The Jim Bakker Show

Famine survey warns of thousands dying daily in Yemen if ports stay closed

More than 8 million Yemenis 'a step away from famine': U.N.

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – A U.S.-funded famine survey said on Tuesday that thousands of Yemenis could die daily if a Saudi-led military coalition does not lift its blockade on the country’s key ports.

The warning came a day after the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said 2.5 million people in Yemen’s crowded cities had no access to clean water, raising the risk that a cholera epidemic will spread.

Using the internationally recognized IPC 5-point scale for classifying food security, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said that even before the current blockade, 15 million people were in “crisis” (IPC Phase 3) or worse.

“Therefore, a prolonged closure of key ports risks an unprecedented deterioration in food security to Famine (IPC Phase 5) across large areas of the country,” it said.

It said famine is likely in many areas within three or four months if ports remain closed, with some less accessible areas at even greater risk. In such a scenario, shortages of food and fuel would drive up prices, and a lack of medical supplies would exacerbate life-threatening diseases.

“Thousands of deaths would occur each day due to the lack of food and disease outbreaks,” said FEWS NET, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Famine remained likely even if the southern port of Aden is open, its report said, adding that all Yemeni ports should be reopened to essential imports.

The United Nations has said the Saudi-led coalition must allow aid in through Hodeidah port, controlled by the Houthis, the Saudis’ enemies in the war in Yemen.

U.N. humanitarian agencies have issued dire warnings about the impact of the blockade, although U.N. officials have declined to directly criticize Saudi Arabia.

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and a former U.N. aid chief, was blunt in his criticism, however.

“US, UK & other allies of Saudi has only weeks to avoid being complicit in a famine of Biblical proportions. Lift the blockade now,” he wrote in a tweet.

Last year Saudi Arabia was accused by then U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of exerting “unacceptable” undue pressure to keep itself off a blacklist of countries that kill children in conflict, after sources told Reuters that Riyadh had threatened to cut some U.N. funding. Saudi Arabia denied this.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Russia’s Putin hosts Assad in fresh drive for Syria peace deal

By Katya Golubkova and Tom Perry

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad late on Monday for three hours of talks to lay the groundwork for a new push by Moscow to end Syria’s conflict now that Islamic State’s territorial caliphate is overrun.

Russia is actively trying to broker an international consensus around a peace deal for Syria, over two years after Moscow began a military intervention that turned the tide of the conflict in Assad’s favor.

Putin said he would follow up his meeting with Assad by talking in the next 48 hours to international leaders with influence over the conflict, among them U.S. President Donald Trump, the Saudi king, and the leaders of Iran and Turkey.

Previous attempts to end Syria’s six years of war have foundered because of bitter disagreements among players in the conflict, both inside and outside Syria, especially whether Assad himself should stay in power.

After the talks in Russia — Assad’s first publicly-declared travel outside Syria since a trip to Moscow in October, 2015 — a Kremlin spokesman declined to say if Assad’s own future had come up in the discussions, saying only that was up to the Syrian people.

In a sign that international attempts may be underway to bridge the differences between rival sides in the conflict, leading Syrian opposition figures, including former prime minister Riyad Hijab, resigned.

Hijab headed the opposition High Negotiations Committee, formed with Saudi backing, and had insisted on Assad’s removal from power at the start of a political transition.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Moscow, said the resignations would make the opposition more reasonable and realistic.

On Wednesday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani — whose countries back opposing sides in the Syria conflict — will travel to Russia for a three-way meeting with Putin aimed at advancing the Syrian peace process.

SECRET VISIT

Assad’s visit to Russia was brief and closely-guarded. He flew in on Monday evening, held talks, and flew out four hours after landing, according to the Kremlin. Officials did not release word of the meeting until Tuesday morning.

Sitting either side of a small coffee table in a conference room at Putin’s residence in Sochi, southern Russia, Putin told Assad it was time to pivot from a focus on military operations to a search for a peaceful solution.

Syrian government forces and their allies at the weekend took control of Albu Kamal, the last major Syrian town held by Islamic State.

“We still have a long way to go before we achieve a complete victory over terrorists. But as far as our joint work in fighting terrorism on the territory of Syria is concerned, this military operation is indeed wrapping up,” Putin told Assad, in comments broadcast by Russian television.

“Now the most important thing, of course, is to move on to the political questions, and I note with satisfaction your readiness to work with all those who want peace and a solution (to the conflict),” Putin said.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, dressed in an olive-colored uniform, looked on as Putin and Assad spoke.

ASSAD’S FUTURE

Wearing a dark suit and sitting across a small coffee table from Putin, Assad told the Russian leader: “At this stage, especially after we achieved victory over terrorists, it is in our interests to move forward with the political process.

“And we believe that the situation we now have on the ground and in the political sense permits us to expect progress in the political process. We count on the support of Russia to ensure the non-interference of outside players in the political process,” he said through an interpreter.

“We don’t want to look backwards. We welcome all those who truly want to see a political solution. We are ready to have a dialogue with them,” said Assad.

Putin and Assad last met in Moscow on Oct. 20, 2015, a few weeks after Moscow launched its military operation in Syria, which has beaten back anti-Assad rebels and propped up struggling government forces.

Underscoring the importance of the Russian military to Assad, Putin presented the Syrian leader to top military commanders assembled at his Sochi residence.

“On behalf of the entire Syrian people, I express my gratitude for what you have done,” Assad told them. “We will not forget it.”

Assad’s opponents, and Western governments, have accused Russia of killing significant numbers of Syrian civilians with its air strikes, allegations Moscow denies.

Some people familiar with the Kremlin’s thinking say that, to reach a peace deal, Russia would not insist on Assad staying in power — as long as the institutions of the Syrian state remained intact.

But while Russia is not wedded to Assad, Iran is committed to him. Iranian forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia have played a big role in the fighting on the ground, supporting Assad’s forces.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah thanked and praised Shi’ite militias including Afghans and Iraqis for their role in the Syria war in a speech on Monday night.

He said the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Qods Force, Major General Qassem Soleimani, had led the battle for Albu Kamal from the frontlines.

(Additional reporting by; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Catherine Evans and William Maclean)

Lebanon’s Hariri leaves Saudi Arabia for France on Friday

By Laila Bassam and Lisa Barrington

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Saad al-Hariri, who sparked a crisis by resigning as Lebanese prime minister on Nov. 4 during a visit to Saudi Arabia, is on his way to the airport, he said early on Saturday, before his flight from Riyadh to France.

Hariri’s abrupt resignation while he was in Saudi Arabia and his continued stay there caused fears over Lebanon’s stability. His visit to France with his family to meet President Emmanuel Macron is seen as part of a possible way out of the crisis.

“I am on the way to the airport,” he said in a Tweet.

However, Okab Saqr, a member of parliament for Hariri’s Future Movement, said that after Hariri’s visit to France, he would have “a small Arab tour” before traveling to Beirut.

Macron, speaking in Sweden, said Hariri “intends to return to his country in the coming days, weeks”.

The crisis has thrust Lebanon into the bitter rivalry pitting Saudi Arabia and its allies against a bloc led by Iran, which includes the heavily armed Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah group.

In Lebanon, Hariri has long been an ally of Riyadh. His coalition government, formed in a political deal last year to end years of paralysis, includes Hezbollah.

President Michel Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, has called Hariri a Saudi hostage and refused to accept his resignation unless he returns to Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia and Hariri say his movements are not restricted. On Wednesday, Macron invited Hariri to visit France along with his family, providing what French diplomats said might be a way to reduce tensions surrounding the crisis by demonstrating that Hariri could leave Saudi Arabia.

Lebanese politicians from across the political spectrum have called for Hariri to return to the country, saying it is necessary to resolve the crisis.

Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who heads President Aoun’s political party, said on Thursday Beirut could escalate the crisis if Hariri did not return home.

“We have adopted self-restraint so far to arrive at this result so that we don’t head towards diplomatic escalation and the other measures available to us,” he said during a European tour aimed at building pressure for a solution to the crisis.

REGIONAL CRISIS

Saudi Arabia regards Hezbollah as a conduit for Iranian interference across the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. It says it has no problem with Hezbollah remaining a purely political party, but has demanded it surrender its arms, which the group says are needed to defend Lebanon.

Although Riyadh has said it accepted Hariri’s decision to join a coalition with Hezbollah last year, after Hariri announced his resignation Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon of declaring war on it because of Hezbollah’s regional role.

Lebanon, where Sunni, Shi’ite, Christian and Druze groups fought a 1975-1990 civil war, maintains a governing system intended to balance sectarian groups. The prime minister is traditionally from the Sunni community, of which Hariri is the most influential leader.

On Friday, Hariri said in a tweet that his presence in Saudi Arabia was for “consultations on the future of the situation in Lebanon and its relations with the surrounding Arab region”.

His scheduled meeting with Macron in Paris on Saturday, and a lunch that his family will also attend, comes the day before Arab foreign ministers meet in Cairo to discuss Iran.

Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, says it appears Saudi Arabia hopes the ministers will adopt a “strongly worded statement” against Iran.

But she said not all the countries share Riyadh’s view that one way to confront Iran is to apply pressure on Lebanon.

“There is quite a widespread understanding that there is only so much Lebanon can do and it doesn’t serve anybody to turn Lebanon into your next arena for a fight between Iran and Saudi Arabia,” said.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Lisa Barrington; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Larry King)

Syria toxic gas inquiry to end after Russia again blocks U.N. renewal

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – An international investigation into who is to blame for chemical weapons attacks in Syria will end on Friday after Russia blocked for the third time in a month attempts at the United Nations to renew the inquiry, which Moscow has slammed as flawed.

In the past two years, the joint U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inquiry has found the Syrian government used the nerve agent sarin in an April 4 attack and has also several times used chlorine as a weapon. It blamed Islamic State militants for using mustard gas.

Russia vetoed on Friday a Japanese-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution to extend the inquiry for one month. It was an eleventh-hour bid to buy more time for negotiations after Russia blocked U.S.-drafted resolutions on Thursday and Oct. 24 to renew the investigation, which the council created in 2015.

Syrian ally Russia has cast 11 vetoes on possible Security Council action on Syria since the country’s civil war began in 2011. The Japanese draft received 12 votes in favor on Friday, while China abstained and Bolivia joined Russia to vote no.

After Friday’s vote, the council moved to closed-door discussions at the request of Sweden’s U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog to “ensure we are absolutely convinced we have exhausted every avenue, every effort” to try and renew the investigation.

After a brief discussion, Italian U.N. Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi, council president for November, told reporters: “The council will continue to work in the coming hours and days, constructively, to find a common position.”

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council earlier on Friday that the inquiry could only be extended if “fundamental flaws in its work” were fixed. He said that for the past two year the investigators had “rubber-stamped baseless accusations against Syria.”

The council voted on a rival Russian-drafted resolution on Thursday to renew the inquiry, but it failed after only garnering four votes in favor.

A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Russia, Britain or China to be adopted.

“Russia is wasting our time,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the council on Friday.

“Russia’s actions today and in recent weeks have been designed to delay, to distract and ultimately to defeat the effort to secure accountability for chemical weapons attacks in Syria,” Haley said.

While Russia agreed to the creation of the inquiry two years ago, it has consistently questioned its work and conclusions.

The April 4 sarin attack on Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people prompted the United States to launch missiles on a Syrian air base. Haley warned on Thursday: “We will do it again if we must.”

Despite the public deadlock and war of words between the United States and Russia at the United Nations, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Thursday that President Donald Trump believed he could work with Russian President Vladimir Putin on issues like Syria.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)

Amnesty urges independent probe into atrocities, bombings in battle for Philippines Marawi city

MANILA (Reuters) – The war in the Philippine city of Marawi saw Islamist insurgents execute civilians or use them as human shields, while military air strikes killed non-combatants and may have been used in excess, an Amnesty International report said on Friday.

The investigation by the rights group on the bloody five-month battle was based on interviews with 48 witnesses from September until early November and called for an independent inquiry.

The conflict in Marawi, the only predominantly Muslim city in the mainly Catholic Philippines, was the country’s biggest and longest battle since World War Two. More than 1,100 people, mostly insurgents, were killed, including 166 soldiers and 47 civilians, according to the authorities.

At least 350,000 people were displaced and large parts of Marawi have been decimated by air strikes.

Witnesses described at least 10 separate incidents where at least 25 people were executed by the Muslim extremists because they were Christians. Amnesty described those as war crimes.

It also said 10 hostages may have been killed in a single bombing run by the armed forces, and said an independent inquiry should include an assessment as to whether the air strikes were proportionate to the threat.

“They must initiate a prompt, effective and impartial investigation into whether its bombings of civilian neighborhoods was proportional under international humanitarian law,” Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s crisis response director, said in a statement.

“The Philippine authorities must bring those responsible for torture and other violations to justice and ensure that the victims receive adequate reparations.”

Major-General Restituto Padilla, armed forces spokesman, said the military was aware of the report and would respond in full later. He said troops were given strict instructions to observe and respect international humanitarian law and human rights.

“We will not tolerate and condone these abuses and will act on them,” he told a regular news briefing on Friday.

The 34-page report, “The Battle of Marawi: Death and destruction in the Philippines”, quotes a survivor who said he was spared by rebels because he could recite the “shahada”, a statement of Islamic faith, but a Christian ambulance driver was shot dead because he could not do the same.

Other survivors said hostages were executed or physically abused, forced into labor and used as human shields.

Some hostages who escaped alleged they were detained and tortured by security forces who suspected them to be militants. Amnesty said it talked to eight men, including seven Christians, who said they were badly treated by the authorities.

“I was punched and kicked. They tied our hands and feet with electrical wire,” the report quoted one survivor as saying. “The military was angry because 13 of their men were killed.”

Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis praised the Philippine military for ending the war without a single credible human rights abuse allegation.

Amnesty noted that the military was responding to concerns about looting by soldiers but “must follow through on promises of compensation”.

(Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty and Michael Perry)

Iraqi forces recapture last Islamic State-held town

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces on Friday captured the border town of Rawa, the last remaining town under Islamic State control, signalling the collapse of the group’s self-proclaimed caliphate.

Rawa’s capture marks the end of Islamic State’s era of territorial rule over a so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Iraqi forces “liberated Rawa entirely, and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings,” Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah said in a statement from the Joint Operations Command.

Syria’s army has also declared victory against Islamic State, but last week militants re-infiltrated Albu Kamal, near the border from Iraq, and are still fighting there, as well as in some villages and desert areas nearby.

All the forces fighting Islamic State in both countries expect a new phase of guerrilla warfare, a tactic the militants have already shown themselves capable of.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulated Iraq’s armed forces and people, saying Rawa was retaken in record time.

“Liberation of Rawa district in mere hours reflects the great strength and power of our heroic armed forces and the successful planning for battles,” he said in a statement.

A video issued by the military showed Iraqi forces sending a message to Rawa’s residents via radio which said: “Daesh has ended for good, and now the age of Iraq begins,” referring to the Sunni militant group by an Arabic acronym.

Another showed a convoy of military vehicles sporting Iraqi flags and blasting out the national anthem. State television played patriotic songs and aired footage of troops in Rawa.

“With the liberation of Rawa we can say all the areas in which Daesh is present have been liberated,” a military spokesman said.

Iraqi forces will now focus on routing the militants who fled into the desert and exert control over Iraq’s borders, the spokesman said.

Rawa borders Syria, whose army seized the last substantial town on the border with Iraq, Albu Kamal.

Albu Kamal shares a border crossing with al-Qaim in Iraq. The militants lost control of the border crossing earlier this month, dealing a critical blow to the organisation, which had long relied on the route to move its fighters and equipment.

The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is believed to be hiding in the stretch of desert which runs along the border of both countries.

SHRINKING CALIPHATE

Driven this year from its two de facto capitals — Iraq’s Mosul and Syria’s Raqqa — Islamic State was progressively squeezed into an ever-shrinking pocket of desert, straddling the frontier between the two countries, by enemies that include most regional states and global powers.

In Iraq, Islamic State faced the army and the Shi’ite paramilitary groups, backed both by the U.S.-led international coalition and by Iran.

Iraq has been carrying out its final campaign to crush the Islamic State caliphate while also mounting a military offensive in the north against the Kurds who held an independence referendum in September.

However, Islamic State’s defeat does not mean civilians are now safe, the International Rescue Committee said. Nearly 3.2 million people are unable or unwilling to return home after years of displacement and over 11 million are in need of vital humanitarian assistance, it said.

“Today marks a historic day for the people of Iraq. It is, however, vital that the international community does not view the end of (Islamic State) territorial control as the end of their responsibility to the Iraqi people who have endured years of conflict and face a long, difficult recovery,” the group’s Iraq Country Director Wendy Taeuber said in a statement.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein and Raya Jalabi; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Kurdish YPG aims to conquer Syrian region, not fight Islamic State: Turkish minister

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Recent developments in Syria’s Raqqa show that the Kurdish YPG militia, backed by the United States, is more concerned about capturing territory than fighting Islamic State, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a speech on Thursday.

Turkey has expressed anger that a convoy of Islamic State fighters were allowed to withdraw from Raqqa last month as part of an agreement with the YPG, saying it was “appalled” by the United States’ stance on the issue. [nL8N1NK9RZ]

Ankara was also infuriated by Washington’s support for the Syria Kurdish fighters, seen by Turks as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union.

Turkish procurement of U.S. defence equipment is being delayed in the United States, according to the text of Cavusoglu’s speech, and Turkey is developing alternative solutions for this sector.

“We are unfortunately facing important delays in the procurement of defence equipment we urgently need in the fight against terror from the United States due to U.S. internal practices,” the text said, without elaborating.

“Evidently, as these periods are prolonged, we are developing alternative means to acquire the equipment and systems we require, primarily through our own national resources.”

Turkey recently completed the purchase of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, a defence deal that Turkey’s Western allies see as a snub to the NATO alliance as the weapon cannot be integrated into the alliance’s systems. [nL8N1NI0ED]

Ankara also said it was making agreements with the Franco-Italian EUROSAM consortium to develop, produce and use its own sources for air defence system. [nL5N1NE7DI]

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Dominic Evans)

U.N. pleads for end of Yemen blockade or ‘untold thousands’ will die

GENEVA (Reuters) – The heads of three U.N. agencies issued a fresh plea on Thursday for the Saudi-led military coalition to lift its blockade on Yemen, warning that “untold thousands” would die.

The coalition closed all air, land and sea access to Yemen last week following the interception of a missile fired toward the Saudi capital, saying it had to stem the flow of arms from Iran to its Houthi opponents in the war in Yemen.

Yemen already has 7 million people on the brink of famine, but without the reopening of all ports that number could grow by 3.2 million, the statement said.

“The cost of this blockade is being measured in the number of lives that are lost,” David Beasley, Antony Lake and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the heads of the World Food Programme, UNICEF and the World Health Organization, said in the statement.

“Together, we issue another urgent appeal for the coalition to permit entry of lifesaving supplies to Yemen in response to what is now the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.”

Saudi Arabia has since said that aid can go through “liberated ports” but not Houthi-controlled Hodeidah, the conduit for the vast bulk of imports into Yemen.

For months, the U.N. has warned that the closure of Hodeidah would dramatically escalate the crisis.

“Without fuel, the vaccine cold chain, water supply systems and waste water treatment plants will stop functioning. And without food and safe water, the threat of famine grows by the day,” the U.N. agency heads said in the statement.

At least one million children are at risk if a fast-spreading diphtheria outbreak is not stopped in its tracks, and there is also the risk of a renewed flare-up in cholera, which was on the wane after the most explosive outbreak ever recorded – with over 900,000 cases in the past six months.

“If any of us in our daily lives saw a child whose life was at immediate risk, would we not try to save her? In Yemen we are talking about hundreds of thousands of children, if not more,” the joint statement said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Philippines’ Duterte lauds China’s help at ‘crucial moment’ in Marawi battle

By Karen Lema and Martin Petty

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday heaped praise on visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang for what he said was China’s “critical” role in expediting the end of a five-month war with Islamist insurgents in a Philippine town.

Duterte credited China with supplying what he said was the rifle that on Oct. 16 killed Islamic State’s regional point man, Isnilon Hapilon, and said he would present that weapon to China as a mark of appreciation for its help in the war in Marawi City.

“I am going to return to you the rifle so that the Chinese people would know, it was critical, it is a symbol of the critical help,” Duterte told Li, the first Chinese premier to visit the Philippines in a decade.

There are doubts, however, about if it really was a Chinese sniper rifle that killed Hapilon, and uncertainty about whether the military has used any of the 6,100 guns Beijing has donated since June.

The Philippine defense minister recently said all those weapons were given to the police.

Hapilon was killed by members of the 8th Scout Ranger Company. “Scout Ranger Books”, a Facebook page of one of the ranger officers, gave a blow-by-blow account of the operation and said the shot that killed Hapilon came from a gun mounted on an armored vehicle.

Members of the unit also told media the shot came from a fixed weapon controlled remotely. Such weapons are typically 50-calibre machine guns.

“The arms you gave us, helped abbreviate, shorten the military fight there,” Duterte said.

On Friday, he said something similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He told him Russia had “helped us turn the tide and to shorten the war” by supplying weapons that Philippine soldiers used to kill militant snipers in Marawi.

The Russian arms were actually delivered two days after military operations were declared over.

The conflict was the biggest and longest battle in the Philippines since World War Two. More than 1,000 people, most of them rebel gunmen, were killed and 353,000 were displaced.

Duterte told Li China’s help came at “the crucial moment when we needed most and there was nobody to help us at that time”.

His remarks may not sit well with the United States and Australia, which from the early stages of the conflict were providing technical support to Philippine forces, including surveillance aircraft to pinpoint locations of militants.

Li said China would provide 150 million yuan ($22.7 million) to help with reconstruction in Marawi. He praised Duterte for last year putting aside festering disputes with China and visiting Beijing, a trip he said was an “ice-breaker”.

Philippine security analyst Renato De Castro said the information Duterte gave to Li was inaccurate, but consistent with his policy of “total appeasement” of China.

“I’m really surprised, I don’t know whether it’s flattery or an outright lie,” he told news channel ANC.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. to fight Islamic State in Syria ‘as long as they want to fight’: Mattis

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military will fight Islamic State in Syria “as long as they want to fight,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday, describing a longer-term role for U.S. troops long after the insurgents lose all of the territory they control.

As U.S.-backed and Russian-backed forces battle to retake the remaining pockets of Islamic State-held terrain, Mattis said the U.S. military’s longer-term objective would be to prevent the return of an “ISIS 2.0.”

“The enemy hasn’t declared that they’re done with the area yet, so we’ll keep fighting as long as they want to fight,” Mattis said, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon about the future of U.S. operations in Syria.

He also stressed the importance of longer-term peace efforts, suggesting U.S. forces aimed to help set the conditions of a diplomatic solution in Syria, now in its seventh year of civil war.

“We’re not just going to walk away right now before the Geneva process has traction,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed joint efforts to stabilize Syria as its civil war wanes, including with the expansion of a July 7 truce in the southwestern triangle bordering Israel and Jordan.

Mattis said he believed the southwestern zone was working, and spoke hopefully about additional areas in the future that might allow for more refugees to return home.

“You keep broadening them. Try to (demilitarize) one area then (demilitarize) another and just keep it going, try to do the things that will allow people to return to their homes,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.

He declined to enter into specifics about any future zones.

Russia, which has a long-term military garrison in Syria, has said it wants foreign forces to quit the country eventually.

Turkey said on Monday the United States had 13 bases in Syria and Russia had five. The U.S-backed Syrian YPG Kurdish militia has said Washington has established seven military bases in areas of northern Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition says it does not discuss the location of its forces.

One key aim for Washington is to limit Iranian influence in Syria and Iraq, which expanded during the war with Islamic State.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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