Tag Archives: Army

Zimbabwe’s Mugabe appears in public for first time since army took charge

Zimbabwe's Mugabe appears in public for first time since army took charge

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe appeared in public on Friday for the first time since the army took charge this week, as the ruling party made plans to force him to step down after more than three decades in power.

Mugabe, who is 93, opened a graduation ceremony at Zimbabwe Open University in Harare. He wore blue and yellow academic robes and a mortar board hat and appeared to fall asleep in his chair as his eyes closed and his head lolled.

Mugabe led the country’s liberation struggle and has dominated its politics since independence in 1980. He said he is still in charge but a senior member of the ZANU-PF ruling party said it wanted him gone.

“If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday,” the source said. “When that is done, it’s impeachment on Tuesday.”

In contrast, the military said in a statement on national television it was “engaging” with Mugabe. It referred to him as Commander in Chief and said it would announce an outcome as soon as possible.

Mugabe is revered as an elder statesman and member of the generation of Africa’s independence leaders but he is also viewed by many in Africa as a president who held his country back by remaining in power too long. He calls himself the grand old man of African politics.

Zimbabwe’s official newspaper, the Herald, ran photographs late on Thursday showing him grinning and shaking hands with military chief General Constantino Chiwenga, who seized power this week.

The images stunned Zimbabweans who thought it meant Mugabe was managing to hold out against Chiwenga’s coup, with some political sources saying he was trying to delay his departure until elections scheduled for next year.

The ZANU-PF source said that was not the case. Anxious to avoid a protracted stalemate, party leaders were drawing up plans to dismiss Mugabe at the weekend if he refused to quit, the source said.

“There is no going back,” the source told Reuters. “It’s like a match delayed by heavy rain, with the home side leading 90-0 in the 89th minute.”

The army is camped on his doorstep. His wife, Grace, is under house arrest, and her key political allies are in military custody. The police, once a bastion of support, have showed no signs of resistance.

Furthermore, he has little popular backing in the capital, a stronghold of support for opposition parties that have tapped into the anger and frustration at his handling of the economy, which collapsed after the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000.

Unemployment is now running at nearly 90 percent and chronic shortages of hard currency have triggered hyperinflation, with the prices of imports rising as much as 50 percent a month.

The only words Mugabe spoke at the graduation ceremony were met with ululations from the crowd. In a telling irony, one of the graduates was the wife of Chiwenga.

“A NEW ERA”

The United States, a longtime Mugabe critic, is seeking “a new era”, the State Department’s top official for Africa said, an implicit call for Mugabe to quit.

In an interview with Reuters, acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto appeared to dismiss the idea of keeping Mugabe in an interim or ceremonial role.

“It’s a transition to a new era for Zimbabwe, that’s really what we’re hoping for,” Yamamoto said.

The army appears to want Mugabe to go quietly and allow a smooth and bloodless transition to Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice president, whose sacking last week triggered the military takeover.

The main goal of the generals is to prevent Mugabe from handing power to his wife, Grace, who appeared on the cusp of power after Mnangagwa was pushed out.

Dumiso Dabengwa, a former head of intelligence and a Mnangagwa ally, is due to hold a news conference in Johannesburg.

A South African government source said he expected Dabengwa to discuss the events in Zimbabwe.

“It seems there is some sort of agreement,” the source said.

Zimbabwe’s struggling economy: http://tmsnrt.rs/2zN0EdF

(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley in Johannesburg and Warren Strobel in Washington; Writing by Ed Cropley and James Macharia; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Zimbabwe’s army seizes power, targets ‘criminals’ around Mugabe

Zimbabwe's army seizes power, targets 'criminals' around Mugabe

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s military seized power early on Wednesday saying it was targeting “criminals” around President Robert Mugabe, the only ruler the country has known in its 37 years of independence.

Soldiers seized the state broadcaster. Armored vehicles blocked roads to the main government offices, parliament and the courts in central Harare, while taxis ferried commuters to work nearby. The atmosphere in the capital remained calm.

The military said Mugabe and his family were safe. Mugabe himself spoke by telephone to the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and told him he was confined to his home but fine, the South African presidency said in a statement.

It was not clear whether the apparent military coup would bring a formal end to Mugabe’s rule; the main goal of the generals appears to be preventing Mugabe’s 52-year-old wife Grace from succeeding him.

But whether or not he remains in office, it is likely to mark the end of the total dominance of the country by Mugabe, the last of Africa’s generation of state founders still in power.

Mugabe, still seen by many Africans as an anti-colonial hero, is reviled in the West as a despot whose disastrous handling of the economy and willingness to resort to violence to maintain power destroyed one of Africa’s most promising states.

He plunged Zimbabwe into a fresh political crisis last week by firing his vice president and presumed successor. The generals believed that move was aimed at clearing a path for Grace Mugabe to take over and announced on Monday they were prepared to “step in” if purges of their allies did not end.

“We are only targeting criminals around him (Mugabe) who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice,” Major General SB Moyo, Chief of Staff Logistics, said on television.

“As soon as we have accomplished our mission, we expect that the situation will return to normalcy.”

CAREENING OFF A CLIFF

Whatever the final outcome, the events could signal a once-in-a-generation change for the southern African nation, once one of the continent’s most prosperous, reduced to poverty by an economic crisis Mugabe’s opponents have long blamed on him.

Even many of Mugabe’s most loyal supporters over the decades had come to oppose the rise of his wife, who courted the powerful youth wing of the ruling party but alienated the military, led by Mugabe’s former guerrilla comrades from the 1970s independence struggle.

“This is a correction of a state that was careening off the cliff,” Chris Mutsvangwa, the leader of the liberation war veterans, told Reuters. “It’s the end of a very painful and sad chapter in the history of a young nation, in which a dictator, as he became old, surrendered his court to a gang of thieves around his wife.”

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called for a peaceful return to constitutional democracy, adding it hoped the military intervention would lead to the “establishment of a stable, democratic and progressive nation state”.

Zuma – speaking on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – expressed hope there would be no unconstitutional changes of government in Zimbabwe as that would be contrary to both SADC and African Union positions.

Zuma urged Zimbabwe’s government and the military “to resolve the political impasse amicably”.

Zimbabwe struggles: http://reut.rs/2zZkX8O

ECONOMIC DECLINE

Zimbabwe’s economic decline over the past two decades has been a drag on the southern African region. Millions of economic refugees have streamed out of the country, mostly to neighboring South Africa.

Finance Minister Ignatius Chombo, a leading member of the ruling ZANU-PF party’s ‘G40’ faction, led by Grace Mugabe, had been detained by the military, a government source said.

Soldiers deployed across Harare on Tuesday and seized the state broadcaster after ZANU-PF accused the head of the military of treason, prompting speculation of a coup.

Just 24 hours after military chief General Constantino Chiwenga threatened to intervene to end a purge of his allies in ZANU-PF, a Reuters reporter saw armored personnel carriers on main roads around the capital.

Aggressive soldiers told passing cars to keep moving through the darkness. “Don’t try anything funny. Just go,” one barked at Reuters on Harare Drive.

Two hours later, soldiers overran the headquarters of the ZBC, the state broadcaster, a Mugabe mouthpiece, and ordered staff to leave. Several ZBC workers were manhandled, two members of staff and a human rights activist said.

Shortly afterwards, three explosions rocked the center of the capital, Reuters witnesses said.

The United States and Britain advised their citizens in Harare to stay indoors because of “political uncertainty.”

The southern African nation had been on edge since Monday when Chiwenga, Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, said he was prepared to “step in” to end a purge of supporters of Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice president sacked last week.

In the last year, a chronic absence of dollars has led to long queues outside banks and an economic and financial collapse that many fear will rival the meltdown of 2007-2008, when inflation topped out at 500 billion percent.

Imported goods are running out and economists say that, by some measures, inflation is now at 50 percent a month.

According to a trove of intelligence documents reviewed by Reuters this year, Mnangagwa has been planning to revitalize the economy by bringing back thousands of white farmers kicked off their land nearly two decades ago and patching up relations with the World Bank and IMF.

Zimbabwe dollar: http://tmsnrt.rs/2ALN6xd

(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley, James Macharia, Joe Brock and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg; Writing by James Macharia and Ed Cropley; Graphic by Jermey Gaunt Editing by Janet Lawrence and Peter Graff)

Nearly 400 die as Myanmar army steps up crackdown on Rohingya militants

Rohingya refugees stands in an open place during heavy rain, as they are hold by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) after illegally crossing the border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, August 31, 2017.

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Nearly 400 people have died in fighting that has rocked Myanmar’s northwest for a week, new official data show, making it probably the deadliest bout of violence to engulf the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority in decades.

Around 38,000 Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar, United Nations sources said, a week after Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts and an army base in Rakhine state, prompting clashes and a military counteroffensive.

“As of August 31, 38,000 people are estimated to have crossed the border into Bangladesh,” the officials said on Friday, in their latest estimate.

The army says it is conducting clearance operations against “extremist terrorists” and security forces have been told to protect civilians. But Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh say a campaign of arson and killings aims to force them out.

The treatment of Myanmar’s roughly 1.1 million Rohingya is the biggest challenge facing national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, accused by some Western critics of not speaking out for a minority that has long complained of persecution.

Police officers guard near a house that was burnt down in recent violence in Maungdaw, Myanmar August 31, 2017.

Police officers guard near a house that was burnt down in recent violence in Maungdaw, Myanmar August 31, 2017. RETUERS/Soe Zeya Tun

The clashes and ensuing army crackdown have killed about 370 Rohingya insurgents, but also 13 security forces, two government officials and 14 civilians, the Myanmar military said on Thursday.

By comparison, communal violence in 2012 in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, led to the killing of nearly 200 people and the displacement of about 140,000, most of them Rohingya.

The fighting is a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered since October, when similar but much smaller Rohingya attacks on security posts prompted a brutal military response dogged by allegations of rights abuses.

Myanmar evacuated more than 11,700 “ethnic residents” from the area affected by fighting, the army said, referring to the non-Muslim population of northern Rakhine.

More than 150 Rohingya insurgents staged fresh attacks on security forces on Thursday near villages occupied by Hindus, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said, adding that about 700 members of such families had been evacuated.

“Four of the terrorists were arrested, including one 13-year-old boy,” it said, adding that security forces had arrested two more men near a Maungdaw police outpost on suspicion of involvement in the attacks.

About 20,000 more Rohingya trying to flee are stuck in no man’s land at the border, the U.N. sources said, as aid workers in Bangladesh struggle to alleviate the sufferings of a sudden influx of thousands of hungry and traumatized people.

While some Rohingya try to cross by land, others attempt a perilous boat journey across the Naf River separating the two countries.

Bangladesh border guards found the bodies of 15 Rohingya Muslims, 11 children among them, floating in the river on Friday, area commander Lt. Col. Ariful Islam told Reuters.

That takes to about 40 the total of Rohingya known to have died by drowning.

 

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

 

Lawyer for U.S. Army sergeant accused of terrorism suggests entrapment

A photograph with a redacted date, and entered into federal court as an exhibit to support the government's motion to keep U.S. Army Sergeant Ikaika Erik Kang in detention without bond, shows what is described as Kang holding the Islamic State Flag after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. Kang is charged with trying to provide material support to Islamic State extremists. the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii/Handout via REUTERS

By Hunter Haskins

HONOLULU (Reuters) – The lawyer for a U.S. Army sergeant charged in Hawaii with trying to provide material support to Islamic State extremists said on Thursday his client suffers from mental illness that FBI agents exploited in a “sting” operation leading to his arrest.

Questions about Ikaika Erik Kang’s state of mind and the possibility of entrapment were raised by defense lawyer Birney Bervar in remarks to reporters after his client was ordered to remain in jail without bond.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenneth Mansfield in Honolulu ruled after a brief hearing that Kang, 34, posed a flight risk and a danger to the public if released pending further proceedings. The defense did not object to his continued incarceration.

Bervar said after the ruling he told his client: “You’re going to stay in for now, and we’re going to get you evaluated and see what’s going on.”

He said he believed Kang was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or some other mental problem that the Army failed to address properly after Kang returned from deployments to Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan in 2014.

According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit, Kang was reprimanded several times dating back to 2011 for threatening fellow service members and expressing extremist views while on duty.

The Army referred the matter to the FBI in 2016.

Kang soon became the target of what the FBI described in its affidavit as an elaborate sting operation employing several undercover agents and other “confidential human sources” who posed as Islamic State operatives and sympathizers.

“It looks to me like they’ve exploited his mental illness and thrown gasoline on the fire of his mental illness to get him to commit a crime that they could arrest him for,” Bervar said.

Asked if he was suggesting a case of entrapment, Bervar said: “It sounds pretty close to that, doesn’t it?”

Bervar said he would seek a “full mental health evaluation” for his client.

The government, in support of its motion to keep Kang detained without bond, entered several photographs said to show Kang demonstrating military combat tactics.

Two other images purport to show him kissing and then holding to his forehead a folded flag of Islamic State, also known as ISIS, the militant organization that had seized large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. He is shown in a third photo holding up an unfurled ISIS flag.

Kang, an air traffic control specialist with extensive military training in hand-to-hand combat, was arrested by the FBI on Saturday following a year-long undercover investigation.

The FBI said he swore allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made training videos for the extremist group and purchased a drone aircraft intended to help ISIS fighters in the Middle East evade enemy tanks in battle.

Kang is also accused of trying to furnish ISIS with classified and other sensitive military documents that would have assisted the group in its combat tactics.

(Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in LOS ANGELES; Editing by Paul Tait)

East Libyan forces say they will investigate Benghazi abuses

Members of East Libyan forces celebrate as they open Tripoli road after they captured the final holdout of Islamist-led rivals in the southwest of Benghazi, Libya, March 21, 2017. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori

By Ayman al-Warfalli and Aidan Lewis

BENGHAZI, Libya/TUNIS (Reuters) – An eastern Libyan force says it will investigate abuses by its troops, after images showing the public display of corpses and allegations of summary killings surfaced following the end of a siege in Benghazi last week.

The self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) said dozens of its Islamist-led opponents were killed as the siege at unfinished tower blocks in the eastern city was broken on Saturday when fighters and their families tried to escape.

Soon after, photos and videos emerged on social media appearing to show LNA troops posing with corpses and parading the rotting body of a prominent opponent on a vehicle.

Eastern military figures, separate from internationally recognized officials in Tripoli in the west, present the LNA as an expanding and increasingly capable force that will eventually control the whole of Libya.

The LNA’s general command called on unit commanders to hand over all those filmed carrying out abuses to the military police, for questioning by a military committee.

“The actions carried out by members of the Libyan National Army after the liberation of west Benghazi are considered individual acts and do not represent the instructions of the army,” it said in a statement late on Monday.

“Those who committed these violations will be held accountable for their actions and for not following military law.”

The suspected abuses raise fresh questions over the coherence of the LNA as a professional fighting body.

Its leader, Khalifa Haftar, is widely assumed to be seeking national power. He has spurned a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli that has sought to unify political and armed factions that splintered into rival camps in the east and west in 2014, three years after the uprising that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi.

The LNA’s critics say it is a loose collection of armed groups with fickle loyalties and little discipline, similar to the militias operating in western Libya.

They point to its slow progress in Benghazi, where it launched an operation against Islamists and other opponents nearly three years ago, but still faces pockets of resistance.

This month the LNA suffered a setback southwest of Benghazi, losing control of two oil ports before regaining them 11 days later.

It says it is now pursuing its opponents, who it accuses the U.N.-backed government of supporting, in the desert region of Jufra, whilst also preparing to “liberate” Tripoli from the militias that control it.

The offensive in Jufra and the LNA’s stated intention of taking control of the Tamanhent air base risks triggering renewed fighting between the LNA and forces from the western city of Misrata, which control the base.

It comes as some of Misrata’s armed groups, which became powerful during the 2011 uprising and the conflicts that followed, have come under pressure in Tripoli where they have lost ground to local rivals and faced popular protests.

U.N. Libya envoy Martin Kobler warned on Monday of a “dangerous escalation across Libya emanating from the deteriorating security situation in Tripoli and events in Misrata and Benghazi”.

“I call for all parties to put Libya and the unity of Libya ahead of their own narrow interests. The violence, hate speech, and mutilation of corpses in Libya is completely unacceptable.”

(Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Alison Williams)

Islamic State mortars, snipers take toll on Iraqi forces in Mosul

A sniper from Iraq's Federal Police force takes aim at Islamic State positions from the roof of a house on the frontline in Albu Saif, south of Mosul. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

By John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – At a field clinic near the front line in Mosul, an Iraqi Federal Police officer lay in discomfort on a stretcher, a drip in his arm and bandage plastered over his chest from where shrapnel from a mortar shell had pierced his sternum.

The blast which wounded the 23-year-old, Jaafar Kareem, and two comrades, was in an area where rapid advances against Islamic State earlier in the week have slowed as the militants aim mortar and sniper fire at Iraqi troops.

At least 10 shells had landed there that morning, before hitting their target, Kareem said.

“There have been a lot of our guys wounded today in the same area,” he said, turning his head gingerly to watch an officer on the next stretcher being treated for a leg injury.

The makeshift clinic, an abandoned house manned by American volunteers and Iraqi military medics, was on Thursday regularly treating members of Iraq’s security forces rushed back from the front line in ambulances or armored vehicles.

“We’ve already had around 20 people come in for treatment (on Thursday) – about 70 percent civilian, but it’s been more military (casualties) up until today,” said Kathy Bequary, director of NYC Medics, the organization running the clinic.

Casualties her team have witnessed recently range from superficial wounds to the occasional patient dead on arrival, including one soldier with eight bullet wounds to his torso, she said.

As Iraqi forces fight Islamic State militants deeper into western Mosul, they face increasingly stiff resistance, with the jihadists using mortar and sniper fire to try to hold off a U.S.-backed offensive to drive them out of their last major stronghold in the country.

The fight has taken its toll of dead and wounded on Iraqi soldiers, special forces and police units. The military has not published the number of its own casualties.

Islamic State’s tactics, which include taking cover among the civilian population, have also slowed advances in some areas, the closer the battle gets to the more crowded city center.

The area where Kareem and his comrades were hit was no more than a few hundred meters from the front line, in an area housing the Nineveh provincial government headquarters, a territorial gain trumpeted by the Iraqi military on Tuesday.

Iraqi forces have indeed made progress there. A wide main road leading to the governorate building was firmly under Federal Police control on Thursday, a Reuters correspondent visiting with elite interior ministry units said.

STATIC FRONT LINE

Armored vehicles drove past destruction left by fighting in the former provincial government hub: a collapsed police headquarters dynamited by militants as they retreated, and a large, faded advertisement panel for “Iraqi Airways – Mosul booking office.”

But the front line had been static since early in the week, members of the Rapid Response units said.

Troops on foot had to dash between the more exposed streets for fear of sniper fire.

The whoosh of an incoming mortar shell sent them scrambling for cover against the wall of a building. It landed close enough to feel shockwaves from the blast.

“It’s been a little difficult, recently,” Ali Sattar, a 20-year-old in the Rapid Response said.

“We’ve not really advanced for three days now. Two of our teams went further forward, on a sort of recce mission, and raised the Iraqi flag on top of a tall hotel that (Islamic State) snipers have been using, then came back.”

Federal Police units were now in control of the Mosul museum, a little further forward, but any new advances were being made difficult by snipers who had taken up positions in the Assyria Hotel, less than 200 meters (yards) away, he said.

“The flag will probably be taken down again by the militants,” he said, half joking.

Back at the clinic, the wounded Kareem looked weary.

“The battles have been hard,” he sighed.

(Reporting by John Davison; Editing by Michael Perry)

Iraqi forces recapture Mosul government buildings, museum

Military vehicles of federal police are seen during a battle with Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Isabel Coles and John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces fighting to drive Islamic State from western Mosul on Tuesday recaptured the main government building, the central bank branch and the museum where three years ago the militants had smashed statues and artifacts.

The government buildings had been destroyed and were not used by Islamic State, but their capture still represented a symbolic victory in the battle over the militants’ last major stronghold in Iraq.

An elite Rapid Response team stormed the Nineveh governorate building and government complex in an overnight raid, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammadawi said.

They also seized a building that housed Islamic State’s main court of justice, known for its harsh sentences, including stonings, throwing people off building roofs and chopping off hands, reflecting Islamic State’s extreme ideology.

“They killed tens from Daesh,” Mohammadawi said, referring to Islamic State by one of its Arabic acronyms. The raid lasted more than an hour.

The militants looted the central bank when they took over the city in 2014 and took videos of themselves destroying statues and artifacts.

Illegal traffic in antiquities that abound in the territory under their control, from the sites of Palmyra in Syria to Nineveh in Iraq, was one of their main sources of income.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flew into to Mosul to visit the troops engaged in the fighting.

“Iraqis shall walk tall when the war is over,” he told state TV as he arrived there.

The breakthrough paves the way for the U.S.-backed forces to attack the militants in the old city of Mosul, the most complicated phase in the nearly five-month campaign due to the density of the population and the narrowness of the alleyways. The militants are dug in amongst civilians in the historic district.

It was from the Nuri Mosque in the old city that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared in 2014 a caliphate also spanning parts of neighboring Syria.

The old city lies on the western bank of the Tigris river that cuts Mosul in two. About 750,000 people were estimated by aid organizations to live in west Mosul when the offensive started on this side of the city on Feb. 19.

The Iraqi forces took the eastern half in January, after 100 days of fighting. They are backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition.

Defeating Islamic State in Mosul would crush the Iraqi wing of the self-declared caliphate, which also suffering setbacks in Syria.

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces cut the last main road out of the Islamic State capital there, Raqqa, on Monday. Islamic State is also fighting off the Russian-backed Syrian army as well as and Turkey and allied Syrian rebels.

The number of Islamic State fighters in Mosul was estimated at 6,000 at the start of the offensive on Oct. 17, by the Iraqi military who estimate several thousands have been killed since.

Lined up against them is a 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

Some of Islamic State’s foreign fighters are trying to flee Mosul, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler told Reuters at the Qayyara West Airfield, south of the city.

“The game is up,” Isler said. “They have lost this fight and what you’re seeing is a delaying action.”

SNIPER FIRE

Islamic State snipers continued to fire at the main government building after it fell into government hands, restricting the movements of the soldiers.

Rapid Response sharp-shooters were firing back from the building. One of them said four enemy snipers had been killed.

“The fighting is strong because most of them are foreigners and they have nowhere to go,” said the head of a sniper unit for the Rapid Response, al-Moqdadi al-Saeedi.

More than 40,000 people fled their homes in the past week, bringing the total number of displaced since the start of the offensive to more than 211,000, according to the United Nations.

Dozens more streamed out of the Mamoun district in southwestern Mosul toward U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) troops as machinegunfire rang out in the background.

U.S. special forces were also seen walking between buildings in the same area, some of them carrying assault rifles with scopes and silencers. Helicopters attacked targets just north of their positions as thick smoke filled the sky from various explosions.

Agencies say camps to accommodate them are nearly full even though the United Nations said last month that more than 400,000 people still in western Mosul could be displaced.

Several thousand have been killed and wounded in the fighting, both civilians and military, according to aid organizations.

(For map of Mosul click http://tmsnrt.rs/2fd0nGE)

(Writing by Maher Chmaytell; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Controversial Dakota pipeline to go ahead after Army approval

north dakota national guard near dakota access pipeline

By Valerie Volcovici and Ernest Scheyder

WASHINGTON/HOUSTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Army will grant the final permit for the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline after an order from President Donald Trump to expedite the project despite opposition from Native American tribes and climate activists.

In a court filing on Tuesday, the Army said that it would allow the final section of the line to tunnel under North Dakota’s Lake Oahe, part of the Missouri River system. This could enable the $3.8 billion pipeline to begin operation as soon as June.

Energy Transfer Partners <ETP.N> is building the 1,170-mile (1,885 km) line to help move crude from the shale oilfields of North Dakota to Illinois en route to the Gulf of Mexico, where many U.S. refineries are located.

Protests against the project last year drew drew thousands of people to the North Dakota plains including Native American tribes and environmental activists, and protest camps sprung up. The movement attracted high-profile political and celebrity supporters.

The permit was the last bureaucratic hurdle to the pipeline’s completion, and Tuesday’s decision drew praise from supporters of the project and outrage from activists, including promises of a legal challenge from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

“It’s great to see this new administration following through on their promises and letting projects go forward to the benefit of American consumers and workers,” said John Stoody, spokesman for the Association of Oil Pipe Lines.

The Standing Rock Sioux, which contends the pipeline would desecrate sacred sites and potentially pollute its water source,

vowed to shut pipeline operations down if construction is completed, without elaborating how it would do so. The tribe called on its supporters to protest in Washington on March 10 rather than return to North Dakota.

“As Native peoples, we have been knocked down again, but we will get back up,” the tribe said in the statement. “We will rise above the greed and corruption that has plagued our peoples since first contact. We call on the Native Nations of the United States to stand together, unite and fight back.”

Former President Barack Obama’s administration last year delayed completion of the pipeline pending a review of tribal concerns and in December ordered an environmental study.

Less than two weeks after Trump ordered a review of the permit request, the Army said in a filing in District Court in Washington D.C. it would cancel that study. The final permit, known as an easement, could come in as little as a day, according to the filing.

There was no need for the environmental study as there was already enough information on the potential impact of the pipeline to grant the permit, Robert Speer, acting secretary of the U.S. Army, said in a statement.

Trump issued an order on Jan. 24 to expedite both the Dakota Access Pipeline and to revive another controversial multibillion dollar oil artery: Keystone XL. Obama’s administration blocked that project in 2015.

At the Dakota Access construction site, law enforcement and protesters clashed violently on several occasions throughout the fall. More than 600 people were arrested, and police were criticized for using water cannons in 25-degree Fahrenheit (minus 4-degree Celsius) weather against activists in late November.

“The granting of an easement, without any environmental review or tribal consultation, is not the end of this fight,” said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, one of the primary groups protesting the line.

“It is the new beginning. Expect mass resistance far beyond what Trump has seen so far.”

LEGAL CHALLENGE TOUGH

Any legal challenge is likely to be a difficult one for pipeline opponents as presidential authority to grant such permits is generally accepted in the courts. The tribe said in a statement the decision “wrongfully terminated” environmental study of the project.

Deborah Sivas, professor of environmental law at Stanford and director of Stanford’s Environmental Law Clinic, said a challenge by the tribe would likely rely on the reasons the Army Corps itself gave for why more review was needed in December.

“The tribe will probably argue that an abrupt reversal without a sufficient explanation for why the additional analysis is not necessary is arbitrary and should, therefore, be set aside,” she said in an email.

Supporters say the pipeline is safer than rail or trucks to transport the oil.

Shares of Energy Transfer Partners finished up 20 cents at $39.20, reversing earlier losses on the news.

(Additional reporting by Liz Hampton in HOUSTON and Brendan Pierson in New York; Writing by David Gaffen and Simon Webb; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. could grant final permit for Dakota pipeline as soon as Friday: government lawyer

police barricade north of Dakota Access Pipeline

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Army secretary could make a decision on the final permit needed to complete the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline as soon as Friday, the government’s lawyer told a Washington, D.C., court on Monday.

The Army Corp of Engineers told the court it has submitted its recommendation to Robert Speer, the acting secretary of the Army, on whether it needs to complete a full environmental review before it can grant the final permit allowing work to start on a contested tunnel under a lake. The review was requested in December by former President Barack Obama.

Opponents argue that letting the pipeline cross under Lake Oahe, a reservoir that is the water source for the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, would damage sacred lands and could leak oil into the tribe’s water supply.

Proponents believe the pipeline is necessary to transport U.S. oil safely and that it would create jobs.

Jan Hasselman, an attorney with Earthjustice, who represents the Standing Rock Sioux, said the tribe will challenge the U.S. government in court if the Army grants the easement. The tribe, along with other Native American groups, environmentalists and other activists, have opposed the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline led by Energy Transfer Partners LP <ETP.N>.

He said it is unclear whether construction could begin while the decision is challenged or whether the court will grant an injunction blocking the work.

“Our position is the tribe’s treaty rights and the law require the full (Environmental Impact Study) process that the government initiated in December. Issuing the easement without that process will be a serious violation of the law,” Hasselman told Reuters.

A spokesman for the Army was not immediately available to comment. Energy Transfer Partners declined to comment on the legal proceedings.

At the hearing at the D.C. Circuit Court on Monday, lawyers for ETP said the pipeline would become fully operational around 90 days after construction begins. If the easement is granted, oil can start crossing under the lake, a reservoir that is part of the Missouri River, as soon as 60 days after construction starts.

(Additional reporting by Liz Hampton in Houston; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Iraqi forces wage psychological war with jihadist corpses

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – The flyblown corpses of Islamic State militants have been rotting along a main street in north Mosul for two weeks, a health risk for passersby. Suicide bombers’ belts beside the fighters can still explode, killing anyone nearby.

But the Iraqi army has no intention of burying the jihadists and hopes as many people as possible will get a good look at their blackened bodies, torn apart by bombs and bullets.

As Iraqi forces prepare to expand their offensive against Islamic State from east to west Mosul, they want to stamp out any sympathy that residents may have for the group, which won instant support when it seized the vast city in 2014.

“We will leave the terrorists there,” said Ibrahim Mohamed, a soldier who was standing near three dead jihadists, ignoring the stench.

His cousin suffered death by electrocution at the hands of jihadists during Islamic State’s harsh rule of Mosul because he was a policeman.

“The message is clear to Iraqis, to keep them from joining or supporting Daesh (Islamic State). This will be your fate. The Iraqi army will finish you off,” he said.

A suicide bomber’s belt, with its detonation pin still in place, lay in the street a few feet away, near some clothing once worn by a militant.

The Iraqi army has come a long way since it collapsed in the face of Islamic State’s lightning advance into northern Iraq. After retaking half of Mosul in three months of fighting, Iraqi forces are poised to enter the western side of the city.

Victory there would mean the end of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate, though Iraqi officials expect the group to fight on as insurgents in Iraq and inspire attacks in the West.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WEAPON

The corpses are left on view as a psychological weapon to deter Islamic State sleeper cells, which Iraqi officials say are highly effective and distributed across the country.

Islamic State has executed thousands of Iraqi soldiers and policemen, and their comrades are eager for revenge.

“We leave them in the street like that so the dogs eat them,” said soldier Asaad Hussein. “We also want the citizens to know there is a price for supporting terrorists.”

Sunni Mosul had accused the Shi’ite-led Baghdad government and army of widespread abuses, which they deny.

Islamic State exploited that resentment but started losing popularity after it imposed its radical version of Islam and shot or beheaded anyone deemed an enemy.

Iraqi citizens don’t seem to mind the gory sight of the bodies, with people walking past them every day as Mosul begins the work of rebuilding entire neighborhoods pulverized by Islamic State car bombs and U.S.-led air strikes.

Labourer Youssef Salim observed the corpses, still with army boots on their feet, and paused to reflect on life under Islamic State, which has lost ground in Iraq and other Arab countries. He said the bodies should not be moved.

“Do you know what smoking one, just one cigarette meant?” he asked. “Twenty-five lashes in a public square where people were forced to watch you suffer.

“If your beard length did not meet their requirements, that was a month in jail and 100 lashes in public.”

SPREADING FEAR

The militants are no longer in charge in east Mosul but they are still very capable of spreading fear.

Two men approached a soldier to complain that there were suspicious wires that may be attached to a bomb on a door at the factory where they work.

Minutes later, an increasingly familiar scene unfolded. Soldiers looked up and spotted a drone aircraft operated by Islamic State militants, located about 600 meters away across the Tigris River, which bisects Mosul.

Iraqi forces opened fired with their assault rifles, hoping to blast the small aircraft – an Islamic State weapon of choice – out of the sky before it could drop a bomb.

A few streets away, a group of young boys walked towards three more Islamic State corpses.

“The bodies should stay. Daesh killed lots of people so why should they be buried,” said Salem Jamil, 13, who was carrying a plastic bag filled with old electric wiring he hopes to sell.

But a man who approached said the bodies should be buried because that is everyone’s right.

The three militants were shot when they tried to sneak through some trees to kill soldiers.

One of the soldiers stood proudly over the dead men, including one still wearing a suicide belt. He smiled and pointed to a cigarette stuffed in one of the jihadist’s nostrils.

“We put it there because of the terrible things they did to Iraqis,” said the soldier, Asaad Najif. “The fate of any terrorist is clear. We will find you and kill you.”

(Editing by Giles Elgood)