

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Turkish warplanes kill six Kurdish militants in northern Iraq: army

A U.S. military commander (R) walks with a commander (C) from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) as they inspect the damage at YPG headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria. REUTERS/ Rodi Said

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish warplanes hit Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq on Wednesday and killed six militants, the military said, in a second day of cross-border raids.

A military statement said the air strikes targeted the Zap region, the Turkish name for a river which flows across the Turkish-Iraqi border and is known as Zab in Iraq.

The air strikes hit “two hiding places and one shelter, and killed six separatist terrorist organisation militants who were understood to be preparing an attack,” the statement said.

The raids were part of a widening campaign against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has also hit other Kurdish fighters inside Iraq – apparently by accident.

On Tuesday, Turkish planes bombed Kurdish targets in Iraq’s Sinjar region and northeast Syria, killing about 70 militants inside the two neighbouring states, according to a Turkish military statement.

The United States expressed “deep concern” over those air strikes and said they were not authorized by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

Five members of the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, which are also deployed in Sinjar, were killed. Kurdish authorities who run their own autonomous region in north Iraq enjoy good relation with Turkey and, like Ankara, oppose the presence of a PKK affiliate in Sinjar.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday told Reuters that he would not allow Sinjar to become a PKK base, adding that Ankara informed its partners including the United States, Russia and Iraqi Kurdish authorities ahead of the operation.

On Wednesday, Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Huseyin Muftuoglu said the parties were informed through both military and diplomatic channels.

Turkey had passed on information to the United States and Russian military attaches in Ankara, Muftuoglu said, and Turkish army chief Hulusi Akar also held a telephone conversation with his U.S. and Russian counterparts.

The Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar, responsible for providing command and air control in regions including Iraq and Syria, was also informed in advance, Muftuoglu said.

Designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state for Kurdish autonomy. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, most of them Kurds.

The army also reported on Wednesday cross-border mortar fire from two areas inside Syria — one believed to be under the control of Syrian government forces and the other by Kurdish YPG militants. It said there were no casualties, and it retaliated.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara and Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul; Editing by Dominic Evans and Angus MacSwan)

U.S. says raised deep concerns with Turkey over air strikes

Fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) inspect the damage at their headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria April 25, 2017. REUTERS/ Rodi Said

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Tuesday expressed “deep concern” over Turkish air strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq and said they were not authorized by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

The raids in Iraq’s Sinjar region and northeast Syria killed at least 20 in a campaign against groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey for Kurdish autonomy.

Turkey is part of the U.S.-led military coalition fighting militants in Syria.

Ankara has strongly opposed Washington’s support for Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters who are part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have been closing in on the Islamic State bastion of Raqqa.

“We have expressed those concerns with the government of Turkey directly,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on a conference call.

“These air strikes were not approved by the coalition and led to the unfortunate loss of life of our partner forces in the fight against” Islamic State, he said.

Toner said while the United States recognized Turkey’s concerns with the PKK, the cross-border raids harmed the coalition’s efforts to fight Islamic State.

“We recognize their concerns about the PKK but these kinds of actions frankly harm the coalition’s efforts to go after ISIS and frankly harm our partners on the ground who are conducting that fight,” he added.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Paul Simao)

Iraqi forces using siege and stealth to evict Islamic State from Mosul

FILE PHOTO - Federal police members fire a rocket at Islamic State fighters' positions during a battle at Jada district in western Mosul. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

By Ahmed Aboulenein

MOSUL, Iraq, (Reuters) – Iraqi forces are using siege and stealth tactics to drive Islamic State militants out of Mosul’s Old City, an Iraqi general said, as his forces sought to minimize casualties among hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the cramped, historic neighborhood.

Explosions from two car bombs could be heard nearby as Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi spoke to Reuters at his command post on Monday, and a Reuters correspondent saw thick smoke rising from the blasts.

“Most houses in the Old City are very old and its streets and alleyways are very narrow,” said Assadi, a commander of Iraqi counter-terrorism units in Mosul. “So to avoid civilian losses we are using siege, but that does not mean we will not enter the Old City.”

Assadi said his units were refraining from engaging enemy forces in positions where the militants were holding civilians as human shields.

“Using very careful methods and considerations, we will liberate our people from Daesh,” he said, using an Arab acronym of Islamic State.

Government forces have surrounded the militants in the northwestern quarter, including the Old City, home to the Grand al-Nuri mosque, where their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a “caliphate” over parts of Iraq and Syria.

The ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim fighters are countering the offensive using booby traps, suicide motorcycle attacks, sniper and mortar fire and, occasionally, shells filled with toxic gas.

With food and water becoming scarcer in neighborhoods of Mosul still under IS control, up to half a million people are believed to be trapped there, including 400,000 in the Old City alone, according to United Nations estimate.

Lise Grande, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, told Reuters last week fighting in the Old City could lead to “a humanitarian catastrophe, perhaps the worst” in the three-year war to evict Islamic State from Iraq.

International aid organizations have estimated the civilian and military death toll at several thousand since the U.S.-backed offensive by government forces to retake Mosul began in October. More than 330,000 people have been displaced so far, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

“Humanitarian partners are preparing contingency plans for a number of different displacement scenarios in western Mosul, including for a possible mass outflow of 350,000-450,000 civilians, or a siege-like situation of the Old City,” the U.N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report on Tuesday.

Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, was captured by Islamic State in mid-2014, but government forces have retaken most of it, including the half that lies east of the Tigris River.

The Iraqi military gained additional ground on Tuesday, dislodging the militants from Hay al-Tanak, one of Mosul’s largest districts by area, on the western edge of the city.

Assadi said the battle should end “very soon, God willing” but declined to indicate a time frame. “This is a guerrilla war, not a conventional one, so we cannot estimate how long it will take; Daesh is fighting house to house.”

The Iraqi military estimate the number of Islamic State fighters who remain in Mosul at 200 to 300, mostly foreigners, compared with about 6,000 when the offensive started.

The militants “don’t let themselves get captured,” said Assadi. “They came to die and the majority of them are now in hell.”

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Larry King)

Air strikes kill at least 12, damage hospital in Syria’s Idlib: medics, monitor

Damaged vehicles and hospital are pictured at a site hit by overnight airstrike, in Kafr Takharim, northwest of Idlib city, Syria April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian or Russian air strikes killed more than a dozen people and severely damaged a hospital in and around a town in rebel-held Idlib province on Tuesday, local medical workers and a monitoring group said.

The attacks came as Syria’s air force and Russian jets intensified their bombardment of Idlib, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Idlib is an insurgent stronghold, one of the few large areas still under rebel control in the west of the country. Rebels and their families who have chosen to leave areas under government siege around Damascus in evacuation deals have headed for Idlib.

A spokesman at the hospital in Kafr Takharim in Idlib told Reuters an air strike hit its courtyard killing 14 people, including patients.

The Observatory said there were no deaths from the hospital strike, but that the bombardment had put it out of action.

Separate air strikes southwest of Kafr Takharim killed at least 12 people including civilians and rebel fighters, the Observatory said.

(Reporting by Ammar Abdullah and John Davison; Editing by Alison Williams)

Ukraine cuts power to pro-Russia separatist region

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine cut electricity to parts of an eastern region controlled by pro-Russian separatists on Tuesday, citing unpaid debt – a step the Kremlin said amounted to a rejection by Kiev of breakaway territories.

Three years after Moscow annexed the Crimean region, tensions between Ukraine and separatists in the Russian-held eastern part of the country remain high and a 2015 ceasefire is violated regularly.

“This night, the power supply to the temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk region was completely halted,” Vsevolod Kovalchuk, head of the state power distributor Ukrenergo, said on Facebook.

Local media quoted a separatist official as saying the rebel-held territory, which borders Russia, had been prepared for the suspension and would connect to other sources.

Boris Gryzlov, Moscow’s envoy to the long-running Ukraine peace talks, criticised the move as politically motivated and said Russia would provide power to the affected territory.

Luhansk residents told Reuters by phone that electricity supplies appeared to be working as normal.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the decision to cut power to the territory was “another step by Ukraine on the road to rejecting territory,” which has been under separatist control since 2014.

Ukraine cut gas supplies to Luhansk in 2015, also blaming unpaid debts, and imposed a trade blockade on the occupied regions in March.

Kiev has accused the area of accumulating 2.6 billion hryvnias ($97.67 million) in unpaid electricity charges.

An American paramedic working for European security watchdog OSCE’s monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine was killed and two others injured on Sunday when their vehicle struck a mine near small village of Pryshyb, closed to Luhansk.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev, additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova in Moscow, Editing by Andrew Heavens and Richard Lough)

UN seeks to avert famine in Yemen, where a child dies every 10 minutes

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres attends the High-level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations needs massive funds to avert famine in Yemen and warring parties there must ensure humanitarian aid can be delivered, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday as he opened a donor conference in Geneva.

A U.N. appeal for $2.1 billion this year for Yemen, where Guterres said a child under the age of five dies of preventable causes every 10 minutes, is only 15 percent covered.

Two years of conflict between Houthi rebels aligned with Iran and a Western-backed, Saudi-led coalition that carries out air strikes almost daily have killed at least 10,000 people in Yemen, and hunger and disease are rife there.

Nearly 19 million people or two-thirds of the population need emergency aid, Guterres said, renewing a call for peace talks and urging all parties to “facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid by air, sea and land”.

“We are witnessing the starving and the crippling of an entire generation. We must act now to save lives,” he added.

“All infrastructure must remain open and operational.”

Yemen’s Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid Bin Daghr said his government, which controls only part of the country, would allow access for aid supplies. “We are ready to open new corridors for this aid,” he said.

Initial pledges announced at the conference included $150 million from Saudi Arabia, $100 million from Kuwait, 50 million euros ($54.39 million) from Germany and $94 million from the United States.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has committed $1 billion to Yemen and reached a record 5 million people last month with rations but needs to scale up deliveries to reach 9 million who are deemed “severely food insecure”, its regional director Muhannad Hadi said in an interview.

They include some 3 million malnourished children.

“REAL FAMINE THAT WILL SHAME US”

“If the international community does not move right now, and if WFP does not get the right funding and support to address all needs, I think the cost of that will be real famine that will shame us in coming months and weeks,” Hadi told Reuters.

Yemen imports 90 percent of its food, 70 percent of which passes through the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah. Concerns are growing about a possible attack by the Yemeni government and its Arab allies, who say the Houthis use it to smuggle weapons and ammunition.

“We are concerned about (all) facilities in Yemen because at this stage we can’t afford to even lose one bridge or one road network let alone to lose a major facility like Hodeidah port,” Hadi said.

“In order to achieve security in this region, we have to address the food security needs. It’s impossible to have security in the country while people are hungry,” he said.

The U.N. called on April 5 for safeguarding of the port, where five cranes have been destroyed by airstrikes, forcing ships to line up offshore because they cannot be unloaded.

U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O’Brien told the conference the United Nations and its humanitarian partners are scaling up and are prepared to do more, “provided there are resources and access”.

(This version of the story corrects figure in para 2 to $2.1 billion instead of $1.2 billion)

(Editing by Catherine Evans)

Hundreds more join Mosul exodus as Iraqi forces retake two more western districts

Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) fires towards Islamic State militants during a battle, west of Mosul,Iraq April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Maher Chmaytelli

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Pushing carts loaded with bags, babies and the elderly, hundreds of people fled Mosul on Saturday after Iraqi forces retook two more districts in the west of the city from Islamic State.

After walking for miles, families were taken by bus from a government checkpoint in the south of the city to camps housing more than 410,000 people displaced since the offensive to retake Mosul began in October.

“We left with no water, food or electricity,” said 63-year-old Abu Qahtan, the elder of a group of 41 people from five families. “We left with the clothes on our backs.”

Iraqi forces have taken much of Mosul from the militants who overran the city in June 2014. The military now controls the eastern districts and are making advances in the west.

Islamic State fighters, holding out in the Old City, are surrounded in the northwest and are using booby traps, sniper and mortar fire to defend themselves.

On Saturday, artillery and gun fire could be heard as families arrived from Hay al-Tanak district which they said was still half controlled by the militants.

Troops, backed by helicopters, were moving towards the al-Nuri mosque where, nearly three years ago, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced his self-declared caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria.

A Reuters reporter, standing within sight of the mosque, saw heavy smoke in that area after an air strike.

The U.S.-trained Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) has retaken the nearby al-Thaura and al-Saha districts, statements said.

CTS commander Major General Maan Saadi said his troops were linking up with Iraq’s Federal Police moving in on the Old City from a different position.

“We are completing the encirclement of the terrorists in the Old City,” he told Reuters.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians are still trapped in western Mosul, where Iraqi forces are making slow progress against Islamic State in what is a labyrinth of narrow streets.

As of April 20, some 503,000 people have been displaced from Mosul, of which 91,000 have returned, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said, citing government figures.

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, is the militants’ last urban stronghold in the country.

(Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Russia complains to U.S. over exclusion from Syria chemical probe

A crater is seen at the site of an airstrike, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has told the United States it regrets Washington’s opposition to letting its inspectors take part in an investigation into a chemical weapons attack in Syria earlier this month, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

It said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the two sides agreed to consider one more time an “objective investigation into the incident” under the aegis of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The U.S. State Department said that during the call Tillerson reiterated to Lavrov his support for the OPCW’s existing investigative mechanism. They also discussed a range of issues, including those covered during Tillerson’s April 11-12 visit to Moscow, the department said in a statement.

The United States accused the Syrian army of carrying out the April 4 attack in which scores of people died from poison gas, and it responded by launching cruise missiles against a Syrian air base.

Russia has defended its ally Damascus and blamed the incident on rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The episode added to a long list of disputes between the two countries and has dashed Russian hopes that ties might improve with Donald Trump in the White House. Trump said last week that relations with Moscow “may be at an all-time low.”

Referring to another irritant in the relationship, the Russian ministry said Lavrov called on Tillerson to hand back “Russian diplomatic property in the USA unlawfully confiscated by the Barack Obama administration.”

Former President Obama expelled 35 suspected Russian spies in December and ordered the Russians to depart two countryside vacation retreats outside Washington and New York that he said were linked to espionage..

The ministry said the parties had agreed to launch a working group soon “to seek ways to get rid of irritants in bilateral relations.”

(writing by Denis Pinchuk; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Cynthia Osterman)