Tag Archives: Afghanistan

Afghan government controls less than 60 percent of country: watchdog

Afghan National Army soldier stands guard

By Josh Smith

KABUL (Reuters) – The Afghan government controls less than 60 percent of the country, a U.S. watchdog agency reported on Wednesday, after security forces retreated from many strongholds last year.

Afghan soldiers and police, with the aid of thousands of foreign military advisers, are struggling to hold off a resurgent insurgency led by the Taliban, as well as other groups like Islamic State.

As of November, the government could only claim to control or influence 57 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, according to U.S. military estimates released by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), in a quarterly report to the U.S. Congress.

That represents a 15 percent decrease in territory held compared with the same time in 2015, the agency said in a report.

“SIGAR’s analysis of the most recent data provided by U.S. forces in Afghanistan suggests that the security situation in Afghanistan has not improved this quarter,” it said.

“The numbers of the Afghan security forces are decreasing, while both casualties and the number of districts under insurgent control or influence are increasing.”

More than 10 percent of districts are under insurgent control or influence, while 33 percent are contested, according to the report.

Some of the most contested provinces include Uruzgan, with five of six districts under insurgent control or influence, and Helmand, with eight of its 14 districts under insurgent control or influence.

U.S. military officials say much of the loss of territory reflects a change in strategy, with Afghan forces abandoning many checkpoints and bases in order to consolidate and focus on the most threatened areas.

Insurgents tried at least eight times to capture provincial capitals, although each assault was eventually beaten off.

According to U.S. military estimates, the number of Afghans living under insurgent control or influence decreased slightly in recent months to about 2.5 million people.

But nearly a third of the country, or 9.2 million people, live in areas that are contested, according to SIGAR, leading to some of the highest civilian casualty rates the United Nations has ever recorded in Afghanistan.

Afghan security forces also sustained heavy casualties, with at least 6,785 soldiers and police killed in the first 10 months of last year, with 11,777 wounded, SIGAR reported.

Casualty figures are rarely released by the Afghan government, while difficulties in confirming and tracking troop numbers make any figures subject to wide variation.

SIGAR reported some progress in combating corruption, which has plagued both Afghan military and political institutions.

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel)

As caliphate crumbles, Islamic State lashes out in Iraq

People look into the remains of a car after being bombed

By John Davison

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Two days after Iraqi forces launched a new push against Islamic State in Mosul, bomb blasts ripped through a marketplace in central Baghdad – the start of a spate of attacks that appear to signal a shift in tactics by the Islamist group.

The Sunni jihadists have targeted Shi’ite Muslim civilians. Raids on police and army posts in other cities, also claimed by Islamic State, have accompanied the bombings.

The attacks show that even if Islamic State loses the Iraqi side of its self-styled caliphate, the threat from the group may not subside.

It will likely switch from ruling territory to pursuing insurgency tactics, seeking to reignite the sectarian tensions that fueled its rise, diplomats and security analysts say.

In addition to operations in and around Baghdad, IS has carried out attacks in the region and Europe as it has come under pressure in Syria and Iraq.

In Iraq, U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are driving IS out of Mosul, its largest urban center in the vast territories it seized 2-1/2 years ago there and in neighboring Syria.

Iraq’s government is aware of the challenge it faces in stemming the IS threat after Mosul.

“Terrorism uses the weapon of sectarianism in Iraq and Syria … in order to drive people and communities apart and take control of them,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told Iraqi politicians and officials in Baghdad on Saturday.

“(We must) not allow the conditions that existed before Daesh (Islamic State),” he said, urging politicians to shun sectarianism and pledging to fight corruption, which plagued security forces before Islamic State’s big advances in 2014.

As well as improving security, authorities must involve local people in intelligence efforts and improve the lot of marginalized Sunnis, especially the 3 million displaced by fighting, the analysts said.

Failure to do so could give IS, also known as Daesh, ISIS and ISIL, space to regroup and sow sectarian strife.

Islamic State’s main target in a post-Mosul insurgency would likely be Baghdad and surrounding areas, a senior Western diplomat told Reuters.

“What you’re seeing now are elements of Daesh that were left in Anbar (province) following the liberation of Ramadi, Falluja, Hit, Haditha … they’re also being reinforced across the border from Syria,” the diplomat said.

‘HIGHER TEMPO’ OF ATTACKS

Iraqi forces last year drove the jihadists out of strongholds in Anbar, the heartland of Sunni tribes who resent the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad.

Some militants went to ground in those areas, as Iraqi forces have dealt them a big blow there and in Mosul, the diplomat said. But they are making their presence felt again with recent attacks.

Repeated use of vehicle bombs this month, a trend that had dropped off in Baghdad by late last year, shows that militant networks around the capital have been revived, said Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“We’ve certainly seen ISIS move to a slightly higher tempo at the start of the year,” he said.

“It’s going to be a long struggle because these networks adapt, so you might disrupt them for a six-month period but they’re determined to reappear.”

Through new attacks mostly targeting Shi’ites, the Sunni extremist group aims not only to distract from military losses but to raise sectarian tensions.

Authorities must address grievances such as corruption and Sunni disenfranchisement that IS has exploited if growing violence is to be avoided, foreign and Iraqi observers said.

The battle for Mosul has brought some intelligence successes, according to military officials, who say local informers have been crucial in helping troops take on the militants.

KEEPING SUNNIS ON SIDE

Iraqi troops have tried to avoid killing civilians even as IS hides among and targets them. Residents glad to be rid of the group, which conducted public executions and cut the hands off thieves, have largely welcomed Iraqi forces.

“The question is, can they keep that trust?” said Baghdad-based security analyst Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises the government on Islamic State, arguing this would be tougher in areas closer to Baghdad.

“Intelligence in cities retaken from IS (near the capital) is weak. They’ve used local sources to arrest people, but suspects are often released with a bribe.”

As it swept through Iraq in 2014, IS exploited feelings in some Sunni areas that Shi’ite-dominated security forces were targeting them.

Current gaps in intelligence could be plugged through a delicate handling of relations between the state and those communities, another senior Western diplomat said.

For example, Sunni policemen should be trained and sent into the areas with a Sunni population, the diplomat said.

Ihsan al-Shammari, head of the Iraqi Centre for Political Thought, said Prime Minister Abadi grasps what needs to be done to eradicate the threat from Islamic State. The test will be achieving that in a difficult security environment.

“Rebuilding, bringing law and order, and returning the displaced … could be a road map for achieving calm,” Shammari said.

(Reporting by John Davison; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Turkey says captures nightclub attacker who acted for Islamic State

A man places flowers at the entrance of Reina nightclub, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey January 3, 2017.

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish authorities have captured the gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day, an Uzbek national they said was trained in Afghanistan and had clearly acted on behalf of Islamic State.

The suspect, named by Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin as Abdulgadir Masharipov, was caught in a police raid late on Monday in a hideout in an outlying Istanbul suburb after a two-week manhunt.

Masharipov, who was captured with four others, had admitted his guilt and his fingerprints matched those at the scene, Sahin told a news conference.

“He knew four languages and was well-educated,” Sahin said, adding he was born in 1983 in Uzbekistan and received training in Afghanistan.

There were strong indications he entered Turkey illegally through its eastern borders in January 2016 and it was clear the attack was carried out on behalf of Islamic State, Sahin said.

The jihadist group claimed responsibility a day after the mass shooting, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

Masharipov was captured with an Iraqi man and three women from Africa, one of them from Egypt, in the Esenyurt district on Istanbul’s western outskirts, about 30 km (19 miles) from the Reina nightclub.

Two pistols, mobile phone SIM cards, two drones and $197,000 in cash were also seized, Sahin said.

Dogan news agency published a photo of the alleged attacker with a black eye, a cut above his eyebrow and bloodstains on his face and t-shirt. It broadcast footage showing plain-clothes police leading a man in a white sweater to a waiting car.

He was being questioned at Istanbul police headquarters, while other people were detained in raids across the city targeting Uzbek Islamic State cells, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

“WE SAID OUR GOODBYES”

The gunman appeared to have repeatedly changed addresses before and after the attack. Remaining in Istanbul, he evaded a 16-day nationwide manhunt that included operations in cities from Izmir on the Aegean coast, to Konya in central Anatolia, and Hatay near the southern border with Syria.

“Five addresses were tracked and operations were carried out against them. He was found at one of the five,” Sahin said.

Masharipov and those seized with him late on Monday had moved to the Esenyurt address around three days ago, he said.

Neighbours in the modern, five-storey apartment building where he was found said they had never met him, although they had seen the African women who lived with him. A woman living directly below told Reuters the apartment had previously been lived in by seven or eight Syrians, who left late last summer.

Masharipov first rented an apartment in Basaksehir, another outlying Istanbul district, before switching addresses a day or two before the attack, the Istanbul governor said.

The Hurriyet newspaper said he was married with two children, was a dual Uzbek-Tajik national and spoke Russian, Arabic, Chinese and Turkish, as well as Uzbek. He received two years training in Afghanistan and Pakistan and was believed to have entered Turkey via Iran, it said.

His wife was detained last week in a raid in Maltepe, a coastal district on the Asian side of Istanbul, and their one-and-a-half year-old daughter was taken into care, Hurriyet said.

“We said our goodbyes and he left the house (on the night of the attack),” it quoted her as saying in a statement to police.

Foreign currency banknotes and various documents are seen in the bedroom of a hideout where the alleged attacker of Reina nightclub was caught by Turkish police last night, in Esenyurt neighbourhood in Istanbul, Turkey,

Foreign currency banknotes and various documents are seen in the bedroom of a hideout where the alleged attacker of Reina nightclub was caught by Turkish police last night, in Esenyurt neighbourhood in Istanbul, Turkey, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Osman Orsal 

About 50 people have been detained in raids on 152 addresses since the shooting. Investigators analysed 7,200 hours of camera footage in the search and police received more than 2,000 tip-offs, Sahin said.

“WAR WITH TERROR” WILL CONTINUE

“I congratulate our police who caught the perpetrator of the Ortakoy massacre,” Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, who is also the government spokesman, said on social network Twitter.

“Our war with terror and the powers behind it will continue to the end,” he said.

On Jan. 1, the attacker shot his way into the nightclub and opened fire with an automatic rifle. He reloaded his weapon several times and shot the wounded as they lay on the ground.

Turks as well as visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada were among those killed in the attack.

NATO member Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and launched an incursion into neighbouring Syria in August to drive the radical Sunni militants, and Kurdish militia fighters, away from its borders.

The jihadist group has been blamed for at least half a dozen attacks on civilian targets in Turkey over the past 18 months. But, other than assassinations, the new year attack was the first it has directly claimed.

The shooting in Istanbul’s Ortakoy neighbourhood, an upscale district on the Bosphorus shore, followed a year in which Turkey was shaken by a series of attacks by radical Islamist and Kurdish militants and by a failed coup.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said the attack, which targeted a club popular with local celebrities and moneyed foreigners, was designed to divide the largely Sunni Muslim nation.

(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova in Istanbul; Editing by Nick Tattersall, Timothy Heritage, Anna Willard)

Afghan Taliban releases video of U.S., Australian hostages

KABUL (Reuters) – The Afghan Taliban released a video on Wednesday showing an Australian and an American hostage pleading with the U.S. government to negotiate with their captors and saying that unless a prisoner exchange was agreed they would be killed.

Timothy Weeks, an Australian teacher at the American University in Kabul and his American colleague Kevin King were seized near the campus in August.

The video, which Weeks said was made on Jan. 1, showed the two men, both bearded, asking their families to put pressure on the U.S. government to help secure their release.

Addressing President-elect Donald Trump, who is due to take office on Jan. 20, Weeks said the Taliban had asked for prisoners held at Bagram air field and at Pul-e-Charkhi prison on the outskirts of Kabul to be exchanged for them.

“They are being held there illegally and the Taliban has asked for them to be released in our exchange. If they are not exchanged for us then we will be killed,” he said.

“Donald Trump sir, please, I ask you, please, this is in your hands, I ask you please to negotiate with the Taliban. If you do not negotiate with them, we will be killed.”

In September, the Pentagon said U.S. forces mounted a raid to try to rescue two civilian hostages but the men were not at the location targeted.

Kidnapping has been a major problem in Afghanistan for many years. Most victims are Afghans and many kidnappers are criminal gangs seeking ransom money but a number of foreigners have also been abducted for political ends.

Last year, the Taliban released a video showing a U.S. hostage and her Canadian husband abducted in 2012 asking their governments to pressure the Kabul government not to execute Taliban prisoners.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Afghan officials probe attacks as death toll rises to at least 50

Afghan worker removing debris from suicide attack

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan security officials began investigating Tuesday’s attacks in the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar as the death toll climbed to at least 50.

The Ministry of Public Health raised the death toll from the Kabul attack to 37, with 98 wounded, while 13 people were confirmed dead in Kandahar. One security official said the death toll from the Kabul incident alone could reach as high as 45-50 with more than 100 wounded.

The violence highlights the precarious security situation in Afghanistan, which has seen a steady increase in attacks since international troops ended combat operations in 2014, with record numbers of civilian casualties.

Many of the Kabul victims were workers in parliamentary offices who were returning home in the afternoon rush hour or first responders hit when they were attending victims of an initial blast.

The Taliban, seeking to reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster, claimed responsibility for the attack, which they said targeted a minibus carrying personnel from the National Directorate for Security, Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency.

But they denied responsibility for the attack in Kandahar which killed mainly government officials or diplomats from the United Arab Emirates who were visiting the city to open an orphanage.

President Ashraf Ghani’s National security adviser, Hanif Atmar, travelled to Kandahar on Wednesday to launch an investigation. Five Emirati officials as well as the deputy governor of Kandahar, Abdul Shamsi, and a number of other senior officials were among the dead.

No claim of responsibility has been made for the attack, set off by a bomb hidden under sofas in the residence of the provincial governor.

However Kandahar police chief Abdul Razeq, a feared commander who was in the compound when the explosion occurred but who escaped injury, accused Pakistan’s intelligence services and the Haqqani network, a militant group linked to the Taliban.

He said workers may have smuggled in the explosives used in the attack during construction work and said a number of people had been held for questioning.

The United Nations condemned the “unprincipled, unlawful and deplorable attacks” which it said would make peace more difficult to achieve.

“Those responsible for these attacks must be held accountable,” said Pernille Kardel, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan.

On the same day as the two attacks, seven people were killed in a Taliban attack on a security unit in the southern province of Helmand.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi, writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Taliban attack near Afghan parliament kills more than 20

Afghan policement at site of suicide bombing

KABUL (Reuters) – A Taliban suicide attack in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday killed more than 20 people and wounded at least 20 others, as twin blasts near parliament offices hit a crowded area during the afternoon rush hour.

Saleem Rasouli, a senior public health official, said 23 people had been killed and more than 20 wounded in the attack on the Darul Aman road, near an annexe to the new Indian-financed parliament building.

Another official put the death toll at 21 but said more than 45 had been wounded in the worst attack Kabul has seen in weeks.

The Islamist militant Afghan Taliban movement, which immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, said its target had been a minibus carrying staff from the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency. It put casualties at around 70.

Officials said a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Darul Aman area, and was followed almost immediately by a car bomber in an apparently coordinated operation.

Earlier on Tuesday, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded nine when he detonated his explosives in a house in the southern province of Helmand used by an NDS unit.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in Afghanistan in the 15 years since the Taliban government was brought down in the U.S.-led campaign of 2001.

In July, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported that 1,601 civilians had been killed in the first half of the year, a record since it began collating figures in 2009.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by James Mackenzie and Mike Collett-White)

Russia, Pakistan, China warn of increased Islamic State threat in Afghanistan

Islamic State flag

By Peter Hobson

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia, China and Pakistan warned on Tuesday that the influence of Islamic State (IS) was growing in Afghanistan and that the security situation there was deteriorating.

Representatives from the three countries, meeting in Moscow, also agreed to invite the Afghan government to such talks in the future, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

“(The three countries) expressed particular concern about the rising activity in the country of extremist groups including the Afghan branch of IS,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters after the meeting.

The United States, which still has nearly 10,000 troops in Afghanistan more than 15 years after the Islamist Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces, was not invited to the Moscow talks.

The gathering, the third in a series of consultations between Russia, China and Pakistan that has so far excluded Kabul, is likely to deepen worries in Washington that it is being sidelined in negotiations over Afghanistan’s future.

Officials in Kabul and Washington have said that Russia is deepening its ties with Taliban militants fighting the government, though Moscow has denied providing aid to the insurgents.

Zakharova said Russia, China and Pakistan had “noted the deterioration of the security situation (in Afghanistan)”.

The three countries agreed a “flexible approach to remove certain figures from sanctions lists as part of efforts to foster a peaceful dialogue between Kabul and the Taliban movement,” she added.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last month asked the United Nations to add the Taliban’s new leader to its sanctions list, further undermining a stalled peace process.

Earlier on Tuesday, Afghan Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ahmad Shekib Mostaghni said Kabul had not been properly briefed about the Moscow meeting.

“Discussion about the situation in Afghanistan, even if well-intentioned, in the absence of Afghans cannot help the real situation and also raises serious questions about the purpose of such meetings,” he said.

A number of Afghan provincial capitals have come under pressure from the Taliban this year while Afghan forces have been suffering high casualty rates, with more than 5,500 killed in the first eight months of 2016.

An offshoot of Islamic State has claimed responsibility for several attacks in the last year.

(Reporting by Peter Hobson and Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Gareth Jones)

Ties between Russia and the Taliban worry Afghan, U.S. officials

Members of the Taliban gather at the site of the execution of three men accused of murdering a couple during a robbery in Ghazni province, Afghanistan

By Hamid Shalizi and Josh Smith

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan and American officials are increasingly worried that any deepening of ties between Russia and Taliban militants fighting to topple the government in Kabul could complicate an already precarious security situation.

Russian officials have denied they provide aid to the insurgents, who are contesting large swathes of territory and inflicting heavy casualties, and say their limited contacts are aimed at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table.

Leaders in Kabul say Russian support for the Afghan Taliban appears to be mostly political so far.

But a series of recent meetings they say has taken place in Moscow and Tajikistan has made Afghan intelligence and defence officials nervous about more direct support including weapons or funding.

A senior Afghan security official called Russian support for the Taliban a “dangerous new trend”, an analysis echoed by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson.

He told reporters at a briefing in Washington last week that Russia had joined Iran and Pakistan as countries with a “malign influence” in Afghanistan, and said Moscow was lending legitimacy to the Taliban.

Russia’s ambassador to Kabul, Alexander Mantytskiy, told reporters on Thursday that his government’s contacts with the insurgent group were aimed at ensuring the safety of Russian citizens and encouraging peace talks.

“We do not have intensive contacts with the Taliban,” he said through an interpreter, adding that Russia favored a negotiated peace in Afghanistan which could only happen by cultivating contacts with all players, including the Taliban.

Mantytskiy expressed annoyance at persistant accusations of Russian collaboration with the Taliban, saying the statements by American and Afghan officials were an effort to distract attention from the worsening conflict.

“They are trying to put the blame for their failures on our shoulders,” he told Reuters.

ANOTHER “GREAT GAME”?

Afghanistan has long been the scene of international intrigue and intervention, with the British and Russians jockeying for power during the 19th Century “Great Game,” and the United States helping Pakistan provide weapons and funding to Afghan rebels fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s.

Taliban officials told Reuters that the group has had significant contacts with Moscow since at least 2007, adding that Russian involvement did not extend beyond “moral and political support”.

“We had a common enemy,” said one senior Taliban official. “We needed support to get rid of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan and Russia wanted all foreign troops to leave Afghanistan as quickly as possible.”

Moscow has been critical of the United States and NATO over their handling of the war in Afghanistan, but Russia initially helped provide helicopters for the Afghan military and agreed to a supply route for coalition materials through Russia.

Most of that cooperation has fallen apart as relations between Russia and the West deteriorated in recent years over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.

Incoming U.S. president Donald Trump, who takes office in January, has signaled a desire to improve relations with Russia, meaning future U.S. and Russian policies could change.

FOREIGN MEETINGS

In recent months, Taliban representatives have held several meetings with Russian officials, according to Taliban and Afghan government sources.

Those meetings included a visit to Tajikistan by the Taliban shadow governor of Kunduz province, Mullah Abdul Salam, said Kunduz police chief Qasim Jangalbagh.

Another recent meeting occurred in Moscow itself, according to an official at the presidential palace in Kabul.

Earlier this week Afghan lawmakers said they planned to investigate reports of Russian aid to the Taliban, and had sent a letter to Moscow seeking clarification.

Afghan officials did not produce evidence of direct Russian aid, but recent cross-border flights by unidentified helicopters and seizures of new “Russian-made” guns had raised concerns that regional actors may be playing a larger role, Jangalbagh said.

“If the Taliban get their hands on anti-aircraft guns provided, for example, by Russia, then it is a game-changer, and forget about peace,” said another senior Afghan security official.

ISLAMIC STATE OR UNITED STATES?

According to Afghan and U.S. officials, Russian representatives have maintained that government security forces, backed by U.S. special forces and air strikes, have not done enough to stem the growth of Islamic State in Afghanistan.

Militants loyal to the radical Middle East-based network have carved out territory along the border with Pakistan, and have found themselves fighting not only Afghan and foreign troops, but also the Taliban, who compete for land, influence, and fighters.

Taliban officials dismissed the idea that their ties to Russia had anything to do with fighting Islamic State.

“In early 2008, when Russia began supporting us, ISIS(Islamic State) didn’t exist anywhere in the world,” the senior Taliban official said. “Their sole purpose was to strengthen us against the U.S. and its allies.”

That was echoed by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who said “ISIS is not an issue”.

Nicholson said the talk of Islamic State is a smokescreen designed to justify Russian policies.

“Their (Russia’s) narrative goes something like this: that the Taliban are the ones fighting Islamic State, not the Afghan government,” Nicholson said.

“So this public legitimacy that Russia lends to the Taliban is not based on fact, but is used as a way to essentially undermine the Afghan government and the NATO efforts and bolster the belligerents.”

(Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Pakistan and Tatiana Ustinova and Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Exclusive: Jailed Islamic State suspects recall path to jihad in Iraq

Former bakery worker Walid Ismail speaks during an interview with Reuters in a Kurdish security compound in the city of Erbil, Iraq

By Michael Georgy

ERBIL (Reuters) – When Kurdish forces began firing rockets at a suspected Islamic State hideout in northern Iraq, one of those inside, former bakery worker Walid Ismail, said he tried to persuade the others to surrender.

Some wanted to hold hand grenades to their throats and pull the pins. In the end, a Tunisian militant among them detonated a suicide bomb, hoping to wipe out their attackers.

Instead he killed five of the group and injured the rest. Ismail said the others were then killed by the Kurds and he only made it out by shouting that he had no bombs.

An online video shows him looking terrified as he emerges from the house in the town of Bashiqa near Mosul with an injured hand, to be arrested by Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

Today, the 20-year-old sits with his ankles shackled in a security compound in the city of Erbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, which is fighting alongside Baghdad to drive Islamic State from its stronghold in Mosul and nearby towns.

Islamic State suspects are rarely allowed to speak to media, but the Kurdistan Regional Security Council allowed Reuters to interview Ismail and another prisoner in the presence of an official.

They described how Islamic State transformed them from ordinary Mosul citizens into jihadists through promises and threats and said unjust treatment of their Sunni community by the Shi’ite-led government and armed forces played a major role.

Their accounts, which could not be verified, show how vital it will be to manage sectarian tensions after any victory over Islamic State to avoid a repeat of what has been the second wave of Sunni militants since Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003.

Ismail said Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had wide appeal when he walked into a Mosul mosque in broad daylight two years ago, and declared large parts of Iraq and Syria a caliphate, six years after al Qaeda was driven underground.

“I believed him,” he said, soft-spoken and wearing a gray track suit. “We loved them because they relieved us of the oppression of the Shi’ites.”

“WHATEVER YOU WANT”

Like other members of Iraq’s Sunni minority, Ismail alleged many innocent Sunnis had been branded terrorists by the army, which put up little resistance when about 800 Islamic State fighters swept into northern Iraq in pickup trucks in 2014.

“They said ‘whoever goes to the mosque is safe’,” They said ‘we are your Muslim Brothers. We aim to rid you of the Shi’ites and no one will oppress you’,” said Ismail.

“We will give you food and money. Whatever you want.”

In a separate interview, another prisoner suspected of fighting for Islamic State, Hazem Saleh, seethed when he recalled how the Iraqi army had treated his three brothers in the months before Islamic State appeared on the scene.

“They were laborers. They detained them for about a month and a half. They beat them. They hung them upside down. They dislocated their shoulders,” said the former Mosul blacksmith.

The Iraqi military and government, now under new leadership, deny such allegations and say they only went after terrorists.

Ismail’s account of the Tunisian’s role tallies with what Kurdish and Iraqi officials say is the tendency of foreign fighters to fully embrace Islamic State’s ruthless tactics and hardline ideology viewing opponents as infidels deserving death.

FINANCIAL PRESSURE

Some of the Iraqis, on the other hand, are described as criminal gangs which make money through kidnappings for ransom. Others sign up for practical reasons.

Ismail said he was struggling to support six younger siblings when Islamic State disabled the bakery that employed him by cutting off gas supplies, leaving him with few options.

“Daesh gave me 500,000 dinars ($400) per month to hold a machine gun and stand guard on a street,” he said, using a derogatory Arabic acronym to describe Islamic State.

Like Ismail, Saleh said Islamic State applied financial pressure, forcing his shop to pay heavy taxes and then offering a handsome salary to entice him to take up the cause.

“I have seven children, the youngest is two. They need to live,” he said. “There was a lack of work and poverty so most people joined because of that.”

For him, there was something else, he said. “They threatened to make my 14-year-old son wage holy war in order to pressure me … So I said goodbye to my family and left.”

Initiation was simple. Ismail was handed a uniform — an outfit similar to ones worn by the Taliban in Afghanistan — and told to watch for any suspicious activities.

He said Islamic State was highly secretive and obsessed with protecting its emirs, or leaders, especially from capture or air strikes. “We did not know who the leader of our army was. They would never allow us near strategic areas,” he said.

There did not seem to be any merit system. “They would just come along and say ‘you are an emir and you won’t be.”

He said eventually he became disillusioned but did not dare criticize. That would mean jail, or maybe far worse.

“You can’t speak out,” he said, citing a time when fighters caught his father violating an Islamic State ban on smoking and warned him that next time he would be whipped.

Saleh, who also surrendered in Bashiqa, appeared for the interview in military fatigues and with a hood over his head initially.

He said he inspected vehicles at Islamic State checkpoints, where any Iraqi soldiers or Kurdish fighters were arrested and anyone not living in the area was viewed with suspicion.

Later he said he worked preparing rice, meat and lentil meals for the fighters, who had one cook for each group of 12.

He said he had received 25 days of four-hourly training on how to handle an AK-47 assault rifle, but did not fight for Islamic State or condone violence.

Ismail, reflecting on his decision to join the group, was at a loss for words, and close to tears. He also went out of his way to praise his Kurdish captors, as the official looked on.

He said he lost touch with his family as he moved from Mosul to the town of Bashiqa, where he ended up in encircled by Kurds in that house, waiting for Islamic State emirs to deliver on promises to send reinforcements that never came.

The two men now face an uncertain future. With the battle for Mosul still going on, the security compound is home for people the Kurds in charge of the area consider a major threat.

If sufficient evidence is gathered, the men are likely to face trial.

Asked what he would like to tell his relatives, Ismail said: “Please be patient. If God is willing I will return.”

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Two U.S. service members, many civilians dead in Afghanistan

Dust from rocket strike in Afghanistan

By Sardar Razmal

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Two American service members were killed fighting the Taliban near the northern city of Kunduz on Thursday, the U.S. military said amid reports that air strikes called in to protect the troops had caused heavy civilian casualties.

Although the U.S. military gave no details, Afghan officials said there had been heavy fighting overnight about 5 km (3 miles) from the city center, which Taliban fighters succeeded in entering as recently as last month, and air strikes had caused many casualties.

There were angry protests by civilians who brought the bodies of at least 16 dead into Kunduz, Mafuzullah Akbari, a police spokesman said. Some reports put the death toll higher but there was no immediate official confirmation.

“The service members came under fire during a train, advise and assist mission with our Afghan partners to clear a Taliban position and disrupt the group’s operations in Kunduz district,” the U.S. military said in a statement.

In a separate statement, the NATO-led Resolute Support mission confirmed that air strikes had been carried out in Kunduz to defend “friendly forces under fire”.

“All civilian casualty claims will be investigated,” it said.

In a statement, the Taliban said American forces were involved in a raid to capture three militant fighters when they came under heavy fire. An air strike hit the village where the fighting was taking place, killing many civilians.

The deaths underline the precarious security situation around Kunduz, which Taliban fighters came close to over-running last month, a year after they briefly captured the city in their biggest success in the 15-year long war.

While the city itself was secured, the insurgents control large areas of the surrounding province.

The U.S. military gave no details on the identity of the two personnel who were killed or what units they served with and there was no immediate detailed comment on the circumstances of their deaths.

Although U.S. combat operations against the Taliban largely ended in 2014, special forces units have been repeatedly engaged in fighting while providing assistance to Afghan troops.

Masoom Hashemi, deputy police chief in Kunduz province, said police were investigating to try to determine if any of the dead were linked to the Taliban.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers remain in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support training and assistance mission and a separate counterterrorism mission.

The deaths come a month after another U.S. service member was killed on an operation against Islamic State fighters in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Afghan forces, fighting largely on their own since the end of the international combat mission, have suffered thousands of casualties, with more than 5,500 killed in the first eight months of 2016.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Robert Birsel)