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In escalation, India says launches strikes on militants in Pakistan

By Sanjeev Miglani and Asad Hashim

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – India said on Thursday it had conducted “surgical strikes” on suspected militants preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-ruled Kashmir, making its first direct military response to an attack on an army base it blames on Pakistan.

Pakistan said two of its soldiers had been killed in exchanges of fire and in repulsing an Indian “raid”, but denied India had made any targeted strikes across the de facto frontier that runs through the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

The cross-border action inflicted significant casualties, the Indian army’s head of operations told reporters in New Delhi, while a senior government official said Indian soldiers had crossed the border to target militant camps.

The announcement followed through on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s warning that those India held responsible “would not go unpunished” for a Sept. 18 attack on an Indian army base at Uri, near the Line of Control, that killed 18 soldiers.

The strikes also raised the possibility of a military escalation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan that would wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire.

Lt General Ranbir Singh, the Indian army’s director general of military operations (DGMO), said the strikes were launched on Wednesday based on “very specific and credible information that some terrorist units had positioned themselves … with an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes”.

Singh said he had called his Pakistani counterpart to inform him of the operation, which had ended. India later briefed opposition parties and foreign ambassadors in New Delhi but stopped short of disclosing operational details.

“It would indicate that this was all pretty well organized,” said one diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because the briefing by Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was confidential.

Pakistan’s military spokesman slammed the Indian account as “totally baseless and completely a lie”, saying the contact between DGMOs only included communication regarding cross-border firing, which was within existing rules of engagement.

“We deny it. There is no such thing on the ground. There is just the incident of the firing last night, which we responded to,” Lt General Asim Bajwa told news channel Geo TV.

“We have fired in accordance with the rules of engagement[…] We are acting in a responsible way.”

Pakistan said nine of its soldiers had also been wounded. Neither side’s account could be independently verified.

India’s disclosure of such strikes was unprecedented, said Ajai Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, and sent a message not only to his own people but to the international community.

“India expects global support to launch more focused action against Pakistan,” Sahni told Reuters. “There was tremendous pressure on the Indian prime minister to prove that he is ready to take serious action.”

NO MORE STRATEGIC RESTRAINT

The border clash also comes at a delicate time for Pakistan, with powerful Army Chief of Staff General Raheel Sharif due to retire shortly and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif still to decide on a successor.

The Pakistani premier condemned what he called India’s “unprovoked and naked aggression” and called a cabinet meeting on Friday to discuss further steps.

Share markets in India and Pakistan fell on India’s announcement. India’s NSE index closed down 1.6 percent after falling as much 2.1 percent to its lowest since Aug. 29, while Pakistan’s benchmark 100-share index was down 0.15 percent.

India announced its retaliation at a news conference in New Delhi that was hurriedly called, only to be delayed, as Modi chaired a meeting of his cabinet committee on security to be briefed on the operation.

“The prime minister is clear that this is exactly what we should have done,” a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “Informing the world about the surgical strike was important today.”

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice spoke with her Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, before news of the Indian cross-border operation broke, the White House said.

Rice discussed deepening collaboration between the United States and India on counter-terrorism and urged Pakistan to combat and delegitimize individuals and entities designated by the United Nations as terrorists.

SIX-HOUR EXCHANGE

Exchanges of fire took place in the Bhimber, Hot Spring, Kel and Lipa sectors in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and lasted about six hours, the Pakistani military said earlier.

An Indian army officer in Kashmir said there had been shelling from the Pakistani side of the border into the Nowgam district, near the Line of Control, and the exchange of fire continued during the day.

There were no casualties or damage reported on the Indian side of the frontier. An Indian military source told Reuters that the operation was carried out on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control where there were between five and seven infiltration “launchpads”.

“It was a shallow strike. The operation began at around midnight and it was over before sunrise,” this source, who had been briefed by his superiors on the operation, said. “All our men our back. Significant casualties inflicted. Damage assessment still going on.”

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full, but govern separate parts, and have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

Tension between the South Asian rivals has been high since an Indian crackdown on dissent in Kashmir following the killing by security forces of Burhan Wani, a young separatist leader, in July.

They rose further when New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the Uri attack, which inflicted the heaviest toll on the Indian army of any single incident in 14 years.

India has been ratcheting up pressure on Pakistan, seeking to isolate it at the U.N. General Assembly in New York and winning expressions of condemnation from the United States, Britain and France over the attack.

China, another of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and a traditional ally of Pakistan, has urged dialogue between the two antagonists.

On Wednesday, officials from several countries said a November summit of a the South Asian regional group due to be held in Islamabad may be called off after India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan said they would not attend.

(Writing by Douglas Busvine; Additional reporting by Fayaz Bukhari in SRINAGAR, Rupam Jain in NEW DELHI, Drazen Jorgic and Mehreen Zahra-Malik in ISLAMABAD.; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Kerry defends diplomacy as Russian-backed forces pound Aleppo

People dig in the rubble in an ongoing search for survivors at a site hit previously by an airstrike in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighborhood of Aleppo,

By Patricia Zengerle and Lisa Barrington

CARTAGENA, Colombia/BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry defended his efforts to negotiate with Moscow over the war in Syria on Monday, despite the collapse of a ceasefire that has led to a massive Russian-backed assault on the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo.

Medical supplies were running out in eastern Aleppo, with victims pouring into barely functioning hospitals as Russia and its ally President Bashar al-Assad ignored Western pleas to stop the bombing of the last major urban area in opposition hands.

Moscow and Damascus launched their assault last week despite months of negotiations led by Kerry that resulted in a short-lived ceasefire this month. The secretary of state’s diplomatic overtures to Moscow had faced scepticism, including from other senior officials within the U.S. administration.

Kerry said his failed ceasefire was not the cause of the fighting, and the only way to stop the war was to talk. He lashed back at critics, including Republican senator John McCain, who described him last week as “intrepid but delusional” for putting too much faith in Russia.

“The cause of what is happening is Assad and Russia wanting to pursue a military victory,” Kerry told reporters during a trip to Colombia. “Today there is no ceasefire and we’re not talking to them right now. And what’s happening? The place is being utterly destroyed. That’s not delusional. That’s a fact.”

The Syrian government offensive to recapture all of Aleppo, with Russian air support and Iranian help on the ground, has been accompanied by bombing that residents describe as unprecedented in its ferocity.

Some 250,000 civilians remain trapped in the besieged, opposition-held sector of Syria’s biggest city. Hundreds of people, including dozens of children, have been reported killed since Thursday night by an onslaught that includes bunker-busting bombs that bring down whole buildings.

In a tense confrontation at the United Nations over the weekend, the United States called Russia’s bombing in support of Assad “barbarism”, and said Russia was killing civilians, medical staff and aid workers.

Moscow and Damascus say they are bombing only militants, although video from Aleppo has repeatedly shown small children being dug out of the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Inside the rebel-held sector of what was once Syria’s largest city, there are only about 30 doctors left, coping with scores of fresh wounded every day.

“Aleppo city’s hospitals are overwhelmed with wounded people … Things are starting to run out,” said Aref al-Aref, an intensive care medical worker, who spoke from Aleppo.

“We are unable to bring anything in … not equipment and not even medical staff. Some medical staff are in the countryside, unable to come in because of the siege,” he said.

Bebars Mishal, a civil defense worker in rebel-held Aleppo, said overnight bombardment continued until 6 a.m. (0300 GMT).

“It’s the same situation. Especially at night, the bombardment intensifies, it becomes more violent, using all kinds of weapons, phosphorous and napalm and cluster bombs,” Mishal told Reuters.

“Now, there’s just the helicopter, and God only knows where it will bomb. God knows which building will collapse,” he said. “Everybody is scared … unable to go out. They don’t know what to do, or where to go.”

Russia and Assad appear to have abandoned diplomacy last week, betting instead on delivering a decisive military blow against the president’s enemies on the battlefield. Capturing rebel districts of Aleppo would be the biggest victory of the war so far for Assad, crushing the revolt in its last major urban stronghold.

NO RESPITE

Indicating there would be no respite soon, the Syrian army issued a statement reiterating its call for civilians to steer clear of rebel positions and bases in eastern Aleppo.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring body, says at least 237 people, including at least 38 children, have been killed in Aleppo and nearby countryside since the army declared the end of the ceasefire a week ago. Civil defense workers in opposition territory put the death toll at 400.

The rebel-held sector of Aleppo is completely encircled, making it impossible to receive supplies. The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) charity group said this week in a statement that only 30 doctors remained inside.

“We have patients who will die in the dozens if they are not evacuated,” Osama Abo Ezz, a general surgeon and Aleppo coordinator for SAMS, told Reuters, speaking from an area near Aleppo.

“The medical staff is insufficient and completely exhausted. The blood bank refrigerators are completely empty. Vital medicines have almost run out. The ICU beds are insufficient and always full. The CT scanner is out of order,” he said.

Residents say the air strikes are using more powerful bombs than ever. A Syrian military source told Reuters on Saturday that weapons were being used that could destroy rebel tunnels and bunkers, dug out during years of opposition control.

A water pumping station serving eastern Aleppo has been destroyed. A spokesman for the World Health Organisation said a technical mission was visiting it to assess damage.

“We don’t know how long it will take to restore the functionality,” said the spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic.

Rescue efforts during the bombing have been hampered because damage has made roads impassable and because civil defense centers and rescue equipment have themselves been struck.

DIPLOMACY

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war between Assad’s government and insurgents, and 11 million driven from their homes. Much of the east of the country is now in the hands of Islamic State fighters, the enemies of all other sides.

Since Russia joined the war a year ago to support Assad’s government, the administration of President Barack Obama has been engaged in intensive diplomacy with Moscow, trying to end the war between the government and most insurgent groups and turn the focus toward the common fight against Islamic State.

But the latest escalation has left U.S. Syria policy in tatters, all but destroying any hope of a breakthrough before Obama leaves office next year.

The Kremlin said on Monday tough Western condemnation might hinder any resolution to the crisis. Moscow saw “absolutely no prospect” for holding a summit on Syria, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Moscow blames Washington for the failure of the ceasefire, arguing that the United States failed to prevent rebels from using the truce to regroup.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut, Joseph Nasr in Berlin and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; writing by Peter Graff and Tom Perry; editing by Andrew Roche)

Senate clears way for $1.15 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate cleared the way for a $1.15 billion sale of tanks and other military equipment to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, defending a frequent partner in the Middle East recently subject to harsh criticism in Congress.

The Senate voted 71 to 27 to kill legislation that would have stopped the sale.

The overwhelming vote stopped an effort led by Republican Senator Rand Paul and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy to block the deal over concerns including Saudi Arabia’s role in the 18-month-long war in Yemen and worries that it might fuel an ongoing regional arms race.

The Pentagon announced on Aug. 9 that the State Department had approved the potential sale of more than 130 Abrams battle tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment to Saudi Arabia.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said General Dynamics Corp would be the principal contractor for the sale.

Paul, Murphy and other opponents of the arms deal were sharply critical of the Riyadh government during debate before the vote, citing Yemen, the kingdom’s human rights record and its international support for a conservative form of Islam.

“If you’re serious about stopping the flow of extremist recruiting across this globe, then you have to be serious that the … brand of Islam that is spread by Saudi Arabia all over the world, is part of the problem,” Murphy said.

The criticism came days before lawmakers are expected to back another measure seen as anti-Saudi, a bill that would allow lawsuits against the country’s government by relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

President Barack Obama has promised to veto that bill, but congressional leaders say there is a strong chance that lawmakers will override the veto and let the measure become law. Overriding a presidential veto requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate.

In Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is battling Iranian-allied Houthis, the Houthis have accused the United States of arming and supporting the Saudis, who intervened on the side of Yemen’s exiled government.

The war has killed over 10,000 people and displaced more than 3 million.

But backers of the deal said Saudi Arabia is an important U.S. ally in a war-torn region, deserving of U.S. support.

“This motion comes at a singularly unfortunate time and would serve to convince Saudi Arabia and all other observers that the United States does not live up to its commitments,” Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Grant McCool and Sandra Maler)

Syria ceasefire deal in balance as Aleppo aid stalls

By Tom Perry and Tom Miles

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Syrian government forces and rebels had yet to withdraw from a road needed to deliver aid to the city of Aleppo on Thursday, threatening the most serious international peacemaking effort in months as the sides accused each other of violating a truce.

The aid delivery to rebel-held eastern Aleppo, which is blockaded by government forces, is an important test of a U.S.-Russian deal that has brought about a significant reduction in violence since a ceasefire took effect on Monday.

The U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said the United States and Russia were expected to manage the disengagement of forces from the road, but also criticized Damascus for failing to provide permits needed to make aid deliveries to other areas.

France, which backs the opposition, became the first U.S. ally to publicly question the deal with Moscow, urging Washington to share details of the agreement and saying that without aid for Aleppo, it was not credible.

Control of the Castello Road is divided between the government and rebels who have been battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad for more than five years. It has been a major frontline in the war.

Russia, whose air force helped the Syrian government to blockade opposition-held Aleppo this summer, said on Wednesday it was preparing for the Syrian army and rebel fighters to begin a staged withdrawal from the road.

But on Thursday morning, both Syrian government and rebel forces were still manning their positions. An official in an Aleppo-based Syrian rebel group said international parties had told him aid was now due to be delivered on Friday.

“Today the withdrawal is supposed to happen, with aid entering tomorrow. This is what is supposed to happen, but there is nothing to give hope,” Zakaria Malahifji, of the Aleppo-based rebel group Fastaqim, told Reuters.

Malahifji said rebels were ready to withdraw but worried the government would exploit any such move to stage an advance.

“If the regime withdraws 500 meters, east and west (of the road) … then the guys will be able to withdraw a bit,” Malahifji said. “But the regime is not responding. The guys can see its positions in front of them.”

There was no comment from state media or the army about the proposed withdrawal.

U.N. WAITS FOR PERMITS

The U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said both the rebels and the government were responsible for delaying aid deliveries into Aleppo.

“The reason we’re not in eastern Aleppo has again been a combination of very difficult and detailed discussions around security monitoring and passage of roadblocks, which is both opposition and government,” he said.

In other areas, de Mistura was categorical about blaming the Syrian government, saying it had not yet provided the proper permits. The Syrian government has said all aid deliveries must be conducted in coordination with it.

About 300,000 people are thought to be living in eastern Aleppo, while more than one million live in the government-controlled western half of the city.

Two convoys of aid for Aleppo have been waiting in no-man’s land to proceed to Aleppo after crossing the Turkish border.

If a green light was given, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the first 20 trucks would move to Aleppo and if they reached the city safely, the second convoy would then also leave. The two convoys were carrying enough food for 80,000 people for a month, he said.

The United States and Russia have backed opposing sides in the Syrian war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, forced 11 million from their homes, and created the world’s worst refugee crisis since the World War Two.

Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, has been a focal point of the conflict this year. Government forces backed by militias from Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon have recently achieved their long-held objective of encircling the rebel-held east.

MOSCOW CRITICIZES WASHINGTON

Russia’s intervention a year ago in support of Assad has given it critical leverage over the diplomatic process.

Its ally, Assad, appears as uncompromising as ever. He vowed again on Monday to win back the entire country, which has been splintered into areas controlled by the state, an array of rebel factions, the Islamic State group, and the Kurdish YPG militia.

Washington hopes the pact will pave the way to a resumption of political talks. But a similar agreement unraveled earlier this year, and this one also faces enormous challenges.

Under the agreement, nationalist rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army are supposed to disengage from a group that was known as the Nusra Front until it broke ties with al Qaeda in July and changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

A Syrian military source said this was not happening. “I believe they want to obstruct the main demand of the Syrian state and leadership, and of Russia – the separation of Nusra from the rest of the organizations, and it appears that this will not happen,” the source said.

Jabhat Fateh al-Sham has played a vital role in recent fighting around Aleppo. FSA groups are suspicious of the group, which has crushed several nationalist factions. But they have also criticized its exclusion from the ceasefire agreement.

The United States and Russia are due to start coordinating military strikes against the former Nusra Front and Islamic State if all goes to plan under the deal.

But Russia said on Thursday the United States was using “a verbal smokescreen” to hide its reluctance to fulfill its part of the agreement, including separating what it called moderate opposition units from terrorist groups.

The defense ministry said only government forces were observing the truce and opposition units “controlled by the U.S.” had stepped up shelling of civilian residential areas.

Rebels say Damascus has carried out numerous violations.

While the general lines of the agreement have been made public, other parts have yet to be revealed, raising concerns among U.S. allies such as France, which is part of the coalition attacking Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called on the United States to share details of the deal saying that the information was crucial to ensure Islamist militants and not mainstream rebels were being targeted on the ground.

(Additonal reporting by John Irish in Paris and Maria Kiselyova in Moscow; Writing by Tom Perry, editing by Peter Millership)

Living like ghosts in the ruins of Syria’s besieged Aleppo

still taken from video on social media showing aleppo's emptiness

By John Davison and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – Even if it were somehow possible to escape eastern Aleppo, Abdullah Shiyani, a 10-year-old boy who dreams of being a doctor, says he wouldn’t leave. It would mean leaving behind too many people who need help.

“We have a lot of injured people here,” he told Reuters over the Internet. “Maybe we can help them.”

His father was a fighter, killed on the frontline. So he lives with his five siblings in a neighborhood that is almost an empty ghost town. They survive off money from a charity, buying potatoes, parsley and onions when they can. Three weeks ago they even had some meat.

Three of his friends were killed in a rocket attack a few months ago. With school long-since closed, he and his other friends spend their days racing through the empty streets, kicking a ball or playing a game called “guns and knives”.

They duck into buildings when the planes fly overhead, he says, because “we know about the machine guns firing from the planes”.

Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before civil war uprooted half of the country’s population and killed hundreds of thousands of people, is now the conflict’s biggest prize. Opposition-held areas are now under total siege and heavy bombardment as President Bashar al-Assad’s government attempts to deal a death blow to a five year rebellion.

The city has been divided into rebel and government-held zones for years. But recent months have seen government troops, backed by Russian air strikes and Shi’ite fighters from Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, close in on the rebel zone, where a quarter of a million people remain trapped.

Civilians reached by Reuters over the Internet and telephone tell of a bleak existence amid the ruins — of shortages of food, water and electricity, and incessant fear for their own lives and their loved ones.

“Every day there are about three to four (air) raids close to our house,” said 33-year-old mother-of-one Um Fahd, whose husband, brother and father have all been killed. “Our neighbor’s house was shelled and destroyed. A lot of people have died but we’re still here, thank God.”

She and her son survive on an allowance of $50 a month from a charity, barely enough for food.

“It’s not enough, but we’re grateful for whatever we get,” she said.

In the home she shares with her son, her sister and her sister’s three children, the entire family crams into the sturdiest room in the house whenever they hear warplanes, in the hope it will shield them from bombing.

“When the kids hear the sound of plane, they immediately know that they should go to that room,” she said.

Another woman, Um Ahmed, described how she and her husband careered through gunfire and shelling to flee during a brief window when the siege was broken. When it was reimposed, her two sons and their families remained trapped inside. Her voice trembled as she described her own escape under gunfire.

“I hesitated about leaving. I didn’t want to leave them behind. I haven’t been able to sleep at night, I’m so scared for them, because of the bombardments,” she said.

BROKEN FAMILIES

Aleppo has been one of the Middle East’s great cities for centuries. Its picturesque old center of covered spice markets has long since been reduced to rubble by street fighting. The crisis dramatically intensified earlier this year, when the government side captured territory north of the city, severing a vital supply route to Turkey.

A complete blockade of the rebel-held eastern sector was imposed in July, when pro-government forces severed the last road in. A rebel counter attack, heavily supported by Sunni Muslim jihadist groups, broke the siege in August, but government forces reimposed it in the last few days.

The government-held west of Aleppo holds more people and has also faced increasingly heavy insurgent shelling. But the destruction in the rebel-held east, targeted in daily air strikes, has been far more extensive.

The west came close to being encircled itself during fighting last month as rebels severed the only road in. The advancing government forces secured that route on Friday.

The devastation, death and displacement have left some neighborhoods of the besieged east sparsely populated, residents said. There is little work and no school. Most people spend their days trying to secure enough food to survive, and taking cover when the bombs fall. The children grow up fast.

The director of the al-Quds hospital in eastern Aleppo, Dr Hamza al-Khatib, said that during a recent suspected chlorine gas attack, children young enough to remember little other than war appeared to know instinctively how to react.

“I was shocked how five- or six-year-old children were holding oxygen masks alone, without help – like they were grown men who understood that this was the way to relieve their suffering,” he said.

Rescue workers accused the government of carrying out the Sept. 6 chlorine attack. Damascus denied involvement, saying “terror groups” were behind such attacks. The United Nations has blamed the government for previous attacks using chlorine gas.

When people die, relatives take the kids.

“My wife is looking after the five children my son left behind, and I’m helping her,” said 65-year-old Eid al-Ibrahim, whose eldest son was killed in an air strike.

People sometimes have to fight for their food.

“In our neighborhood they sell bags of five bread loaves … organized by the neighborhood council,” Ibrahim said, describing “a lot of crowding and fighting.”

Brita Hagi Hassan, president of the city council for opposition-held Aleppo, said prices had gone up by 10 times due to shortages induced by the siege. He said around 15 to 20 percent of eastern Aleppo’s residents left during the time the siege was lifted.

Many now eat little but lentils and cracked wheat. Electricity from motor generators is available only for three to six hours a day and damage to power facilities has long left eastern Aleppo with no running water.

Opposition-held neighborhoods have long suffered air strikes and attacks with barrel bombs — drums packed with explosives and shrapnel dropped from the air — from the government side.

The United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry on Syria has condemned the bombing of medical facilities in rebel-held districts, which it said were “explicitly targeted for destruction or assassination” of staff.

Damascus denies targeting civilians. A Syrian military source said the aim is to stop rebel shelling of western Aleppo and to encircle the militants in the east.

(Reporting by John Davison and Suleiman al-Khalidi; additional reporting by Tom Perry; editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff)

Mosul battle plans ready, could be concluded by year-end – Kurdish leader

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Military plans to retake Mosul from Islamic State are ready and the northern Iraqi city might be recaptured before the end of the year, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said on Friday.

The army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, will conduct the offensive but the role of pro-government militias has not been determined, Massoud Barzani said in an interview with France 24.

“There have been multiple meetings between leaders of the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army. They have finally agreed on the military plan and the role of each side,” Barzani said, without providing details.

Barzani said the timing for launching the push on Mosul, 360 km(240 miles) north of Baghdad, had not been determined, though Iraqi commanders have said it could begin as soon as late October.

Mosul, the largest city in Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate, was taken by the jihadists in 2014 when Iraqi security forces dropped their weapons and fled.

Since then, peshmerga have entrenched in its eastern and northern outskirts while retrained Iraqi forces have advanced to Qayyara, 60 km south of the city, last month.

Mosul, a mosaic of diverse ethnic and sectarian communities, poses challenges to war-planners, including which forces will participate in the battle and how the city will be governed after.

Barzani said Shi’ite Muslim militias and a Sunni militia run by former Mosul governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, which have pledged to take part in the offensive, had not yet been given a role.

“Regarding the Hashid Shaabi or the Hashid Watani, there must be an understanding between these forces and the residents of the Mosul area. Until now that does not exist,” he said.

The Hashid Shaabi is an government umbrella for mostly Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias, and the Hashid Watani is made up mainly of former local police and volunteers from Mosul who have been trained by Turkey.

Asked if the city could be retaken by the end of 2016, Barzani said: “It is possible, but the post-liberation period must be prepared for.”

“It is very important for us to have certain guarantees that this tragedy will not be repeated in the future,” he said. “So we must agree with Baghdad and with the local people as well, how can we ensure that what happened will not be repeated?”

(Reporting by Saif Hameed; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.N. says U.S.-Russia talks on Syria crucial as aid stops rolling in

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The Syrian government has effectively stopped aid convoys this month and the besieged city of Aleppo is close to running out of fuel, making U.S.-Russian peace talks in Geneva on Friday even more urgent, the United Nations said.

“Convoys are not rolling at the moment in Syria,” the U.N. humanitarian chief told reporters in Geneva, although an air bridge to the Kurdish-controlled northeastern city of Hasaka has continued operating, and there have been a handful of evacuations from the besieged towns of Foua and Madaya.

Syria’s government vets U.N. aid plans on a monthly basis, and its late and partial approval of the program for this month meant no aid had yet gone in, Stephen O’Brien said.

“We are on Sept 9, and the supplies under the September plan have not yet started.”

As he spoke U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were meeting nearby for a third time in as many weeks to clinch a nationwide ceasefire deal.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, with de O’Brien, said the talks were “addressing complex, delicate and difficult issues. “The conclusions could make, lets’s be frank, a major difference,” he said.

Helping around 250,000 people besieged in eastern Aleppo, where a battle for control has escalated in the past month, was becoming urgent, he said.

“There is a growing concern about eastern Aleppo: the issue about food, the issue about the possibility that within perhaps the next few days it will turn out to be dark because there is no fuel, problems of water.”

Opposition groups say Russia, which co-sponsors the U.N. peace process, is part of the problem and not the solution, because it has provided strong air support for fighters loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We ask any party which has influence on any of the warring parties to ensure that they recognize that the demand for humanitarian access is paramount and rises above all the other vested interests,” O’Brien said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Yemen’s Houthi leader says U.S. provides political cover for Saudi strikes

SANAA (Reuters) – The leader of Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi faction accused the United States of providing logistical support and political cover for Saudi-led air strikes in the 18-month Yemeni conflict.

In his first published interview since the start of the civil war, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi also told the Houthis’ quarterly magazine his group was open to a peaceful solution of the conflict, in which at least 10,000 people have died.

“The United States plays a major role in the aggression … including logistical support for air and naval strikes, providing various weapons … and providing complete political cover for the aggression, including protection from pressure by human rights groups and the United Nations,” he said.

The United States is a key ally of Saudi Arabia, which has come under fire from human rights groups over the air strikes that have repeatedly killed civilians in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia and its allies, which have intervened in the conflict in support of the exiled government of Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, see the Houthis as proxies of their archrival Iran.

The Houthis deny this and say Hadi and Saudi Arabia are pawns of the West bent on dominating their impoverished country and excluding them from power.

U.N.-sponsored talks to try to end the fighting collapsed last month and the Houthis and allied forces loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh have resumed shelling attacks into Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s large northern neighbor.

In his interview, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said his opponents did not understand the meaning of real dialogue.

“The hurdle facing negotiations and dialogue is that the other party wants to achieve through the talks what it wanted to achieve through war, not understanding that the path of dialogue and peace is different to the path of war,” he said.

Last month U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he had agreed in talks in Saudi Arabia with Gulf Arab states and the United Nations on a plan to restart peace talks for Yemen with a goal of forming a unity government.

Both the Houthis and the exiled government have welcomed the idea of a return to talks since then.

(Reporting By Mohammed Ghobari; Writing By Maha El Dahan; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Slow EU aid puts Syrian children’s lives on hold in Turkey

Muhammed Mazin Mekansi poses with his family at their home in Ankara

By Dasha Afanasieva

ANKARA (Reuters) – Their faces so burned by a rocket blast they cannot fully close their eyes, 13-year-old Gheis Mekansi and his sister Limar, both Syrian refugees, wait in limbo in Turkey for surgery they need to return to life and school.

A year and a half after they were caught in the attack on an opposition-controlled area of Damascus, the siblings may become victims again as 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) in aid promised by the European Union has been held up by political wrangling and red tape.

Gheis has six months to wait for facial reconstruction and needs prosthetic fingers available in Europe but not in Turkey. Until then, he and his sister stay indoors, unwilling to go outside where others laugh and stare at their disfigured faces.

“I just want to get my real face back,” Gheis said sitting next to his mother and sister in the small apartment they share in an Ankara suburb filled with Syrian refugee families.

In return for billions in cash for refugees taken in from Syria, visa liberalization and revitalized EU accession, Turkey has agreed to cooperate in stopping migrants crossing the Aegean Sea to Greece and take back those who do not qualify for asylum.

However, months after the deal was signed the EU now expects 182 million euros will have been disbursed by the end of August.

Asked why so little money had been put to use, an EU official pointed to the vast scale of the program, as well as the need to ensure that NGOs earmarked to receive the aid are up to the task.

But last month’s attempted coup in Turkey has also heightened tensions between Ankara and Brussels. Angry Turkish officials perceive a lack of sympathy from Western officials and last month President Tayyip Erdogan questioned the EU’s commitment to promises made in the migrant deal.

One Turkish NGO director who did not want to be named said disagreements between the EU and Turkey were partly to blame for delays in payments.

“The government’s perception is that the EU side is using this money as a political tool instead of wanting it to go to refugees,” he said, adding that the government does not trust the NGOs partnered with the EU.

Two government officials declined to comment, while a presidency official said only that it was important for the EU to live up to its side of the deal.

MONEY WAITING TO BE SPENT

Turkey says it is now host to 2.72 million Syrian refugees, plus tens of thousands of asylum seekers, including Iraqis and Afghans who are fleeing violence in their homelands.

It has argued it would be easier to give the money directly to the government – something the EU rejects, saying it always channels humanitarian aid through specialized agencies and non-governmental institutions so it goes directly to those in need.

However the EU official said that some NGOs in Turkey are unused to the needs and extraordinary scope of the current refugee crisis, and may lack capacity, meaning that extra checks and preparation are needed before the money is disbursed.

In the past ECHO, the European Commission’s aid arm, would typically spends around 1 billion euros backing humanitarian projects globally every year. This year it may spend that in Turkey alone.

Far from EU and Turkish bureaucracy and diplomatic tensions, Gheis and his six-year old sister Limar look at a photograph of their brother Muhammed, who died after an agonizing 10 days in hospital following the rocket attack.

Photographs showing the children building a snowman in happier times are stark contrast to their lives since the blast. In the three months Limar and Gheis were in hospital they underwent four operations each but are still unrecognizable. Gheis has no fingers and Limar can’t breathe properly.

Kerem Kinik, president of the Turkish Red Crescent, told Reuters he expected EU funds would allow children like Gheis and Limar to go to special schools and get treatment faster.

“We were expecting UN agencies and Europe to build up new capacities for at least primary health care but unfortunately we could not receive contributions.”

While Gheis’ family is getting some support from a local NGO, aid workers say there are thousands of devastated families with serious medical problems not receiving adequate help.

Muhammed Elhacmansur and his wife Meryem Elseyh hope to get their four-year-old son Ali, who was blinded by a landmine as the family fled Islamic State, to Europe for an operation to give him back his sight. Four of Ali’s siblings were killed in the explosions.

“We didn’t have any time to even bury them and gather their pieces on the field,” 42-year old Muhammed said.

While Turkey does not officially grant Syrians refugee status, a temporary protection status, in theory, allows them access to healthcare and education for children at least in Turkish. But these efforts cannot make Ali see.

“I don’t need food or clothes or any things,” Ali’s mother said. “I just want my son to recover.”

($1 = 0.8833 euros)

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels and Orhan Coskun in Ankara; editing by Patrick Markey and Dominic Evans)

Water shortages hit West Bank Palestinians, provoking war of words

By Sabreen Taha

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) – At the peak of a searing summer, Palestinians living in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank are suffering from severe water shortages, prompting a war of words between Palestinian and Israeli officials over who is responsible.

The Palestinians say Israel is preventing them from accessing adequate water at an affordable price, and point out that nearby Israeli settlements have plentiful water supplies. Israel says the Palestinians have been allocated double the amount they were due under an interim 1995 agreement, and have refused to discuss solutions to the current problem.

For Palestinian Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta village council near Hebron, in the south of the West Bank, getting hold of water has become prohibitively expensive.

“The cost of a cubic meter for residents is 12 times higher than the normal price,” he said, shaking his head. “When water is available, it normally costs four shekels (about $1) per cubic meter, but now it costs 50 shekels.”

Israeli settlements are scattered on hillsides all around Masafer Yatta, a low-stone village on dry, rocky land. The settlements, with gardens and greenery, receive water from the Israeli utility provider via dedicated pipelines.

Younis said there was water in the ground near his village, home to around 1,600 people and many animals. But he said Israeli authorities prevented villagers from accessing the water by denying them permits to dig. Israel says unregulated digging of wells would do severe damage to the water table.

The villagers have approached the Palestinian Water Authority, which said it had made appeals to the Israelis, but the requests were apparently unanswered.

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, a branch of the military that administers Palestinian civil issues, said Israel provides 64 million cubic meters of water to the Palestinians annually, even though under the 1995 Oslo accords it is only obliged to provide 30 million.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the Palestinians had consistently refused to meet to discuss water issues or work to resolve the long-standing problem.

“The Palestinian allegations… are simply a lie,” he said. “Under the Oslo accords we agreed to establish together a joint working committee on water. Unfortunately, the Palestinian side has refused systematically to participate.”

He added that the water needs in the West Bank, which the Palestinians want for a state together with East Jerusalem and Gaza, are greater than the infrastructure can handle.

Mazen Ghuneim, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, said the Palestinians had halted water negotiations with Israel five years ago because Israel had not frozen settlement building.

RURAL SHORTAGES

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which is working with the Palestinian Authority and Italian aid agency GVC to provide water to impoverished areas, has warned that up to 35,000 Palestinians are at risk because of the shortages.

Gregor von Medeazza, the head of UNICEF’s water program, said Israel had prevented villagers from building water-retention facilities and that 33 such structures had been demolished this year because they were built without permits.

Palestinians living furthest from urban areas have been the hardest hit, he said, often having to pay large sums to get private companies to truck water to their villages.

Some Israeli settlers have grown concerned about the lack of water available for Palestinians.

“Israel has not… made an effort to plan a long-term program for the next 10, 20, 30 years that will take into consideration population growth,” said Yochai Damari, head of the Mount Hebron Regional Council, a settlement body.

“Thank God Israel doesn’t have a shortage of water — there is desalinated water, there is water that is located elsewhere that needs to be drilled and extracted using pipelines and infrastructure that will provide water to the Arab community, and of course to the Jewish community.”

(Writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Luke Baker and Dominic Evans)

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