Tag Archives: Civilians

Bombings at Egyptian Coptic churches on Palm Sunday kill 43

A victim is seen on a stretcher after a bomb went off at a Coptic church in Tanta, Egypt, April 9, 2017. REUTERS/Mohame

By Arwa Gaballa and Ahmed Tolba

TANTA,Egypt/CAIRO (Reuters) – At least 43 people were killed in bomb attacks on two Egyptian Coptic churches on Palm Sunday that included the seat of the Coptic Pope, the latest assault on a religious minority increasingly targeted by Islamist militants.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, which also injured more than 100 people and occurred a week before Coptic Easter, with Pope Francis scheduled to visit Egypt later this month.

The first bombing, in Tanta, a Nile Delta city about 100 km (60 miles) north of Cairo, tore through the inside of St. George Church during its Palm Sunday service, killing at least 27 people and injuring at least 78, the Ministry of Health said.

The second, carried out a few hours later by a suicide bomber in Alexandria, hit Saint Mark’s Cathedral, the historic seat of the Coptic Pope, killing 16 people, including three police officers, and injuring 41, the ministry added.

Coptic Pope Tawadros, who had attended mass at Saint Mark’s Cathedral, was still in the building at the time of the explosion but was not harmed, the Interior Ministry said.

“These acts will not harm the unity and cohesion of the people,” Tawadros said later, according to state media.

 

A relative of one of the victims reacts after a church explosion killed at least 21 in Tanta, Egypt, April 9, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi condemned the attacks and summoned the National Defence Council to an urgent session.

Deflecting Western criticism that he has suppressed political opposition and human rights activists since he won election in 2014, Sisi has sought to present himself as an indispensable bulwark against terrorism in the Middle East, and he identifies militant Islam as an existential threat.

“The attack…will only harden the determination (of the Egyptian people) to move forward on their trajectory to realize security, stability and comprehensive development,” Sisi said in a statement.

Thousands gathered outside the Tanta church shortly after the blast, some weeping and wearing black.

They described a scene of carnage. “There was blood all over the floor and body parts scattered,” said a Christian woman who was inside the church at the time of the attack.

“There was a huge explosion in the hall. Fire and smoke filled the room and the injuries were extremely severe,” another Christian woman, Vivian Fareeg, said.

“WE FEEL TARGETED”

Islamic State’s branch in Egypt appears to be stepping up attacks and threats against Christians, who comprise about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people and amount to the biggest Christian minority in the Middle East.

In February, scores of Christian families and students fled Egypt’s North Sinai province after a spate of targeted killings.

Those attacks followed one of the deadliest on Egypt’s Christian minority, when a suicide bomber hit its largest Coptic cathedral, killing at least 25 people. Islamic State later claimed responsibility for that attack.

Islamic State has waged a low-level war against soldiers and police in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula for years. It now seems to be changing tactics, targeting Christian civilians and broadening its reach into Egypt’s mainland. That is a potential turning point in a country trying to prevent a provincial insurgency from spiraling into wider sectarian bloodshed.

Though Copts have in the past faced attacks by Muslim neighbors, who have burnt their homes and churches in poor rural areas, the Christian community has felt increasingly insecure since Islamic State spread through Iraq and Syria in 2014 and ruthlessly going after religious minorities.

“Of course we feel targeted, there was a bomb here about a week ago but it was dismantled. There’s no security,” said another Christian woman in Tanta. She was referring to an attack earlier this month near a police training center that killed one policeman and injured 15..

Wahby Lamie, who had one nephew killed and another nephew injured in the Tanta blast, expressed exasperation at the growing number of attacks.

“How much longer are we going to be this divided? Anyone who’s different from them now is an infidel, whether they’re Muslim or Christian. They see them as infidels,” he said.

“How much longer are these people going to exist? And how much longer will security be this incompetent?”

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Mohamed Hassan, Mahmoud Mourad, Mohammed Abdellah, and Amina Ismail; Writing by Eric Knecht; editing by Larry King and Alexander Smith)

U.N. Secretary General calls for more aid as people flee Mosul

Displaced Iraqi sit outside their tent during the visit of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres at Hasansham camp, in Khazer, Iraq March 31, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Isabel Coles and Maher Chmaytelli

HASSAN SHAM CAMP/MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday called on world powers to increase aid to help people fleeing the Iraqi city of Mosul which government forces have been battling to retake from Islamic State.

Iraqi forces have seized back most of the country’s second-largest city from the Sunni hardline group in a massive six-month campaign.

But at least 355,000 residents have fled fighting, according to the government, and some 400,000 civilians remain trapped inside the densely-populated Old City where street battles have raged for weeks.

“We don’t have the resources necessary to support these people,” Guterres told reporters during a visit to the Hassan Sham Camp, one of several centers outside Mosul packed with civilians escaping the fighting.

The U.N. and Iraqi authorities have been building more camps but struggle to accommodate new arrivals with two families sometimes having to share one tent.

“Unfortunately our program is only 8 percent funded,” he said, referring to a 2017 U.N. humanitarian response program without giving additional details.

During his visit, which lasted about half an hour, residents complained to Guterres about the quality of drinking water and poor living conditions in tents frequented by mice and insects.

“We want to go back to our villages. We are fed up,” said Saqr Younis, who fled to Mosul when Islamic State arrived in his village in 2014.

“If we had died by bombardment it would have been more merciful,” said Saqr who has been in the camp for four months.

Many of the displaced have returned to their homes in areas retaken from Islamic State but some, like Saqr, have not yet been allowed to return by the authorities.

The Sunni group overran about a third of Iraq in 2014, benefiting from the Sunni-Shi’ite rift that weakened the army.

Iraqi forces have won back control of most cities that fell to the group and the militants have been dislodged from nearly three quarters of Mosul but remain in control of its center.

On Friday, Islamic State fired at least 18 rockets from western Mosul into the eastern part which Iraqi force have retaken, the city’s police chief Brigadier General Wathiq al-Hamdani told Reuters.

Machine gunfire and mortars could be heard in the area of the old city but like in previous days there was no new push by government forces.

State television said the air force bombed an Islamic State position in Baaj, some 130 km west of Mosul near the Syrian border.

Government positions have reached as close as 500 meters to the al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014.

Baghdadi and other IS leaders are believed to have left the city but U.S. officials estimate around 2,000 fighters remain inside the city, resisting with snipers hiding among the population, car bombs and suicide trucks targeting Iraqi positions.

(additional reporting by Alaa Mohammed in Baghdad; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Julia Glover)

Iraqi forces to deploy new tactics in Mosul, civilians flee city

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Angus MacSwan

MOSUL, Iraq/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces are to deploy new tactics in a fresh push against Islamic State in Mosul, military officials said on Friday, after advances slowed recently in the campaign to drive the militants out of their last stronghold in the country.

Elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) forces made some advances against the jihadists in areas of western Mosul later in the day, a defense spokesman said, despite a hold on operations by other units.

Families meanwhile streamed out of the northern Iraqi city in an ongoing exodus of people fleeing in their thousands each day, headed for cold, crowded camps or to stay with relatives.

The U.S.-backed offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured most of the city. The entire eastern side and around half of the west is under Iraqi control.

But advances have stuttered in the last two weeks as fighting enters the narrow-alleyed Old City, and the militants put up fierce resistance using car bombs, snipers and mortar fire against forces and residents.

“In the next few days we will surprise Daesh terrorists by targeting and eliminating them using new plans” being discussed by the joint operations command, Iraqi defense ministry spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told state TV.

He did not elaborate on tactics.

Rasool said CTS forces had advanced in tough, building-to-building battles to recapture areas outside the Old City including al-Yabsat.

Islamic State fighters had been positioning car bombs, and forcing residents to move furniture onto the streets which the militants were booby-trapping to slow Iraqi advances, he said.

Reuters could not independently verify new advances by the CTS.

In the Old City, which Iraq’s elite Rapid Response forces, an interior ministry unit, and Federal Police have pushed into, no new advances were reported.

Rapid Response spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammedawi said operations were on hold for the day, but would soon resume, with “new techniques” more suitable to fighting in the Old City.

A Federal Police officer told Reuters new tactics would include deploying additional sniper units against Islamic State sharpshooters. The officer asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of discussing military tactics.

Islamic State fighters have stationed themselves in homes belonging to Mosul residents to fire at Iraqi troops, often drawing air or artillery strikes that have killed civilians.

SNIPER DANGER

They have also launched counter-attacks, sometimes pinning down Iraqi forces on the southern edges of the Old City. Cloud cover and rain in recent weeks have prevented effective air support, military officials say.

One of the next targets of Iraqi forces inside the Old City is the al-Nuri mosque, whose recapture would be a key symbolic victory. It is where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

As the battle continues, more civilians are being killed or displaced.

Local officials and residents said on Thursday dozens of people were buried in collapsed buildings after an air raid against Islamic State triggered a massive explosion last week.

Outside the city on Friday, hundreds of displaced people poured out of Mosul, walking through the mud with suitcases and bags.

One man said that Islamic State snipers had shot at those fleeing, and some had been killed in explosions.

The situation inside the city is worsening with no drinking water or electricity and no food coming in, residents said.

Khaled Khalil, a 36-year-old carpenter whose shop was destroyed in fighting, clutched his three-year-old daughter.

“We’ve been on the move since yesterday. We’re very tired but now we’re safe. Anybody they (Islamic State) catch, they kill. If we have time, we run,” he said.

(Reporting by Baghdad bureau, Angus MacSwan in Mosul, John Davison in Erbil; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Jon Boyle)

‘Worst is yet to come’ with 400,000 trapped in west Mosul: U.N.

A displaced Iraqi family flees from clashes during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq March 21, 2017. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

By Stephanie Nebehay and Patrick Markey

GENEVA/MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – About 400,000 Iraqi civilians are trapped in the Islamic State-held Old City of western Mosul, short of food and basic needs as the battle between the militants and government forces rages around them, the United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday.

Many fear fleeing because of Islamic State snipers and landmines. But 157,000 have reached a reception and transit center outside Mosul since the government offensive on the city’s west side began a month ago, said Bruno Geddo, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Iraq.

“The worst is yet to come. Because 400,000 people trapped in the Old City in that situation of panic and penury may inevitably lead to the cork-popping somewhere, sometime, presenting us with a fresh outflow of large-scale proportions,” he said.

Fighting in the past week has focused on the Old City, with government forces reaching as close as 500 meters to the al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014.

The hardline militants are now on the back foot, with their stronghold in Syria also under attack. But they still hold an estimated 40 percent of western Mosul and the campaign to recapture it could yet take weeks.

The government halted offensive operations on Thursday morning due to cloudy weather, which makes it difficult to bring in air support. Later, Federal Police reinforcements moved toward the Old City and the troops were preparing to storm the area and retake the mosque, a police spokesman said.

“Dozens of Daesh (IS) snipers are still positioned on rooftops of the Old City high buildings, posing a threat to our soldiers,” he said.

“We are waiting for the weather to improve so air strikes can compromise Daesh snipers and pave the way for the imminent advance and minimize casualties among our troops.”

A police sergeant named Mohamed, sheltering in an empty villa about 300 meters from the line as sporadic mortar and sniper fire came for IS positions, said: “They are using everything against now”.

Waleed, a displaced man from a district on the edge of the Old City, joined other mud-splattered families being loaded on to trucks for transport to camps.

“Everyone is hungry, there is no food and people are starving. We left last night when the army opened a way for us,” he told Reuters.

COLD NIGHTS, LITTLE FOOD

The UNHCR’s Geddo, speaking at Hamman al-Alil 20km (15 miles) south of Mosul, said the number of civilians streaming out was increasing and an average 8,000-12,000 per day had reached the displaced persons facility.

“We also heard stories of people running away under the cover of early morning fog, running away at night, of trying to run away at prayer time when the vigilance at ISIS checkpoints is lower,” he said, in remarks made public from Geneva.

Food, fuel and electricity are scarce in the Old City.

“People have started to burn furniture, old clothes, plastic, anything they can burn to keep warm at night, because it is still raining heavily and the temperatures at night in particular drop significantly,” Geddo said, adding that more people could be expected to flee.

“The more you go without food, the more you become panicked and the more you want to run away. At the same time it (the outflow) is increasing because the security forces are advancing and therefore more people are in a position to run away where the risk is likely more mitigated.”

The battle for Mosul, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, is now in its sixth month with Iraq forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition, air strikes and advisers now controlling the east side and more than half of the west.

Baghdadi and other IS leaders are believed to have left the city, but IS fighters are resisting with snipers hiding among the population, and using car bombs and suicide trucks to smash into Iraqi positions. U.S. officials estimate around 2,000 fighters remain inside the city.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and; Patrick Markey in Mosul,; Additional reporting by Angus MacSwan in Erbil and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Editing by Ed Osmond)

Iraqi forces try to bring civilians out of east Mosul, U.S. pledges more support

A wounded displaced Iraqi girl and her family who had fled their homes wait to enter Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq March 21, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Patrick Markey

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces attempted to evacuate civilians from Mosul’s Islamic State-held Old City on Tuesday so that troops could clear the area, but militant snipers hampered the effort, Iraqi officers said.

They said the insurgents were also using civilians as human shields as government units edged toward the al-Nuri Mosque, the focus of recent fighting in the five-month-long campaign to crush Islamic State in the city that was once the de facto capital of their self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate.

As many as 600,000 civilians remain in the western sector of Mosul, complicating a battle being fought with artillery and air strikes as well as ground combat. Thousands have escaped in recent days.

“Our forces control around 60 percent of the west now,” Defence Ministry spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told a news conference in eastern Mosul. “It’s the Old City now with small streets and it’s a hard fight with civilians inside. We are trying to evacuate them.

“We are a few hundred meters from the mosque now, we are advancing on al-Nuri. We know it means a lot to Daesh,” he said, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.

The capture of the mosque would be a huge symbolic prize as well as strategic gain for the government as it was there where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al—Baghdadi declared the caliphate in July 2014 after the militants had captured large areas of Iraq and Syria.

Government forces backed by a U.S.-led international coalition retook several cities last year, liberated eastern Mosul in December, and are now closing in on the west, but the militants are putting up fierce resistance from the close-packed houses and narrow streets.

Baghdadi and other leaders have fled the city for the hinterlands, where Islamic State remnants may regroup and wage a new phase of insurgency. At the same time, IS forces in the Syrian city of Raqqa are under attack in a parallel conflict.

Brigadier General Saad Maan said soldiers had killed nine IS snipers on Tuesday and destroyed a bomb factory.

“There are lots of snipers on top of the buildings in the Old City around the al-Nuri Mosque. We need to evacuate the families from inside as they using them as a shield when we are advancing on the mosque,” he told the news conference.

No precise toll of civilian casualties has been given but a prominent Iraqi politician said last week that the number could be as high as 3,500 dead since the attack on western Mosul started in mid-February.

An emergency field hospital set up by the U.S. medical charity Samaritan’s Purse says it has treated more than 1,000 patients, many of them women and children, since January. They suffered wounds from gunfire, land mines, mortar rounds, car bombings and booby-traps.

Reporters at the frontline on Tuesday said clashes took place around the railway station in some areas troops had held a few days earlier. Troops fired rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-guns at militants around the station as families ran across streets to avoid snipers

“We sitting inside our house and bullets were coming through our door” said one woman fleeing to government lines.

U.S. SUPPORT TO INCREASE

Saad Maan also said the bodies of a colonel and two other officers who had gone missing during the battle had been found. The colonel had been shot. But he said the men had not been captured by the insurgents.

An Interior Ministry official told Reuters on Monday that the insurgents had captured a police colonel and eight other officers after they ran out of ammunition during a skirmish. But a Rapid Response units spokesman denied this when asked for comment on Monday night.

The issue is sensitive as Islamic State have a record of torturing, mutilating and killing military and civilian captives, and such an incident could be a blow to troops’ morale.

The number of displaced people from both sides of Mosul since the start of the offensive has reached 355,000, according to government figures. Some 181,000 had poured out of western Mosul since the start of the operations to retake that side.

In Washington, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he had won assurances of greater U.S. support in the war in talks on Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump. But Abadi cautioned that military might alone would not be sufficient.

He told a forum in Washington after his meeting with Trump that he had been told U.S. “support will not only continue but will accelerate.”

“But of course we have to be careful here,” he said. “We are not talking about military confrontation as such. Committing troops is one thing, while fighting terrorism is another thing.”

Abadi, who leads the Shi’ite majority government in Baghdad, said it would be crucial to win over the local population in Sunni-dominated Mosul to achieve lasting peace.

He is in Washington this week ahead of a gathering of world leaders of the coalition fighting Islamic State, who as well as waging war in Iraq and Syria have inspired attacks on civilian targets in Europe, Africa and elsewhere that have killed hundreds of people.

Click http://tmsnrt.rs/2mZWV4j for graphic on Battle for Mosul

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Syrian rebels, civilians begin leaving Homs district in deal with government

Syrian army soldiers (back L) and Russian soldiers (back R) monitor as rebel fighters and their families evacuate the besieged Waer district in the central Syrian city of Homs, after an agreement was reached between rebels and Syria's army, March 18, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

By Ellen Francis

HOMS, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Rebels and their families began leaving their last bastion in the Syrian city of Homs on Saturday, state media and a Reuters witness said, under a Russian-backed deal with the government expected to be among the largest evacuations of its kind.

The agreement underlines Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s upper hand in the war, as more rebel fighters opt to leave areas they have defended for years in deals that amount to negotiated withdrawals to other parts of the country.

Several buses drove out of the al-Waer district in Homs, which was an early center of the popular uprising against Assad.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 rebels and civilians would evacuate in batches over the coming weeks under the deal, according to opposition activists in al-Waer and a war monitor.

Homs governor Talal Barazi told Reuters that he expected 1,500 people, including at least 400 fighters, to depart on Saturday for rebel-held areas northeast of Aleppo, and that most of al-Waer’s residents would stay.

“The preparations and the reality on the ground indicate that things will go well,” Barazi said.

The Syrian government has described such deals as a “workable model” that brings the country closer to peace after six years of conflict. But the opposition decries them as a tactic of forcibly displacing people who oppose Assad after years of bombardment and siege.

Along with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), Russian and Syrian forces were overseeing the evacuation, which would take about six weeks, Barazi said.

FULL EXIT

He said there was communication with other rebel-held areas north of Homs city to reach similar deals, including the towns of al-Rastan and Talbiseh.

“We are optimistic that the full exit of armed (fighters) from this district will pave the way for other reconciliations and settlements,” he said.

The government has increasingly tried to press besieged rebel areas to surrender and accept what it calls reconciliation agreements.

In an interview with Chinese TV station Phoenix last week, Assad said deals brokered locally with rebels were “the real political solutions”. He added that he had not expected anything from Geneva, where U.N.-led peace talks ended this month with no breakthrough.

Broadcasting live from the al-Waer departure area, Syrian state television spoke to a Russian colonel, who said via an interpreter that security would soon return to the district.

“This agreement was reached only under the patronage of the Russian side … and it will be implemented with Russian guarantees,” he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the buses would go to the Jarablus area held by Turkey-backed rebels in the northern Aleppo countryside.

Once completed, it would mark the biggest evacuation during the war out of one Syrian district, which is home to about 40,000 civilians and more than 2,500 fighters, the monitoring group said.

“It’s because there is zero trust in Assad’s government. That’s why the numbers are high,” said the head of the Homs Media Center, run by opposition activists. “For years, it has besieged us…and bombed people’s homes.”

Many did not want to stay out of fear of arrest, and around 15,000 people had signed up to evacuate so far, he said.

“People are going to live in tents, in refugee camps,” the activist said, adding that he also planned to leave in the coming weeks. “They are willing to leave their homes, their land, towards the unknown.”

ON THE BACK FOOT

Dozens of buses stood at a crossing in the morning waiting to leave al-Waer, accompanied by SARC ambulances, a Reuters witness said.

Police officers searched people before the buses drove out, the Homs police chief told Syrian state television.

In the coming weeks, evacuees could be shuttled to other rebel-held areas in northern Syria, including the insurgent stronghold of Idlib province, state TV said.

Under the agreement, fighters could stay in al-Waer if they hand over their weapons and settle their affairs with the government, it said.

State-owned al-Ikhbariya TV cited the Homs governor as saying that 20 buses had left so far and that rebels carried their small arms out with them.

The government would start returning its services to the district with the departure of the last batch of rebels, Barazi said. Allegations of an evacuation of al-Waer’s residents were “devoid of truth”, the channel quoted Barazi as saying.

The deal follows others that were never fully implemented between the government and rebel groups in al-Waer, which has been pounded by air strikes in recent weeks.

A few hundred rebels from the district have previously been allowed safe passage to Idlib in the northwest.

Rebels and civilians have poured into Idlib at an accelerating rate over the last year, bussed out of other parts of western Syria that the government and allied forces recaptured from rebels.

Rebel groups have been on the back foot in Syria, following Russia’s intervention into the war on Assad’s side, bringing its air power to bear in support of his army and its Iranian and Shi’ite militia allies.

The wide array of mostly Sunni rebel factions includes some jihadists as well as some groups supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut; Additional reporting by Marwan Makdisi in Homs; Editing by Dale Hudson and Stephen Powell)

Need to avoid civilian deaths weighs on minds of U.S. forces in Mosul battle

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 18, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Angus MacSwan

QAYYARA WEST AIRFIELD, Iraq (Reuters) – As the battle for Mosul moves to the narrow streets and densely packed houses of the Old City, U.S. artillery gunners and helicopter pilots supporting Iraqi forces face an age-old problem – how to avoid killing civilians.

They place their faith in precision missiles which can hit their target with great accuracy. But human instinct also comes into play against an Islamic State enemy which has used civilians as human shields and hides in houses and mosques.

“Our mission is to find and destroy ISIS. We are not here to kill the wrong people,” said Captain Lucas Gebhart, commander of the 4/6th Cavalry’s Bravo Troop of Apache attack helicopters.

The troop is based at this airfield about 60 kms south of Mosul, as is a rocket battery which fires into west Mosul.

A major site at the height of the U.S. occupation, Islamic State captured Qayyara from Iraqi government forces in 2014 and destroyed it. The Iraqis retook it in July last year, and now the U.S. Army is building it up again as a support base for the Mosul operation.

Gebhart, who wore a U.S. Cavalry hat with a crossed-sabre insignia along with his regular uniform, has been here since December. The troop flies close support for the Iraqi army and escorts medical evacuations. It has had more than 200 engagements with Islamic State fighters in that time, he said.

“We fly every day, weather permitting. We are firing missiles most of the time,” Gebhart told reporters.

The Iraqi army started its offensive on Mosul, Islamic State’s last stronghold in Iraq, in October and retook the east side of the city, bisected by the Tigris river, in January. The west, including the Old City, is much harder going.

“The west side is very congested and it will present new challenges for us. We realize the need to be careful as we go forward,” Gebhart said.

One of those challenges is avoiding civilian casualties in a conflict where fighters are mixed in among the population and sometimes hiding behind them.

“Everyone that flies with me are fathers and husbands, so we are very deliberate to avoid casualties we don’t want. We use guided missiles. The things we shoot from an Apache, they go where we want them to go,” Gebhart said.

Targets are identified and approved by the Iraqi army. But circumstances can change in a moment.

“I have personal experience of human shields. I engaged a target and they pulled a family of women and children out of a house. The missile was already in the air but I was able to move it,” he said.

“You’ve got a little bit of time. If something happens post-missile release, we have procedures to move it.”

Gebhart, aged 32, joined the military as a teenager after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. He served in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq in 2003 before going to West Point and becoming a cavalry officer. He also served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

“I love my job. I don’t lose sleep over it,” he said.

WE LOVE TO FIRE

In another section of the base, the 18th Field Artillery “Odin” battery operates a High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), fired off the back of trucks.

On Friday afternoon, the battery fired 10 rockets, each worth about $100,000, in the space of about 20 minutes. They headed skywards in a cloud of white smoke and a flash of fire as a Bob Marley song played from a platoon tent. They would reach their target in east Mosul in about a minute.

Lieutenant Mary Floyd explained that the rockets were GPS-guided. All fire missions were approved by senior officers at the Combined Joint Operations Center and the coordinates were sent to the battery through computers.

“The rockets go really high so we have to clear airspace -– civilian and military -– along the flight path. We have had to end missions because they saw aviation,” she said.

Although rockets are often aimed at targets in built-up, populated areas, the battery was confident they would hit what they intended. If the rockets are off target, they do not detonate, she said.

“They have very, very low collateral damage, so we like to use them a lot,” Floyd said, using the military term for civilian casualties. “When the rockets hit they land at near a vertical angle. That really confines the blast to one house.”

The battery has fired hundreds of rockets since deploying to Qayyara, she said.

“The tempo changes. We’ll go a couple of days without orders. Then we might be firing all night.”

The issue of civilian casualties has dogged the U.S. military during its long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from shootings at check-points to drone bombings. In the battle for Mosul, Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition war planes have also been pounding parts of the city.

Figures of such casualties are hard to come by. Washington has stressed its forces take every effort to avoid them.

On Tuesday, a prominent Iraqi politician and businessman, Khamis Khanjar, said at least 3,500 civilians have been killed in west Mosul since the offensive closed in on it.

The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that up to March 4, it had assessed that “more likely than not”, at least 220 civilians had been unintentionally killed by coalition strikes since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve.

While the men and women of Odin battery were fully aware of the risk, they believe in their work.

“We love to fire. It makes me very happy,” Floyd said. “At night it is very beautiful.”

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)

IS Mosul commander killed, government forces battle for bridge

A tank of Iraqi rapid response forces fire against Islamic State militants at the Bab al-Tob area in Mosul, Iraq, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ari Jalal

By Patrick Markey and Abdelaziz Boumzar

MOSUL, Iraq, (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces killed the Islamic State commander of Mosul’s Old City on Tuesday as the battle for the militants’ last stronghold in Iraq focused on a bridge crossing the Tigris river.

As fighting intensified on Tuesday after the previous day’s heavy rains, civilians streamed out of western neighborhoods recaptured by the government, cold and hungry but relieved to be free of the militants’ grip.

IS snipers were slowing the advance of Interior Ministry Rapid Response units on the Iron Bridge linking western and eastern Mosul but the elite forces were still inching forward, officers said.

Government forces also pushed into areas of western Mosul, Islamic State’s last redoubt in the city that has been the de facto capital of their self-declared caliphate.

Federal police killed the military commander of the Old City, Abu Abdul Rahman al-Ansary, during operations to clear Bab al-Tob district, a federal police officer said. With many IS leaders having already retreated from Mosul, Ansary’s death comes as blow to the militants as they defend their shrinking area of control street-by-street and house-by-house.

Capturing the Iron Bridge would mean Iraqi forces hold three of the five bridges in Mosul that span the Tigris, all of which have been damaged by the militants and U.S.-led air strikes. The southernmost two have already been retaken.

“We are still moving toward the Iron Bridge. We are taking out snipers hiding in the surrounding building, we are still pushing for the Iron Bridge,” Brigadier General Mahdi Abbas Abdullah of the Rapid Response force told Reuters.

Near the Mosul Museum, Iraq forces used armored vehicles and tanks to attack snipers pinning down troops clearing areas around the bridge.

An air strike targeting one Islamic State position hit a building, engulfing nearby troops in smoke and dust.

Since starting the offensive in October, Iraqi forces with U.S.-led coalition support have retaken eastern Mosul and about 30 percent of the west from the militants, who are outnumbered but fiercely defending their last stronghold in Iraq.

For much of Tuesday, the troops were within 100m (330 feet) of the bridge.

“It’s very key for our forces to secure the riverside and prevent Daesh militants from turning around our advancing forces,” a Rapid Response spokesman said in the morning, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.

They expected to gain control of the Iron Bridge and the nearby area by the end of the day, he said.

“Seizing the bridge will help further tighten the noose around Daesh fighters entrenched inside the old city,” he said.

HEAVY SHELLING

The boom of shelling and heavy machinegun fire could be heard from the center of Mosul and helicopter gunships strafed the ground from above on Tuesday morning.

Amid the combat, a steady stream of refugees trudged out of the western districts, carrying suitcases, bottles of water and other possessions. Some pushed children and sick elderly relatives in handcarts and wheelbarrows.

Soldiers packed them into trucks on the Mosul-Baghdad highway to be taken to processing areas. Most left in the dark early morning hours or after the army recaptured their neighborhoods. Food had been scarce, they said.

“We fled at 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) after the army had arrived. There has been a lot of shelling by Daesh,” said Hamid Hadi, a teacher. “Mostly we’ve been eating water mixed with tomatoes.”

Ashraf Ali, a nurse who escaped with his wife and two children, said mortar rounds were falling as they fled. They took advantage of the army retaking their district to get out.

“Daesh wanted us to move to their areas but we escaped when the army arrived,” he said.

As many as 600,000 civilians are caught with the militants inside Mosul, which Iraqi forces have effectively sealed off from the remaining territory that Islamic State controls in Iraq and Syria. The Iraqi forces include army, special forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi’ite militias.

More than 200,000 Mosul residents have been displaced since the start of the campaign in October. The Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday that in recent days, almost 13,000 displaced people from western Mosul had been received seeking assistance and temporary accommodation each day.

“Whenever we advance there are more people coming out,” said one Iraqi officer directing refugee transport. “There are more people on this side of the city and people are trying to leave because there is no food and no supplies in their area.”

Losing Mosul would be a major strike against Islamic State. It is by far the largest city the militants have held since their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself leader of a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria from a mosque in Mosul in the summer of 2014.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil, Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Syrian war monitor says 465,000 killed in six years of fighting

A graveyard is pictured at night in Aleppo, Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said on Monday there are so far about 465,000 people killed and missing in Syria’s civil war.

The war began six years ago on Wednesday with protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s government. It has since dragged in global and regional powers, allowed Islamic State to grab huge tracts of territory and caused the biggest refugee crisis since the second world war.

The Observatory said it had documented the deaths of more than 321,000 people since the start of the war and more than 145,000 others had been reported as missing.

Among those killed are more than 96,000 civilians, said the Observatory, which has used a network of contacts across the country to maintain a count of casualties since near the start of the conflict.

It said government forces and their allies had killed more than 83,500 civilians, including more than 27,500 in air strikes and 14,600 under torture in prison.

Rebel shelling had killed more than 7,000 civilians, the Observatory said.

The Islamic State jihadist group has killed more than 3,700 civilians, air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition have killed 920 civilians and Turkey, which is backing rebels in northern Syria, has killed more than 500 civilians, it added.

Syria’s government and Russia both deny targeting civilians or using torture or extrajudicial killings. Most rebel groups and Turkey also deny targeting civilians. The U.S.-led coalition says it tries hard to avoid civilian casualties and always investigates reports that it has done so.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Julia Glover)

U.S. says January raid in Yemen killed 4 to 12 civilians

Blood stains are seen at the site of a Saudi-led air strike which struck a house where mourners had gathered for a funeral north of Yemen's capital Sanaa, February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As many as 12 civilians died in a raid against al Qaeda in Yemen in late January, the head of the U.S. military’s Central Command said on Thursday.

“We have made a determination based on our best information available that we did cause … between four and 12 casualties,” U.S. Army General Joseph Votel told a Senate hearing, adding he accepted responsibility for shortcomings in the operation.

Critics have questioned the value of the raid against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, authorized by President Donald Trump, in which U.S. Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens also died.

The Pentagon said it is carrying out an investigation into the details surrounding Owens’ death and another review into the destruction of a U.S. military helicopter in the operation.

Votel said a separate, “exhaustive after-action review” had not found incompetence, poor decision-making or bad judgment.

“As a result, I made the determination that there was no need for an additional investigation into this particular operation,” Votel said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by James Dalgleish)