In a northern town brutalized by IS, Iraq tests its power

December 24, 2020

SINJAR, Iraq (AP) — One by one, the flags belonging to a patchwork of armed forces were lowered in a northern Iraqi town once brutalized by the Islamic State group. The territorial claims symbolized by each were replaced by the fluttering of just one: The Iraqi state’s.

The hoisting of the national flag in Sinjar, home to Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority, is the result of a deal months in the making for the federal government to restore order from a tangled web of paramilitaries, who sowed chaos in the district during the bedlam following liberation from IS three years ago.

This month, Iraq’s army deployed there for the first time since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein. Lt. Imad Hasan hiked up a rocky ascent overlooking the deserted ruins of Sinjar’s old town, vacant since IS was dislodged. His gaze fell on a lookout on the other side of the mountain — the last, he said, that belongs to a local affiliate of an outlawed Kurdish guerrilla group, known as the PKK.

“We have problems with them,” he said. “Their leaders have agreed to withdraw, but some of their fighters have not.” Sealing the deal was hard enough. Implementing it brings new problems. Critics say it will take more than a change of flags to cement rule of law in Sinjar.

The Yazidis, traumatized by the mass killing and enslavement that IS unleashed against them, have no trust in the Iraqi authorities they say abandoned them to the militants’ brutality. With the central government weak, they fear militias — including Iranian-backed Shiite factions — will gain sway over them.

The militias policing Sinjar the past three years are a mix. They include peshmerga fighters from Iraq’s Kurdish autonomy zone, as well as the PKK and its affiliate made up of local Yazidi fighters, called the Sinjar Resistance Units or YBS. There are also Yazidi units belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of state-sanctioned paramilitaries created in 2014 to defeat IS.

There are signs of recovery of Sinjar. Its city center hummed with shoppers, merchants — and the odd Iraqi army tank. More of the 200,000 Yazidis displaced by the 2014 IS onslaught are coming back — some 21,600 returning between June to September, many times the rate of previous years.

But scratch the surface, and almost everyone harbors raw, unresolved trauma. Everyone vividly recalls the IS attack that murdered fathers and sons, enslaved thousands of women and sent survivors fleeing up Sinjar mountain.

In Sinjar’s market, a farmer, Zaidan Khalaf, introduced himself first by telling The Associated Press how many relatives he lost under IS: 18. Others in the market did the same. “We lost our dignity,” he said.

Communities remain deeply divided and bitterly resentful of one another. “What agreement?” scoffed Farzo Mato Sabo, an 86-year-old in the predominantly Yazidi village of Tal Binat, south of Sinjar. She and her three daughters were taken by IS militants and later saved by smugglers. Eleven of her family members are still unaccounted for.

“I lost everyone,” she sobbed. “Will it bring them back?” Neighboring Tal Binat is the Sunni Arab village of Khailo. “We used to be like brothers, but now the Yazidis stay away from us,” said a tribal elder, Sheikh Naif Ibrahim. “They can’t distinguish between civilians and IS members.”

Many Yazidis accuse local Sunni Arabs of supporting IS. Since the militants’ fall, Sunni Arabs have had frictions with Yazidi militias — and a number of Sunnis have been killed. At the same time, many Yazidis reject the Kurdish peshmerga, who consider the Sinjar area part of their domain.

“Seven flags ruled over us, you never knew who had power over you which day,” said Khalaf, the farmer. The U.N. has focused on the return of displaced Yazidis, but this is not the only criterion for success, said Sajad Jiyad, a fellow at The Century Foundation. “It’s about services, schools, security and the ability to move around without being shaken down by various groups,” he said.

“This is a test for the effectiveness of post-war governance and post-war liberation,” he said. “Is the government prepared enough to allow the return to normalcy?” The Iraqi military will secure the area for now, with other factions leaving their positions, although many remain in the Sinjar area. Under the plan, the Kurdish authority is to appoint a mayor — a prospect many Yazidis oppose — and local police are eventually to take over security, working under the government’s intelligence agency and National Security Adviser. The plan calls for 2,500 new security personnel to be hired locally.

Most Yazidi leaders and residents interviewed said they were irate the community was not consulted by the government in the making of the plan. “We are the ones who sacrificed, lost our lives,” said Fahed Hamed, Sinjar’s district mayor. “We should have been the main interlocutors.”

“We want a force from our own. We don’t trust anyone.” The force most trusted by locals is a faction the plan seeks to eject — the YBS, whose fighters are largely Sinjar Yazidis. While other forces retreated from the IS onslaught in 2014, many recall it was the YBS that fought to secure a safe route for civilians.

“They were the only ones who stayed to protect us,” said Sherko Khalaf, a Yazidi village mukhtar. Despite protests by locals, negotiations led to the withdrawal of YBS from Sinjar’s city center. YBS fighters interviewed said they expected to be subsumed as a unit of the Popular Mobilization Forces, providing them with much-needed political legitimacy. A portion of the 2,500-3,500 YBS fighters are already on the PMF payroll.

In theory, the plan calls for the PMF to end its presence in the city as well. To date, they are supporting forces and securing Sinjar's peripheries. But Khal Ali, the commander of the Lalish Brigades, a Yazidi unit of the group, told the AP, “The (PMF) will stay forever, we are kings over the heads of the security forces in Sinjar.”

That prospect has divided Yazidis. Some want Yazidi PMF factions included in the security arrangement. Others fear it will bring Sinjar under the influence of the Shiite Arab factions close to Iran that dominate the umbrella group.

“If the international community and central government don’t care about Sinjar, the PMF will take control,” one prominent Yazidi leader said, requesting anonymity to speak freely. “This is clear.”

Charging the 'Beatles': Inside the case against IS militants

November 30, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — As two Islamic State militants faced a judge in Virginia last month, Diane Foley listened from home through a muffled phone connection and strained to make out the voices of the men prosecutors say kidnapped her son before he was murdered.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh stand accused of belonging to an IS cell dubbed “the Beatles,” an incongruously lighthearted nickname for British citizens blamed for the jailing, torture and murder of Western hostages in Syria.

After geopolitical breakthroughs and stalemates, military actions in Syria and court fights in London, the Justice Department’s most significant terrorism prosecution in years was finally underway. For Foley, who months earlier had pleaded with Attorney General William Barr to pursue justice by forswearing the death penalty, the fact the case was proceeding at all felt miraculous.

“We'd met so many blocks over the years, I couldn't believe it was happening,” Foley said. “I was in awe of it, really, and almost didn’t trust it — a bit incredulous. Is this really happening?” The prosecution is a counterterrorism success in the waning weeks of the Trump administration. But it almost didn't happen.

Interviews with 11 people connected to the case make clear the hurdles along the way, including a death penalty dispute that required two normally close allies, the U.S. and U.K., to navigate fundamental differences in criminal justice systems. In the end, the interviews show, grieving families reached a gradual consensus to take capital punishment off the table while a key commitment by Barr to do the same enabled the U.S. to obtain crucial evidence it needed.

At another time, the case might not have even been handled in civilian courts. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Republican-led Justice Department favored detaining foreign fighters at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for military tribunals. But that approach changed. Now federal prosecutors are pursuing the highest-profile terrorism case since trials over the Boston Marathon bombing and Benghazi attack, aiming to secure convictions and punishments that can keep the men, in their 30s, imprisoned for life.

“There was never a time when I thought we didn't have any case," said John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security. But, “we didn't want to bring them here unless we had really good charges, a really strong case, and ultimately expected a conviction that was going to result in a very significant prison sentence."

The group of militants, called “the Beatles” by their captives because of their British accents, came to embody IS barbarism with the 2014 release of grisly propaganda videos depicting the beheadings of American hostages. The first showed James Foley, captured as a freelance journalist covering Syria's civil war, kneeling in the desert in an orange jumpsuit beside a masked man in black brandishing a knife to his throat.

The beheadings were part of a reign of terror that officials say also involved waterboarding, mock executions and electric shocks. Elsheikh once videotaoed the shooting of a Syrian hostage as Kotey directed hostages to watch while holding signs pleading for their release, prosecutors say.

The pair also coordinated ransom demands, the indictment says. An email to the Foleys tauntingly told them the U.S. government treated them "like worthless insects." An airstrike killed the group's most notorious member, who had killed Foley and was known by the moniker of “Jihadi John.” Another was prosecuted in Turkey.

That left Kotey and Elsheikh, who were captured in Syria in 2018 by American-backed forces. Weeks later, they appeared unapologetic while speaking to The Associated Press at a Kurdish security center, denouncing the U.S. and Britain as hypocrites who wouldn't give them a fair trial.

Inside the Justice Department, officials weighed whether the men should be tried in the U.K. or U.S. or even transferred to Guantanamo, which then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions had called a “very fine place" even though prosecutions there have floundered, lagging behind the speedier justice of American courts.

U.S. officials initially leaned toward a U.K. prosecution. British authorities had accumulated compelling evidence during their own investigation and U.S. policy encouraged other nations to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who'd joined IS.

Yet the U.K., which had stripped the men of their British citizenship, resisted doing the case in part over concerns about the ability to get convictions and significant prison sentences in British courts.

Once that position became clear, officials coalesced around bringing the men to America, said State Department counterterrorism coordinator Nathan Sales. But the British balked at sharing evidence with U.S. prosecutors without assurances they wouldn't impose the death penalty, which was abolished in the U.K. That was an impediment for American officials, who say they considered Britain's evidence vital in tracing the men's travel and path of radicalization.

They decided they wouldn't do the case without that evidence, Demers said. The British later relented and agreed to share evidence without any assurances. But Elsheikh's mother sued over the evidence transfer, delaying the case well over a year. Last March, a British court effectively blocked the evidence-sharing over the death penalty issue, a hurdle U.S. officials assumed might require additional litigation to overcome.

Despite the ruling, prosecutors pressed forward. G. Zachary Terwilliger, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, whose office is handling the case, was among those arguing internally that prosecuting the defendants was more important than leaving the death penalty on the table.

“You certainly can make an argument, and maybe it’s not even a close call, that capital punishment would have been appropriate given the horrific nature of this crime," Terwilliger said. But, "getting justice for the victims was paramount to me.”

The families, too, began uniting around the idea of removing the death penalty from consideration. That had long been Diane Foley's position. The most vocal of the group, she met regularly over the years with government officials and cultivated high-level Washington contacts like her hometown senator, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, with whom she co-authored a 2019 newspaper op-ed warning against “impunity for these monsters.”

Still, the budding consensus in recent months was notable because the families had not always shared the same perspective of the case. The executions of Foley and two other hostages, Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig, were documented in propaganda videos, the men's fates apparent to the world. But the circumstances of the death of a fourth, Kayla Mueller, who prosecutors say was sexually abused by late IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were less established and her parents initially believed keeping the death penalty on the table could be leverage to get answers.

Mueller's mother, Marsha, said in a text message that the couple had not wanted anyone to die but was eager for information about Kayla. Ultimately, though, she concluded: “The other families who we care so deeply for wanted the men brought here and this seemed to be the only way they would come."

Meanwhile, current and former FBI officials who were helping the families, including the head of the bureau's hostage recovery cell, encouraged them to speak out in unison to prod the Trump administration toward prosecution. Ali Soufan, a former FBI counterterrorism agent who'd partnered with Mueller's parents to investigate Kayla's death, made the case that waiving the death penalty was essential for cooperating with the U.K. and even customary in international terrorism cases like this one.

Other options were hardly optimal. A trial in Iraq, where the men had been held in U.S. military custody over the past year, could produce a human rights outcry creating empathy for the men. The proceedings could also result in their release, or potentially execution if they were convicted.

Concerned a U.S. prosecution might not happen at all, or that the men might be left in Iraq, the families accelerated their public advocacy. In July, all four signed onto an opinion piece in The Washington Post imploring the U.S. to prosecute the pair as a message that anyone who harms American citizens “will not escape." That month, NBC News aired an interview with the men in which they admitted involvement in Mueller's captivity.

When Foley met with Barr in 2019, he said he shared her desire for accountability. But she said he and other Justice Department officials were firm in their convictions that the death penalty, a punishment Barr had brought back after a 16-year federal government hiatus, was merited.

Last summer, though, as the families conveyed their wishes to remove death from consideration and as the case dragged on without obvious resolution, Barr was ready to break the logjam. “I don’t know if it was the deciding factor or not, but I think it did help when we finally spoke up again and said, ‘Please. Please bring them to the U.S,'" Foley said. "If you need that evidence and you need to waive the death penalty, please do it.’"

A senior Justice Department official prepared Foley for the news about to break, writing in an Aug. 14 email that once the U.S. message is delivered and becomes public, "we are sure it will generate a lot of attention and discussion — and that many will be interested to hear from all of you.”

That happened days later with the release of Barr's letter to U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel. In it, he committed to forgo the death penalty but also issued an ultimatum: If the Justice Department received Britain's evidence by Oct. 15, it would proceed with prosecution. If not, it would transfer the men to Iraqi custody for prosecution.

“That was a real option. It wasn’t posturing," Demers said. “I didn't know if the U.K. could do everything it needed to do in time to get us that evidence.” The evidence came, resulting in a 24-page indictment with counts punishable by life imprisonment.

Justice Department prosecutors announced their case on Oct. 7 as the men were flown to Dulles International Airport and taken to jail, where because of the pandemic they faced a judge via video link. They have pleaded not guilty.

As Foley listened to court proceedings she once doubted would ever come, she couldn't help but wonder if, under different circumstances, the men might have been friends with James, who years earlier had taught jail inmates.

But she also is gratified. “To my last dying breath, I will do my best to bring some accountability and justice for the horror of the murders of these four Americans."

UK official criticized after baby of IS teen dies in Syria

March 09, 2019

LONDON (AP) — British Home Secretary Sajid Javid faced criticism Saturday after the death of a U.K. teenager's baby in a Syrian camp. Shamima Begum, who had left London as a 15-year-old in 2015 to join the Islamic State group, had pleaded with British authorities before her baby was born to let her return to Britain to raise the child.

But Javid revoked her passport, saying Begum hadn't shown any remorse. The teen had told newspaper reporters she didn't have a problem with IS actions, including the beheading of captives. Begum's infant son died Friday. Begum's family said the boy appeared to be in good health when he was born on Feb. 17. No clear cause of death has yet been given, but reports suggested he was having respiratory problems.

Fellow Conservative Party lawmaker Phillip Lee said Saturday he was "deeply concerned" by Javid's handling of the case, suggesting he had taken a hard line in order to please populists. He said it was clear 19-year-old Begum "holds abhorrent views," but called her a child who was a product of British society. Britain had a moral duty to her and to her baby, he said.

When Begum first started speaking to reporters more than three weeks ago, she said the first two children she had given birth to since joining the extremist group had died of malnutrition and other ailments. She said she wanted to come home so she didn't lose another child.

Her predicament sparked a national debate on how the U.K. should handle Britons who had joined the extremists and now seek to return because IS has lost its territory in Syria and Iraq. The challenge faces other European countries as the final IS stronghold in Syria is on the brink of falling, giving its fighters and their often youthful spouses no place left to hide.

U.S. President Donald Trump weighed in on the matter last month, saying European countries have a responsibility to take back and put on trial about 800 IS fighters who have been captured by U.S.-backed forces in Syria.

Begum is married to a Dutch national who joined IS extremists and has since been taken into custody. He said last week that he wanted to be able to live in the Netherlands with his wife and newborn son, who is now dead.

Kirsty McNeill, a director at Save the Children UK, said Britain should "take responsibility for their citizens" in Syria to prevent further unnecessary losses. "It is possible the death of this baby boy and others could have been avoided," she said.

Javid didn't comment directly on the baby's death. A government spokesman said "the death of any child is tragic" and reiterated the British government's advice that citizens avoid travel to Syria.

Family: UK teen who joined Islamic State has baby in Syria

February 17, 2019

LONDON (AP) — The family of a British teenager who ran away to join the Islamic State group and now wants to return to the U.K. said Sunday she has given birth to a baby boy. The family's lawyer said 19-year-old Shamima Begum and the baby are in good health. In a recent interview with The Times newspaper, Begum said she had previously lost two babies to illness and malnutrition.

Begum was one of a group of schoolgirls from London's Bethnal Green neighborhood who went to Syria to marry IS fighters in 2015 at a time when the group's online recruitment program lured many impressionable young people to its self-proclaimed caliphate.

Speaking to Britain's Sky News from Syria, where she has been living in a refugee camp, Begum said she didn't know what she was getting into when she left and wants to bring her baby back to Britain with her.

"I think a lot of people should have sympathy towards me for everything I've been through," she said in an interview broadcast Sunday. "I just was hoping that maybe for me, for the sake of me and my child, they let me come back, the young woman said. "Because I can't live in this camp forever. It's not really possible."

"I don't want to take care of my child in this camp because I'm afraid he might even die in this camp," she said. Begum said she had been only a "housewife" during her time with IS militants. "I never did anything dangerous. I never made propaganda. I never encouraged people to come to Syria. So they'd only have proof I didn't anything that is dangerous," she said.

She added she had been "OK with" beheadings carried out by Islamic State adherents because she had heard it was allowed under Islamic law. News about Begum and her desire to go back to Britain have ignited a debate in the U.K. about how to deal with citizens who joined IS and want to leave Syria now that the extremist group is on the verge of collapse.

While it is unclear whether Begum committed any crimes, many have focused on her apparent lack of remorse. In the earlier interview with The Times, Begum said she did not regret her decision to join the extremists.

Her legal situation remains uncertain; she could face charges for supporting IS if she returns to Britain. Two days before the baby's birth was announced, Begum's relatives in Britain said they were "shocked" by her comments but thought she should be brought back and dealt with by the British justice system.

"The welfare of Shamima's unborn baby is of paramount concern to our family, and we will do everything within our power to protect that baby, who is entirely blameless in these events," the family had said.

The family said it is concerned about Begum's mental health and characterizes her as having been groomed by Islamic State fighters.

Raqa remains in ruins one year since recapture from IS

Wednesday 17/10/2018

RAQA - All day, dinghies cross the Euphrates River to shuttle residents into the pulverized cityscape of Syria's Raqa, where bridges, homes, and schools remain gutted by the offensive against the Islamic State group.

Exactly a year has passed since a blistering US-backed assault ousted the jihadists from their one-time Syrian stronghold, but Raqa -- along with the roads and bridges leading to it -- remains in ruins.

To enter the city, 33-year-old Abu Yazan and his family have to pile into a small boat on the southern banks of the Euphrates, which flows along the bottom edges of Raqa.

They load their motorcycle onto the small vessel, which bobs precariously north for a few minutes before dropping off passengers and their vehicles at the city's outskirts.

"It's hard -- the kids are always afraid of the constant possibility of drowning," says bearded Abu Yazan.

"We want the bridge to be repaired because it's safer than water transport."

The remains of Raqa's well-known "Old Bridge" stand nearby: a pair of massive pillars, the top of the structure shorn off.

It was smashed in an air strike by the US-led coalition, which bombed every one of Raqa's bridges to cut off the jihadists' escape routes.

The fighting ended on October 17 last year, when the city finally fell to the Syrian Democratic Forces, which then handed it over to the Raqa Civil Council (RCC) to govern.

But 60 bridges are still destroyed in and around the city, says RCC member Ahmad al-Khodr.

"The coalition has offered us eight metal bridges," he says, to link vital areas in Raqa's countryside.

Houses, belongings long gone

Rights group Amnesty International estimates around 80 percent of Raqa was devastated by fighting, including vital infrastructure like schools and hospitals.

The national hospital, the city's largest medical facility, was where IS made its final stand. It still lies ravaged.

Private homes were not spared either: 30,000 houses were fully destroyed and another 25,000 heavily damaged, says Amnesty.

Ismail al-Muidi lost his son, an SDF fighter, and his home.

"I buried him myself with these two hands," says Muidi, 48.

"I was not as affected when I lost the house, but I had hoped it would shelter me and my family," he adds.

Now homeless, he lives with his sister in the central Al-Nahda neighborhood.

"The coalition destroyed the whole building, and all our belongings went with them," he says.

Anxiety over eking out a living has put streaks of grey into Muidi's hair and beard.

"How could I rebuild this house? We need help to remove the rubble, but no one has helped us at all," he says.

Since IS was ousted, more than 150,000 people have returned to Raqa, according to United Nations estimates last month.

But the city remains haunted by one of IS's most infamous legacies: a sea of mines and unexploded ordnance that still maims and kills residents to this day.

The RCC says it does not have enough money to clear out the rubble still clogging up Raqa's streets, much less rehabilitate its water and electricity networks.

Khodr unfurls a map of the city in front of him at his office in the RCC, pointing out the most ravaged neighborhoods.

"The districts in the center of the city were more damaged -- 90 percent destroyed -- compared to a range of 40 to 60 percent destroyed in the surrounding areas," he said.

"The destruction is massive and the support isn't cutting it."

'No hope at all'

A plastic bucket in hand, Abd al-Ibrahim sits despondently on a curbside in the Al-Ferdaws neighborhood.

Fighting destroyed his home, so he now squats in another house but there has been no water there for three days.

"I come sit here, hoping somebody will drive by to give me water. But no one comes," the 70-year-old says, tearing up.

He points to a mound of rubble nearby.

"My house is like this now. We were in paradise. Look at what happened to us -- we're literally begging for water."

The coalition has helped de-mine, remove rubble, and rehabilitate schools in Raqa, but efforts have been modest and piecemeal compared to the scale of the destruction.

"You can't call this reconstruction -- it's all empty talk," says Samer Farwati, who peddles cigarettes across from his destroyed house in the Masaken al-Tobb district.

He pays $120 to rent a home since his was hit in an air strike.

Farwati says he no longer trusts officials after too many empty promises.

"If they helped us even a little bit, we could complete the construction. But there's no hope at all," he says.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: https://middle-east-online.com/en/raqa-remains-ruins-one-year-recapture.

Afghan IS branch claims deadly attack on Shiites in Kabul

August 16, 2018

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — As Afghanistan's Shiites mourned their dead and held funeral services Thursday, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the horrific suicide bombing in Kabul that targeted a Shiite neighborhood the previous day, killing 34 students.

Grieving families gathered to bury their dead but even amid the somber atmosphere there was no respite from violence, underscoring the near-daily, persistent threats in the war-battered country. Two gunmen besieged a compound belonging to the Afghan intelligence service in a northwestern Kabul neighborhood early Thursday, opening fire as Afghan security forces moved in to cut them off. The standoff lasted for nearly six hours before police killed the gunmen and secured the area. The Islamic State group, in a posting on its Aamaq News Agency, claimed more than 200 people were killed or wounded in Wednesday's suicide bombing.

The bomber, who had walked into a classroom in a one-room building at a Shiite educational center in the neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi, where he set off his explosives, was identified as "the martyrdom-seeking brother Abdul Raouf al-Khorasani." Afghanistan's IS affiliate is known as The Islamic State in Khorasan Province, after an ancient name of the area that encompassed parts of present-day Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

The bombing also wounded 57 students, according to Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh. Earlier on Thursday, the ministry revised an earlier death toll from the attack down to 34, not 48. Most of the victims were young men and women, high school graduates preparing for university entrance exams in the Shiite area's educational center.

Kabul hospitals were completely overwhelmed in the immediate aftermath of the attack as officials collected data on the casualties, leading to the confusion and the initial wrong toll. The Dasht-e-Barchi area is populated by members of Afghanistan's minority ethnic Hazaras — a Shiite community that has in the past been targeted by similar large-scale attacks.

IS, which considers Shiites to be heretics, frequently targets them, attacking their mosques, schools and cultural centers. In the past two years, there have been at least 13 attacks on the Shiite community in Kabul alone.

Fifteen of the victims' bodies were taken Thursday to a Hazara community compound in Kabul where a mass funeral service was being held. The remaining victims were taken to their villages to be buried there, said Gulam Hassan, the cousin of one of the victims.

The attack, which came at the end of more than a week of assaults that have left scores of Afghan troops and civilians dead, shows how militants are still able to stage large-scale attacks — even in the capital of Kabul — and undermine efforts by Afghan forces to provide security and stability on their own.

Amnesty International on Thursday denounced the attack on the Shiites, calling it a war crime. "The deliberate targeting of civilians and the targeting of places of education is a war crime," said Samira Hamidi, Amnesty's South Asia campaigner. "Mounting civilian casualties show beyond any doubt that Afghanistan and, in particular, its capital, Kabul, are not safe."

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has also condemned the "terrorist" attack on the Shiites that "martyred and wounded the innocent" — students attending class — and ordered an investigation to determine how the bomber had managed to sneak into the compound, which has its own guards.

Survivors on Thursday struggled to come to terms with the bombing. In a Kabul hospital, Anifa Ahmadi sat by the bedside of her 17-year-old daughter Sima, who was wounded in the attack. Sima was in the front row of the classroom in the single-room building where the explosion occurred.

"I had told her and told her, 'Don't go to school. We are under attack everywhere. No place is safe for us.' But she said 'No, no, no'," the mother said. Sima appeared undeterred despite injuries to her legs and arms and said she would go back to school. "I won't let anyone stop me, I will resist all terrorist attacks to have the future I want," she said.

Nahida Rahimi, a doctor at Kabul's Isteqlal Hospital, where some of the wounded are being treated, said a mother told her she had lost a son in Wednesday's bombing after already losing another a year earlier in another suicide bombing, also in Kabul, that targeted Shiites.

"We were both crying," the doctor said. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, four policemen were killed and four were seriously wounded late Wednesday when they tried to defuse a car bomb they found in southern Kandahar province, according to Zia Durrani, provincial police spokesman.

Kandahar was the religious heartland of the Taliban during their five-year rule that ended with the 2001 invasion by U.S. and NATO forces following the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

Associated Press writer Kathy Gannon in Islamabad contributed to this report.

IS claims Tajikistan attack that killed 4 foreign cyclists

July 31, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — The Islamic State group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a car-and-knife attack on Western tourists cycling in Tajikistan that killed two Americans and two Europeans. Officials in the ex-Soviet Central Asian nation didn't publicly address the IS claim and instead blamed the Sunday attack on a banned local Islamist group. The young men featured in an IS-linked video resembled the individuals that Tajik authorities identified as attack suspects who were later killed by police.

The Islamic State group said in a statement late Monday that several of its soldiers attacked the "citizens of the Crusader coalition." The four tourists were killed when a car rammed into a group of foreigners on bicycles south of the capital of Dushanbe, Tajik officials have said. The driver and the passengers then got out and attacked the cyclists with knives.

Two of the victims were American, one was Swiss and the fourth was from the Netherlands, foreign and Tajik officials said. The three people injured included a woman from Switzerland. A video posted on an IS-linked website Tuesday shows five men sitting on a hill against the backdrop of a black-and-white IS flag and declaring allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The men say they're from Tajikistan and pledge to slaughter disbelievers in the name of Allah. A note accompanying the video said the men took part in the weekend attack.

Tajikistan's Interior Ministry posted photos Tuesday of what it said were the bodies of four suspected attackers lying dead in a field. Three of the men resemble ones in the IS video. It blamed the attack on the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, a local party banned several years ago for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government.

Tajikistan, an impoverished, predominantly Muslim nation of some 8 million people, was devastated by a 5-year civil war with Islamist-inspired rebel forces that ended in 1997. Alarmed by the rise of the Islamic State group in recent years, Tajik authorities have clamped down on behavior and traditions associated with Islam, regulating how people dress and behave at funerals and ordering men to shave their beards. Critics say the restrictions could help radicalize secular Muslims.

Israel weapons found in Daesh arms depot

July 18, 2018

Israeli-made weapons have been found among a cache of arms belonging to the terrorist group Daesh.

The discovery was made by Syrian government troops in the south of Hama province, during a large-scale military operation to clear the area of mines, Sputnik reported citing Syrian sources.

The depot, which was found in the town of Aqrab, contained Israeli-made bombs and assault rifles, pistols, as well as other military hardware including Kalashnikov machine guns, mortar shells and sniper rifles.

Syrian Army engineering units are said to have found the depot while clearing out Aqrab of booby traps, ammunition and weapons left by Daesh.

A similar discovery is reported to have been made last week, when Syrian government forces found a huge cache of Western-made arms in Daraa. The depots were identified as the Syrian Army launched an offensive in Daraa.

Israel’s support for the terrorist group has been closely tracked since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011. A report released last year by an Israeli intelligence bureau suggested that in confronting Iran, the interests of Daesh and Israel could converge, making them temporary allies.

Last year, a UN report confirmed that Israel gave aid to armed extremists in Syria. It found that there had been a significant increase in interaction between Israeli soldiers and individuals from members of the Syrian opposition forces.

The friendship appears to be more than just the arming of rebel forces by Israel. A member of the Israeli Knesset has even accused Tel-Aviv of buying oil from Daesh.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180718-israel-weapons-found-in-daesh-arms-depot/.

Iraq Holds Military Parade Celebrating ISIS Defeat

Sunday, 10 December, 2017

An Iraqi military parade celebrating final victory over Islamic State is underway in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, Reuters quoted an Iraqi military spokesman as saying on Sunday.

Almost one year after the launch of military operations from Mosul, north Iraq, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Saturday that his country’s forces have “completely controlled” the Syrian-Iraqi borders, declaring that the war against ISIS has officially ended.

“Our forces are in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border and I, therefore, announce the end of the war against ISIS,” Abadi told a conference in Baghdad.

The Prime Minister added that Iraq’s enemy “wanted to kill our civilization, but we have won through our unity and our determination. We have triumphed in little time.”

In another speech delivered at the Defense Ministry in the presence of representatives from the entire armed forces, Abadi announced that Iraq’s next battle would be to defeat the scourge of corruption.

“Weapons should only be in the state’s hands,” Abadi confirmed.

He said that the rule of law and respect for it are the way to build the state and achieve justice, equality, and stability, adding that the unity of Iraq and its people is the most important and greatest accomplishment.

Authorities in Iraq announced a public holiday on Sunday “to celebrate the victory.”

The prime minister’s declaration came three years after the militant group captured some third of Iraq’s territory.

Meanwhile, Naim el-Kaoud, leader of the al-Bounmar tribes in Anbar told Asharq al-Awsat on Saturday the “battles that continued following the liberation of Rawa, including the western desert, were now completed and the area is now combined to the entire border with Syria after clearing ISIS militants.”

For his part, Hisham al-Hashemi, an expert on jihadist groups, told Asharq Al-Awsat that although the terrorist group was military defeated in Iraq, ISIS would still hold some pockets in some Iraqi areas.

He said that around 800 fighters were still present in the country, especially in east Tigris, and the Hamrin Mountains.

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.
Link: https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1108881/iraq-holds-military-parade-celebrating-isis-defeat.

PM announces on state TV Iraq's war against IS has ended

December 09, 2017

BAGHDAD (AP) — After more than three years of combat operations, Iraq announced Saturday that the fight against the Islamic State group is over after the country's security forces drove the extremists from all of the territory they once held. Iraqi and American officials warned, however, that key challenges remain despite the military victory.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi formally announced the victory in an address to the nation aired on Iraqi state television Saturday evening. "Honorable Iraqis, your land has been completely liberated," he said. "The liberation dream has become a reality. We achieved victory in difficult circumstances and with God's help, the steadfastness of our people and the bravery of our heroic forces we prevailed."

"The flag of Iraq is flying high today over all Iraqi territory and at the farthest point on the border," he added, standing before the most senior members of Iraq's security forces. Following al-Abadi's remarks, his office declared a public holiday Sunday in celebration of the victory, according to an official statement from the prime minister's office.

Iraqi forces mopped up the last pockets of IS fighters from Iraq's western deserts Saturday, securing the country's border with Syria, a step that marked the end of combat operations against the extremists.

"All Iraqi lands are liberated from terrorist Daesh gangs and our forces completely control the international Iraqi-Syrian border," said Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah, a senior Iraqi military commander, in a statement Saturday afternoon.

The U.S. applauded the prime minister's announcement. The U.S. offers "sincere congratulations to the Iraqi people and to the brave Iraqi Security Forces, many of whom lost their lives heroically fighting ISIS," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a written statement, using an alternative acronym for IS.

"Our coalition will continue to stand with Iraq to support its security forces, economy and stabilization to help ensure that ISIS can never against threaten Iraq's people or use its territory as a haven," said Brett McGurk, U.S. special presidential envoy to the anti-IS coalition, in a statement posted to his official Twitter account.

"We mark today's historic victory mindful of the work that remains," he added. Iraq's government remains faced with significant security threats, an economic crisis and the enormous task of rebuilding swaths of territory decimated by the IS fight.

IS fighters overran nearly a third of Iraqi territory, including Mosul, the country's second largest city and Tikrit, the capital of Iraq's central Salahuddin province in the summer of 2014. The following year, IS fighters also overran Anbar's provincial capital of Ramadi.

Over the past 3 ½ half years, Iraqi ground forces closely backed by the U.S.-led coalition and mostly Shiite paramilitary forces backed by Iran have slowly retaken all of that territory. The pace of the anti-IS operation accelerated last year as coalition-backed Iraqi ground forces prepared for the assault on Mosul that was formally launched in October 2016.

After more than nine months of mostly grueling urban combat, Al-Abadi declared victory over IS in Mosul in July. In the months that followed Iraqi forces retook a handful of other IS held towns including Tal Afar in August, Hawija in September and Qaim in October. In November, Iraqi forces retook the last Iraqi town held by IS — Rawah, near the border with Syria.

However, IS fighters remain capable of carrying out insurgent attacks in Iraq, and the group has recovered from past setbacks. IS insurgent networks continue to pose a threat to Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, a senior Iraqi security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The official said intelligence gathering would become increasingly important in the post-military phase of the fight against IS.

"The triumph of military operations alone is not enough without stability," government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said, explaining that rebuilding in the wake of military victories against IS remained a "big challenge" for the Iraqi government.

Additionally, some 3 million Iraqis remain displaced by the fight against IS, according to the United Nations. Al-Abadi also remains faced with a political and military stand-off with the country's Kurdish region over a referendum held on independence.

Federal government troops remain deployed throughout a string of disputed territories claimed by both Baghdad and Iraq's Kurds — who were also backed by U.S.-led coalition forces in the fight against IS. While Baghdad and Irbil have both stated a willingness to talk, negotiations to end the dispute have not yet begun.

As he closed his national address, al-Abadi acknowledged the challenges that remain for Iraq. "I urge everyone to refrain from returning to the inflammatory and sectarian discourse that empowered gangs to occupy our cities and villages," he said.

"Our people have paid a dear price," he added. "We must turn this page forever."

Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed from Baghdad.

Iraq retakes Rawa, last town held by IS

2017-11-17

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army retook the last town in the country still held by the Islamic State group on Friday as the jihadists' self-proclaimed "caliphate" faced collapse on both sides of the border with Syria.

The lightning recapture of the small Euphrates valley town of Rawa in an offensive launched at dawn came as the jihadists were also under attack for a second day in the last town they still hold in Syria, Albu Kamal just over the border.

The Islamic State group (IS) has lost 95 percent of the cross-border "caliphate" it declared in Iraq and Syria in 2014, the US-led coalition fighting it said on Wednesday.

Its losses include all of its major bastions, virtually confining it to pockets of countryside.

Government troops and paramilitary units "liberated the whole of Rawa and raised the Iraqi flag on all of its official buildings," General Abdelamir Yarallah of Iraq's Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.

An army general contacted at the front had predicted that the battle would be swift as "the majority of IS fighters who were in the town have fled towards the Syrian border."

The JOC said appeals had been made for several days to the town's Sunni Arab residents to listen to radio broadcasts for instructions on what to do when the army entered.

Rawa was bypassed in an offensive by the Iraqi army that resulted in the recapture of the strategically important border town of Al-Qaim earlier this month.

The stretch of Euphrates valley abutting the border with Syria has long been a bastion of Sunni Arab insurgency, first against US-led troops after the invasion of 2003 and then against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

The porous frontier became a magnet for foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria, which Baghdad accused of turning a blind eye, and a key smuggling route for arms and illicit goods.

US-led troops carried out repeated operations with code names like Matador and Steel Curtain in 2005 to flush out Al-Qaeda jihadists.

The region swiftly fell to IS when its fighters swept through the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad in 2014 before proclaiming its "caliphate".

- Jihadist dream in tatters -

The jihadists once controlled a territory the size of Britain but they have successively lost all their key strongholds, including Raqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.

Over the border in Syria, IS still holds around 25 percent of the countryside of Deir Ezzor province but are under attack not only by government forces but also by US-backed Kurdish-led fighters.

In the border town of Albu Kamal, the Syrian army was battling IS fighters who mounted a surprise counterattack last week, pushing out government forces who had retaken it last month.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said the new army offensive had successfully penetrated the town, with troops backed by Russian air strikes advancing from the west, east and south.

"More than 7.5 million people have now been liberated" from IS, Washington's envoy to the coalition, Brett McGurk, said late Wednesday, adding that the group's finances are now "at their lowest levels to date".

With the jihadists' dreams of statehood lying in tatters following the battlefield defeats, Western attention is increasingly pivoting to trying to block foreign fighters from returning home to carry out attacks.

McGurk insisted that flows of foreign IS fighters into Syria have "nearly stopped", and that jihadists are increasingly being picked up as they cross borders.

"We are enhancing cooperation and border security, aviation security, law enforcement, financial sanctions, counter-messaging, and intelligence sharing to prevent ISIS from carrying out attacks in our homelands," he said.

Analysts have warned that in some areas recaptured from IS, government control remains weak and the jihadists retain the capability to wage a low-level insurgency.

"We still have places by the Baghdad belt, areas including Ramadi and Fallujah... that are not well controlled at all," Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said earlier this month.

"They (the jihadists) are back where they were in 2013... They will restart insurgency all over again."

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=85981.

Iraq forces defeat IS jihadists in town of Al-Qaim

2017-11-03

BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces Friday captured the biggest town under Islamic State group control in Iraq, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said, driving another nail into the coffin of the jihadists' self-styled caliphate.

Abadi hailed the "liberation of Al-Qaim in record time" in a statement, just hours after Iraqi troops backed up by local Sunni tribal militia fighters entered the key town on the border with Syria.

The fall of Al-Qaim leaves IS fighters in Iraq holding just the smaller neighboring town of Rawa and surrounding pockets of barren desert along the Euphrates river.

That is all that remains in the country from the vast swathes of territory that the group seized in 2014 as it rampaged across Iraq and neighboring Syria.

The US-led coalition supporting Iraqi forces with air strikes had predicted that the battle for Al-Qaim would be the "last big fight" of the punishing military campaign to dismantle their brutal experiment in statehood.

But the town appeared to have fallen in lightning time after commanders announced that Iraqi troops pushed into the town of some 50,000 inhabitants on Friday morning.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=85761.

Iraqi forces recaptures crossing on Syria border from IS

2017-11-03

BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces said they recaptured an important crossing on the border with Syria from the Islamic State group on Friday as they advanced into the jihadists' last bastion in Iraq.

Iraq's Joint Operations Command said troops had "regained full control" of the Husaybah border post on the edge of the town of Al-Qaim after launching a push to oust the jihadists.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi released a statement congratulating the armed forces for "entering into Al-Qaim and liberating" the border crossing.

An Iraqi army officer said that the jihadists "deserted the border post after several of them were killed" and headed off into Syria.

Al-Qaim and the surrounding areas are the last remnants of the self-styled caliphate IS declared after rampaging across Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Iraqi forces backed up by air strikes from a US-led coalition launched the operation last week to seize back the strategically located pocket of barren desert along the Euphrates river.

IS is simultaneously battling for survival in its holdouts across the border in Syria, where government troops said they ousted the group from the key city of Deir Ezzor on Friday.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=85756.

Iraqi forces advance to edge of final IS bastion Al-Qaim

2017-10-31

BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces on Tuesday battled up to the edge of Al-Qaim, the largest town still held by the Islamic State group in the country, as they pushed a final assault on the jihadists.

Iraq's Joint Operations Command said government troops -- backed by US air strikes and Sunni tribal fighters -- captured the village of Al-Obeidi, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Syrian border on the eastern outskirts of the town.

"IS fighters resisted the advance of the troops, but the majority retreated to positions in the center of Al-Qaim," it said in a statement.

Al-Qaim and the surrounding pocket of barren desert territory along the Euphrates river is now the last remnant in the country of the self-styled caliphate IS declared after rampaging across Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Iraq launched the offensive on the Al-Qaim region -- which also includes the smaller town of Rawa -- on Thursday to finish off a punishing campaign that saw it force the jihadists out their major urban stronghold Mosul in July.

Al-Obeidi was "one of the most important locations for IS fighters, who were there in great numbers," local tribal militia commander Qatari al-Obeidi said.

"They had arms caches and production lines for making explosives and preparing suicide bombers."

Since the start of the offensive last week government forces have also retaken a cement plant and phosphate processing facility, said operation commander General Abdel Amir Yarallah.

As Iraq makes its final push, IS is also battling for survival against competing offensives backed by the US and Russia in territory just over the porous border in Syria.

Long before the rise of IS, Al-Qaim became renowned as a hotbed of jihadist insurgency in the wake of the US-led invasion in 2003.

The roughly 150,000 people living in the Al-Qaim region -- with 50,000 inside the town itself -- are Sunni Muslims from a small number of influential tribes.

Under IS, the town has been a vital supply route between its forces in Iraq and the oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor it once dominated over the border in Syria.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=85701.

Iraq begins operation to reclaim IS bastion Hawija

2017-09-21

BAGHDAD - Iraq has begun an offensive to retake Hawija, one of two remaining bastions of the Islamic State (IS) group in the country, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Thursday.

"At the dawn of a new day, we announce the launch of the first stage of the liberation of Hawija, in accordance with our commitment to our people to liberate all Iraqi territory and eradicate Daesh's terrorist groups," he said in a statement, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

"Greetings to all of our forces, who are waging several battles of liberation at the same time and who are winning victory after victory and this will be another, with the help of God," he said.

Iraqi forces have now forced IS out of all its Iraqi territories except Hawija, 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of Baghdad, and several pockets of territory near the border with Syria. The town was one of the first areas to fall under IS control in 2014.

Artillery fire was heard Thursday morning, with the army heading towards Sharqat, southwest of Hawija, an AFP reporter said.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=84966.

Slow recovery for Iraq's Mosul after Daesh ouster

Sep 09,2017

MOSUL, Iraq — Two months since Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul from the Daesh terror group extremists, Mohammed Seddiq's bullet-riddled car is still off the road and his fruit and vegetable shop has yet to reopen.

Much of Iraq's second city lies in ruins and many businesses are still at a standstill, even those that produced the famous muslin cotton fabric for which Mosul was renowned before the extremists seized it in 2014.

Three years ago, Seddiq, 32, owned two cars, but the extremists set fire to one and the other was damaged by mortar shells and bullets.

With all the garages still closed in his west Mosul neighborhood, he sought out a mechanic in the industrial zone in the city's east which was less severely damaged by fighting.

He expects the repairs to cost $1,000. In the meantime he will have to pay for taxis using his savings because "the state has announced that it will reimburse for cars and houses, but up to now nothing" has been paid.

Many of the cars awaiting repairs at Ghezwan Aqil's workshop were damaged when bulldozer-driving extremists used them to form barricades against advancing Iraqi troops.

Their owners cannot afford to buy new cars and are prepared to wait one or two months for the repairs instead.

Aqil says that sometimes he will reduce a customer's bill by half depending on their circumstances.

Even after Mosul’s recapture life is uncertain and insecurity is rife.

“There have been many burglaries,” says taxi driver Mohammed Salem.

“And people have been detained by unidentified groups. No one knows what happened to them,” the 33-year-old adds.

“There are regular problems between the various armed forces, especially the paramilitary units,” Hossam Eddine Al Abbar, a member of the provincial council of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, tells AFP.

The presence of the Hashed Al Shaabi (Popular Mobilization) paramilitary units, dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias, has stirred tensions in the Sunni-majority city.

Without genuine reconciliation between communities, there are fears that the country could once again descend into violence.

“The best way to control [armed groups] is to integrate them into the regular forces that enjoy much more trust among citizens than paramilitary forces,” Abbar said.

Omar Al Allaf, a local tribal dignitary who oversees Hashed Al Shaabi units, rejects the idea.

His men will never join the police because “they are infiltrated by terrorists”, he says.

In 2014, as Daesh staged a rapid advance across northern Iraq, police and military personnel abandoned their posts to the extremists with barely a fight.

That allowed the group to establish its “caliphate” across parts of Syria and a third of Iraq’s territory including Mosul.

Today, many police in the Iraqi city are demanding their reinstatement, but the process of identification and investigation of each one takes time, Abbar said.

“More than 13,000 policemen have yet to return to their jobs despite our requests to the authorities in Baghdad,” he added.

Mosul’s famed Old City was reduced to rubble by the fighting and the iconic leaning minaret of its Al Nuri Mosque, the image of which adorns the 10,000 dinar note, left in ruins.

For many of Mosul’s displaced, it is impossible to envisage a return to a city where, in addition to finding nothing left of their previous life, they risk losing more.

In the past year, a million Iraqis have fled their homes in Nineveh province.

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://www.jordantimes.com/news/region/slow-recovery-iraq%E2%80%99s-mosul-after-daesh-ouster.

40,000 troops preparing to take Iraqi town from Daesh

August 16, 2017

Some 40,000 Iraqi troops are preparing for military operations to retake the Iraqi town of Tal Afar from Daesh, the Anadolu Agency reported.

Iraqi authorities have announced that the town, located 80 kilometers west of Mosul, will be the next target in the war against Daesh following the recapture of Mosul.

Tal Afar, which had a population of 200,000, has seen intense aerial bombardment to clear the way for ground troops to retake the town completely. At dawn today US planes stepped up air raids ahead of a ground offensive to drive out the 1,500-2,000 Daesh fighters currently in the area.

Following the announcement, armored and elite units were said to be heading towards the Tal Afar which is some 70 kilometers from the Turkish border.

A coalition of different security personnel that includes the police, the military and various fighting units has gathered according to Iraqi military officials. Disputes regarding the participation of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a state-sponsored umbrella organisation composed of some 40 militias that have been accused of committing numerous human rights abuse on the battlefield, have not been resolved.

Turkey, which has a close affinity with Tal Afar’s predominantly ethnic Turkmen population, opposes the involvement of Shia paramilitary groups fighting with Iraqi forces, some of which are also backed by Iran. The sight of the build-up of troops not too far from the Turkish border may cause further irritation to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has previously said that the involvement of Shia militia was a “red-line”.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170816-40000-troops-preparing-to-take-iraqi-town-from-daesh/.

Iraqi leader declares end to IS caliphate but fight goes on

June 30, 2017

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — With anti-Islamic State group forces on the offensive in both the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, Iraq's prime minister on Thursday declared an end to the extremist group's self-proclaimed caliphate.

But even as Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi made the bold assertion, deadly fighting continued in Mosul — filling field hospitals and forcing hundreds to flee. "We are seeing the end of the fake Daesh state. The liberation of Mosul proves that," al-Abadi said on Twitter, using the Arabic acronym for IS. "We will not relent. Our brave forces will bring victory."

Across the border in in Raqqa, coalition officials predicted a long, bloody battle ahead for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, whose fighters succeeded in completely encircling the militants' de-facto capital Thursday. U.S.-led coalition officials estimated that as many as 2,500 IS fighters remained in the city.

Beginning at dawn, Iraqi forces began a push deeper into Mosul's Old City, where IS fighters were making their last stand. The Iraqi troops moved slowly along foot paths strewn with rubble, twisted metal and downed power lines. Many front-line positions were only reachable by climbing in and out of homes, across roof tops and through holes blasted into concrete walls.

By early afternoon they had reached al-Nuri Mosque, at once a hugely symbolic win and a ruined prize. The site is where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his only public appearance in July 2014, declaring the self-styled Islamic "caliphate" encompassing territories then-held by the extremists in Syria and Iraq.

But IS destroyed the mosque and its iconic leaning minaret last week, Iraqi and coalition officials said. The Islamic State group blamed a U.S. airstrike for the blasts, a claim rejected by a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition who said coalition planes "did not conduct strikes in that area at that time."

The fight for the Old City has seen some of the most difficult urban combat yet for Iraqi forces in the campaign against IS. Eight months into the Mosul offensive, IS now holds less than two square kilometers (0.8 square miles) of the city, but the advances have come at considerable cost.

Damaged and destroyed houses dot the Old City neighborhoods retaken by Iraqi forces and the stench of rotting bodies rises from beneath collapsed buildings. "There are hundreds of bodies under the rubble," said special forces Maj. Dhia Thamir. "But they are all Daesh."

Special forces Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi acknowledged that civilians have been killed by airstrikes and artillery in the recent fighting. "Of course there is collateral damage, it is always this way in war," he said. "The houses are very old, so any bombardment causes them to collapse completely."

U.S.-led coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon told reporters at the Pentagon that "the Old City still remains a difficult, dense, suffocating fight — tight alley ways with booby traps, civilians, and (IS) fighters around every corner."

Still, he said he expected victory to be "imminent," predicting it would come "in days rather than weeks." Even after Mosul is retaken, however, IS still controls significant pockets of territory in Iraq that Iraqi forces say will require many more months of fighting to liberate.

Some 300 IS fighters remain holed up inside the last Mosul districts the militants hold, along with an estimated 50,000 civilians, according to the United Nations. The civilians who managed to escape Thursday fled on foot in waves. Soldiers shouted at men to lift their shirts to show they were not wearing explosives and rummaged through the few possessions people carried with them: identify papers, family photos, baby formula, diapers and clothing.

Nearly 1,000 civilians fled the Old City on Thursday, according to Col. Ali al-Kenani, an Iraqi intelligence officer at a west Mosul screening center. Families covered in dust huddled in the shade of half-destroyed storefronts waiting for flat-bed trucks to move them to camps.

"We saw so many bodies stuck under the rubble as we fled," said Muhammed Hamoud who escaped the Old City with his wife and two children. "One man was still alive. He yelled for us to help him. We were able to dig him out, but he was so badly injured we had to leave him. We couldn't carry him with us."

While Iraqi forces have had periods of swift gains during the Mosul operation, combat has largely been grueling and deadly for both security forces and civilians. Clashes have also displaced more than 850,000 people according to the International Organization for Migration.

At a small field clinic not far from the front, medics were treating casualties in waves. An entire family suffering from shrapnel wounds from a mortar round was brought in a military vehicle as another Humvee rushed up to the clinic's doors with a body on the hood.

"What do we have?" a doctor yelled as a team scrambled to pull on plastic gloves and ready a cot. "A martyr," the driver said. The medics stopped prepping bandages and began removing their gloves. The solider was already dead.

Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad, Balint Szlanko and Salar Salim in Mosul, and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.

In Mosul, Iraqi forces take landmark mosque blown up by IS

June 29, 2017

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi forces on Thursday captured the compound of a landmark mosque in Mosul that was blown up last week by the Islamic State group — a hugely symbolic site from where the top IS leader declared an Islamic "caliphate" nearly three years ago.

The advance comes as the Iraqi troops are pushing deeper into the Old City, a densely populated neighborhood west of the Tigris River where the al-Nouri Mosque with its 12th century al-Hadba minaret once stood and where the IS militants are now making their last stand in what are expected to be the final days of the battle for Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city.

Iraqi special forces reached the al-Nuri Mosque compound and took control of the surrounding streets on Thursday afternoon, following a dawn push into the area, Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi of the elite force told The Associated Press.

Damaged and destroyed houses dot the route Iraqi forces have carved into the congested district — along a landscape of destruction where the stench of rotting bodies rises from under the rubble. Thursday's push comes more than a week after Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul's last IS-held parts of the Old City neighborhood, with its narrow alleyways and dense clusters of homes.

Taking the mosque is a symbolic victory — from its pulpit, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in July 2014 declared a self-styled Islamic "caliphate," encompassing territories then-held by the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

Iraqi and coalition officials said IS blew up the mosque complex last week. The Islamic State group has blamed a U.S. airstrike for the destruction, a claim rejected by a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition. U.S.

Army Col. Ryan Dillon told the AP that coalition planes "did not conduct strikes in that area at that time." IS had initially tried to destroy the al-Nouri Mosque in July 2014, saying the structure contradicted their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. Mosul residents converged on the area, however, and formed a human chain to protect it.

Last week's destruction was only the latest in a long series of priceless archaeological and cultural sites that the militants have ravaged across Iraq and Syria. In addition to pillaging hundreds of treasures and artifacts, IS fighters have damaged or destroyed dozens of historic places, including the town of Palmyra in Syria, home to one of the Middle East's most spectacular archaeological sites; the 2,000-year-old city of Hatra; and the nearly 3,000-year-old city of Nimrud in Iraq's Euphrates River valley.

After months of fighting, the IS hold in Mosul has now shrunk to less than 2 square kilometers (0.8 square miles) of territory but the advances have come at considerable cost. "There are hundreds of bodies under the rubble," said special forces Maj. Dhia Thamir, deployed inside the Old City. He added that all the dead bodies along the special forces' route were of IS fighters.

Special forces Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi acknowledged that some civilians have been killed by airstrikes and artillery in the fight for the Old City. "Of course there is collateral damage, it is always this way in war," he said.

"The houses are very old," he said, referring to the Old City, "so any bombardment causes them to collapse completely." Al-Aridi said the clearing of the mosque will likely require specialized engineering teams since the militants have likely rigged the site with explosives.

The campaign to retake Mosul — formally launched in October — is in its final stages though the progress has been slow as the last militants there are holed up with an estimated 100,000 civilians, according to the United Nations.

The fight for the city has also displaced more than 850,000 people and while Iraqi forces have had periods of swift gains, combat inside Mosul has largely been grueling and deadly for both security forces and civilians.

In Baghdad, state TV declared the capture the al-Nuri Mosque with an urgent text scroll that said: "The State of Myth Has Fallen."

Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad and Balint Szlanko in Mosul, Iraq, contributed to this report.

In Mosul, hunger grows amid slow advances against IS

May 06, 2017

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Aliyah Hussein and the 25 family members sheltering with her in Mosul's western Mahatta neighborhood are surviving by picking wild greens growing in a park near their home. Hussein mixes the vegetables with small amounts of rice and tomato paste to make a thin soup that is often her family's only meal.

Her cousin Zuhair Abdul Karim said on a recent day that even with the wild greens, the food ran out. "I swear to God, we are hungry. (The Islamic State group) made us hungry. They didn't leave anything for us, they even stole our food," Hussein said. Her home sits just a few hundred yards (meters) from the front line in the battle for western Mosul.

As Iraqi forces continue to make slow progress in the fight against IS in the city, clawing back territory house by house and block by block, food supplies are running dangerously low for civilians trapped inside militant-held territory and those inside recently retaken neighborhoods. For families like Hussein's, safety concerns make them unreachable for most humanitarian groups.

Although Hussein has technically been liberated, her neighborhood is still too dangerous for most humanitarian groups to reach. In the past week she said she received only one box of food consisting of rice, oil and tomato paste, barely enough to feed her entire family even for a single day.

"The women didn't have lunch. Only the children and men have eaten," Abdul Karim said, explaining that he and his family are now living meal to meal. "We don't know if we'll have dinner," he said, "maybe or maybe not."

Some families walk several kilometers (miles) to markets that have sprung up in neighborhoods that have been under Iraqi military control longer. But prices there are high. Most families have exhausted their savings and work is almost non-existent in Mosul, a city now been ripped apart by war.

"The humanitarian world needs to realize that there is a huge gap between people who are in the safe zone and people who are actually trapped in the no man's land between the Iraqi controlled areas and ... Daesh controlled areas," said Alto Labetubun with Norwegian People Aid, one of the few groups operating in neighborhoods close to the front line. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Some 300,000 to 500,000 people remain beyond anyone's reach, trapped in IS-held Mosul neighborhoods, according to the United Nations. For those civilians, siege-like conditions have prevented food supplies from reaching them for more than six months.

Most of those civilians are estimated to be in Mosul's old city, where the final battles of the operation are expected to play out. If the fighting there lasts many more weeks, the U.N. warns the consequences for civilians will be "catastrophic."

"We know we have a problem because when people reach our camps the first thing they ask for is food," said Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq. She said it's impossible to measure exactly how many families are facing what she described as "serious hunger" inside Mosul, but the conditions of the people fleeing the city paint a grim picture of those who remain trapped.

Hundreds of infants and young children who recently fled Mosul are being treated for malnutrition, Grande said. Separately, she added that the U.N. had received reports that even baby formula in IS-held neighborhoods is now no longer available,

"If the battle goes beyond (the next few weeks), then we have a catastrophic problem," she said. In the Wadi al-Hajar neighborhood hundreds of people queue for food boxes delivered by Norwegian People Aid. But most of them are turned around as there aren't enough supplies to go around. A small crowd of women begged the aid workers for food after the last boxes were handed out.

Ibrahim Khalil, also turned away, said his hunger was so intense, he felt like he was starving. "Didn't they claim they'd liberate us from Daesh?!" he said referring to the Iraqi government, "and they'd change our lives from misery to happiness?"