Tag Archives: ISIS

Embassy attack fuels fears ISIS bringing Iraq war to Afghanistan

Embassy attack fuels fears ISIS bringing Iraq war to Afghanistan

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – An attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul has reinforced fears that Islamic State militants are seeking to bring the group’s Middle East conflict to Afghanistan, though evidence of fighters relocating from Iraq and Syria remains elusive.

Islamic State said it carried out Monday’s attack, which began with a suicide bomber blowing himself up at the embassy’s main gate, allowing gunmen to enter the building and battle security forces.

The choice of target, three weeks after the fall of Mosul to Iraqi troops, appeared to back up repeated warnings from Afghan security officials that, as Islamic State fighters were pushed out of Syria and Iraq, they risked showing up in Afghanistan.

“This year we’re seeing more new weapons in the hands of the insurgents and an increase in numbers of foreign fighters,” said Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Dawlat Waziri. “They are used in front lines because they are war veterans.”

One senior security official put the number of foreigners fighting for both Islamic State and the Taliban in Afghanistan at roughly 7,000, most operating across the border from their home countries of Pakistan, Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, but also including others from countries such as India.

While such foreign fighters have long been present in Afghanistan, there has been growing concern that militants from Arab countries, who have left the fighting in Syria as pressure on Islamic State there has grown, have also been arriving in Afghanistan through Iran.

“We are not talking about a simple militant fighter, we are talking about battle-hardened, educated and professional fighters in the thousands,” another security official said.

“They are more dangerous because they can and will easily recruit fighters and foot soldiers here.”

The United States, which first came to Afghanistan in 2001 after Al Qaeda’s attacks on New York and Washington, is considering sending more troops to Afghanistan, in part to ensure the country does not become a haven for foreign militant groups.

But while Afghan and U.S. officials have long warned of the risk that foreign fighters from Syria could move over to Afghanistan, there has been considerable scepticism over how many have actually done so.

In April, during a visit to Kabul by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, said that, while ISIS had an “aspiration” to bring in fighters from Syria, “we haven’t seen it happen”.

“NEW TACTICS, WEAPONS”

U.S. commanders say that, in partnership with Afghan security forces, they have severely reduced Islamic State’s strength over the past year with a combination of drone strikes and Special Forces operations.

But according to Afghan intelligence documents reviewed by Reuters, security officials believe Islamic State is present in nine provinces, from Nangarhar and Kunar in the east to Jawzjan, Faryab and Badakhshan in the north and Ghor in the central west.

“In recent operations, we have inflicted heavy losses on them but their focus is to recruit fighters from this area,” said Juma Gul Hemat, police chief of Kunar, an eastern province where Islamic State fighters pushed out of their base in neighboring Nangarhar have increasingly sought refuge.

“They are not only from Pakistan or former Taliban, there are fighters from other countries and other small groups have pledged their allegiance to them,” he said.

Afghan officials say newly arrived foreign fighters have been heavily involved in fighting in Nangarhar province, Islamic State’s main stronghold in Afghanistan, where they have repeatedly clashed with the Taliban.

Security officials say they are still investigating Monday’s embassy attack and it is too early to say whether there was any foreign influence or involvement.

Islamic State put out a statement identifying two of the attackers as Abu Julaybib Al-Kharasani and Abu Talha Al-Balkhi, Arabic names that nonetheless suggest Afghan origins. Khorasan is an old name for the Central Asian region that includes Afghanistan, while Balkh is a province in northern Afghanistan.

What little contact is possible with fighters loyal to Islamic State in Afghanistan suggests that the movement itself is keen to encourage the idea that foreign militants are joining its ranks.

“We have our brothers in hundreds from different countries,” said an Islamic State commander in Achin district of Nangarhar.

“Most of them have families and homes that were destroyed by the atrocity and brutality of the infidel forces in Arab countries, especially by the Americans,” he said. “They can greatly help us in terms of teaching our fighters new tactics, with weapons and other resources.”

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

SDF advances against Islamic State in southern Raqqa

A military vehicle from Syrian Democratic Force is seen in Raqqa city. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Sarah Dadouch

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are on the verge of seizing full control of the southern neighborhoods of Islamic State-held Raqqa, a Kurdish official said on Tuesday.

The U.S.-led coalition said SDF fighters advancing from the east were within 300 meters (330 yards) of meeting up with those advancing from the west. The SDF was making “consistent gains” every day, the coalition spokesman said.

On Monday, the World Health Organization said there were critical shortages of medical supplies in Raqqa, where it estimated up to 50,000 civilians remained. Separately, Medecins Sans Frontieres said many sick and wounded people were trapped.

The SDF launched its U.S.-backed campaign to seize Raqqa in early June. The assault on Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria overlapped with the campaign to drive IS from the Iraqi city of Mosul, where IS was defeated last month.

The Kurdish official told Reuters SDF fighters advancing from the east and the west remain separated by a few streets where fighting continued.

Full control of the southern districts would sever Islamic State’s last remaining path to the Euphrates River which is to the south of the city.

“There is a fierce resistance from Daesh, so we can’t determine when exactly we’ll take (full control),” said the official, referring to Islamic State. “Around 90 percent of the southern neighborhoods are liberated,” the official added.

The spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said SDF fighters had also captured around 10 square km (4 sq miles) of territory from Islamic State north of Raqqa in the last two days.

“We’ve seen a less coherent ISIS defense in Raqqa compared to Mosul. ISIS is still using car bombs, booby traps, and civilians to hide behind, but their inability to address the multiple advances from the SDF is apparent,” coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon said in response to emailed questions from Reuters.

In an appeal for $20 million to respond to the crisis in northeastern Syria, the World Health Organization on Monday described the situation in Raqqa as “particularly worrying”.

“Raqqa’s main hospital and many other health care facilities have closed due to airstrikes,” it said. “The facilities that are still functioning face critical shortages of medicines, supplies and equipment.”

“Water and electricity are available only intermittently,” it said, adding that civilians were unable to move freely due to travel and security restrictions imposed by IS.

Medecins Sans Frontieres relayed patient reports of large numbers of sick and wounded people trapped inside Raqqa “with little or no access to medical care and scant chance of escaping the city.”

Last week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the SDF has captured half of Raqqa.

The SDF is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, and is the main partner for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State in Syria.

Islamic State has lost large expanses of territory in Syria over the last year to separate campaigns waged by the SDF, the Russian-backed Syrian military, and Turkey-backed Syrian rebels.

(Reporting by Sarah Dadouch/Tom Perry; additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Tom Perry and Alister Doyle)

Iraqi general sees easy victory over exhausted IS fighters in Tal Afar

An Iraqi top army generals, Major General Najm Abdullah al-Jubbouri speaks during an interview with Reuters in Mosul, Iraq July 30, 2017. Picture taken July 30, 2017. REUTERS/Khalid al-Mousily

By Isabel Coles

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – A senior Iraqi general predicted a relatively easy victory for his forces in the upcoming battle for the Islamic State haven of Tal Afar as up 2,000 fighters and their families there are “worn out and demoralised”.

Less than one month after declaring victory in the city of Mosul, Iraqi forces are poised to attack Tal Afar, which is around 40 km to the west of Mosul, in what will be the next major battle against the militants.

“I don’t expect it will be a fierce battle even though the enemy is surrounded,” Major-General Najm al-Jabouri told Reuters in an interview.

Jabouri, a key battlefield commander, said the fight would be simple compared to the nine months of gruelling urban combat in Mosul, which took a heavy toll on Iraqi forces.

“The enemy is very worn out,” said Jabouri, who was mayor of Tal Afar when it was overrun by insurgents more than a decade ago. “I know from the intelligence reports that their morale is low,” the general added.

The city, with about 200,000 residents before falling to Islamic State, experienced cycles of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi’ites after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and produced some of Islamic State’s most senior commanders.

It has also become the focus of a wider regional struggle for influence. Turkey, which claims affinity with Tal Afar’s predominantly ethnic Turkmen population, opposes the involvement of Shi’ite paramilitary groups fighting with Iraqi forces, some of which are backed by Iran.

Jabouri estimated there were between 1,500 and 2,000 militants left in Tal Afar. The figure may include some family members who support them.

“It’s a large number, but the terrain is favourable (to Iraqi forces),” Jabouri said. Only one part of the city, Sarai, is comparable to Mosul’s Old City, where Iraqi troops were forced to advance on foot through narrow streets. The rest of Tal Afar can be navigated in tanks and armoured vehicles.

FOREIGN FIGHTERS

Unlike Mosul, where Islamic State effectively held hundreds of thousands of people hostage to slow the advances of Iraqi forces, Jabouri said few civilians remained in Tal Afar, except those related to the militants.

Iraqi forces expect to face bombs, snipers and booby-traps. Despite being surrounded, there is no sign the militants are running low on ammunition, Jabouri said.

Many local Turkmen members of Islamic State already managed to escape by mingling with displaced civilians and fled to Turkey, where they can blend in anonymously, Jabouri said.

Of the remaining militants, Jabouri believed many were foreigners — from Turkey, former Soviet Republics and Southeast Asia — who became trapped after Iraqi forces severed all routes between Mosul and Tal Afar earlier this year.

The city had already been sealed off by Kurdish forces to the north, and mainly Shi’ite paramilitaries to the south leading to shortages of food and water.

The U.S.-led coalition has conducted air strikes in and around Tel Afar, paving the way for Iraqi forces to storm the city after reorganising and recuperating from Mosul.

Jabouri said all that remained was to receive orders from Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi to launch the assault: “perhaps it will be in days, or a week, or two”.

Beyond Tal Afar, Islamic State still controls other pockets of territory in Iraq, including the town of Hawija and the surrounding area.

ECHOES OF THE PAST

The upcoming battle for Tal Afar carries echoes of the past.

As the United States reduced its troop presence in northern Iraq after the invasion, Sunni insurgents seized the opportunity to take over most of Tal Afar in 2005.

Jabouri, who was mayor at the time, held out in the 16th-century Ottoman citadel that used to dominate the city from a hilltop in the centre as Iraqi and American troops led by Colonel H.R. McMaster routed the insurgents.

The city stabilised, and McMaster’s approach was held up as a blueprint for successful counter-insurgency strategy, but in years to come Tal Afar lapsed back into communal violence and insurgents took root again.

Jabouri says he met with McMaster, who is now U.S. National Security Adviser, around one month ago and they discussed Tal Afar. “It was different,” said Jabouri, comparing the past battle with the future one.

Islamic State is more formidable an enemy than al Qaeda was, he said, but Iraqi forces have also gained experience over three years of fighting the group.

The U.S. role is less conspicuous this time, and the historic citadel is no longer standing because Islamic State blew it up.

(Reporting by Isabel Coles, editing by Peter Millership)

Philippine police watching Muslim hitmen ahead of international gathering

FILE PHOTO - Police line up for a flag-raising ceremony outside a station in Quezon City Police District in Manila, Philippines April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Andrew RC Marshall

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine security forces are monitoring a group of former Maoist assassins who joined Islamist militants as a possible threat to this week’s 50th anniversary meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers, Manila’s police chief said on Tuesday.

Twenty-seven foreign ministers from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its dialogue partners like Japan, the United States, India, Canada and Russia, will gather in Manila from Friday until Tuesday.

Metro Manila’s police chief Oscar Albayalde said there was no specific threat so far, but police were monitoring several “Balik-Islam”, or Christians who converted to Islam. They were former hitmen of the communist Alex Boncayao Brigade, or ABB, a group of assassins that was active in the 1980s.

He said the men had joined pro-Islamic State militant groups in the Philippines and could be planning to disrupt the upcoming meetings of foreign ministers.

“We are watching several enclaves where there are large numbers of Muslim populations,” he said.

Among those is Quiapo, an old commercial district close to the presidential palace area, where a bomb during an ASEAN leaders’ summit in April wounded 14 people. The authorities said the motive was a personal dispute.

Security forces have been on high alert since an alliance of pro-Islamic State fighters laid siege to the southern Marawi City on May 23, a battle that is still ongoing and has killed more than 650 people, mostly rebel fighters.

Albayalde said that although the ABB was small and has long been dormant, the conversion of some of its members to Islam meant it needed to be watched.

The Philippines is deploying 13,000 police officers to secure and guard more than 1,700 delegates.

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

Southeast Asian states vow cooperation on ‘growing’ militant threat

Combat seized weapons are display by Philippines army during a news conference, as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group in Marawi city, Philippines July 4, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

By Tom Allard

MANADO, Indonesia (Reuters) – Southeast Asian nations will cooperate more closely with intelligence and law enforcement authorities from the Middle East amid “grave concerns” about an elevated threat from Islamic State (IS) in the region.

Representatives from four Southeast Asian nations, Australia and New Zealand met in the Indonesian city of Manado on Saturday to develop a response to the increased danger posed by IS, highlighted by the occupation of parts of the southern Philippines city of Marawi by militants owing allegiance to the group.

The battle has sparked alarm that as IS suffers reversals in Iraq and Syria, it is seeking to create a stronghold in the region, buttressed by Southeast Asian fighters returning from the Middle East and other militants inspired by the ultra-radical group and the Marawi conflict.

Describing the regional threat from Islamist militants as growing and rapidly evolving, a joint statement by the participants called for enhanced information sharing, as well as cooperation on border control, deradicalisation, law reform and countering Islamists’ prolific use of social media to plan attacks and lure recruits.

“We must face the threat together,” said Wiranto, Indonesia’s co-ordinating minister for security.

The meeting was co-hosted by Indonesia and Australia. The other participants were Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and New Zealand.

The main initiative was a law enforcement dialogue to be co-hosted by the Indonesian and Australian police forces in August bringing together key stakeholders affected by IS.

Two senior law enforcement sources at the Manado meeting said countries from the Middle East, including Turkey, would attend the summit to kick off cooperation across the two regions.

Islamic State has a dedicated military unit made up of hundreds of Southeast Asian fighters in Syria and Iraq led by Indonesian militant Bahrumsyah.

According to Indonesian police, there are 510 Indonesian supporters of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, including 113 women.

About 20 Islamist fighters from Indonesia are believed by counter-terrorism authorities to be fighting in Marawi, a predominantly Muslim city on the Philippines island of Mindanao which has been a hotbed of Islamist unrest for decades and a magnet for militants from around the region.

One of leaders of the militants in Marawi is a Malaysian Islamic studies lecturer, Ahmad Mahmud, who arranged financing and the recruitment of foreign fighters.

POOR RECORD OF COOPERATION

While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the multilateral regional forum made up of 10 nations, has long had a framework for cooperation on combating violent extremism, analysts and officials say coordination has been poor.

A report last week from the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict identified “formidable obstacles” to greater cooperation between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, the front-line states facing the Islamist threat in Southeast Asia.

“These include the deep-seated political distrust between the Philippines and Malaysia that impedes information sharing; concern from Indonesia and Malaysia police about mixed loyalties of local counterparts in Mindanao, especially given clan and family links; and institutional disjunctures that give the lead in counter-terrorism to the police in Indonesia and Malaysia but to the military in the Philippines,” the report said.

After more than two months of intense fighting, IS-aligned militants still control part of Marawi. Over 600 people have been killed, including 45 civilians and 114 members of the security forces. The government has said the other dead are militants.

(Reporting by Tom Allard; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Suspected Boko Haram militants issue video of three kidnapped oil survey team members

A car drives towards a Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) sector 5 sign in Maiduguri, Nigeria August 30, 2016. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Suspected Boko Haram members released a video on Saturday that shows three kidnapped members of an oil exploration team in northeastern Nigeria, one of whom asks the government to reduce the use of force against the jihadists.

The team, which included university staff and employees from Nigeria’s state oil firm, was kidnapped by suspected members of the Islamist militant group while searching for oil in the conflict-ridden northeast on Tuesday.

A rescue attempt on Wednesday ended in the deaths of at least 37 members of the original prospecting team and the rescuers, including Nigerian military and armed vigilantes, according to officials and military sources.

It prompted a change of tactic by the government amid a spate of attacks by the group whose bid to create an Islamic state in the northeast led to the deaths of at least 20,000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes since 2009.

In the video, seen by Reuters, the men are seen seemingly unharmed and sitting crosslegged on a red floor in front of a patterned wall. The video was obtained by Sahara Reporters, a U.S.-based journalism website.

The University of Maiduguri confirmed the three men in the video were their staff members. It also released a photo of them late on Friday.

“I want to advise that the use of excessive force is not the solution. “We want to call on the federal government to meet this demand and, as promised, they will release us immediately,” said one of the men, who identified himself as a lecturer at the university.

The jihadist group split last year, with one faction led by Abubakar Shekau operating from the Sambisa Forest — a vast woodland area in the northeast — and the other, allied to Islamic State and led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, based in the Lake Chad region where the search for oil took place.

“I want to call the acting president, Yemi Osinbajo, to come to our rescue to meet the demand of soldiers of calipha under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Barnawi,” said the same man in the four-and-a-half minute video.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday dispatched military chiefs to the northeast to help regain control of the situation after insurgents have launched attacks with renewed zeal in the past few months.

The state oil company, which contracted university staff, has for more than a year surveyed what it says may be vast oil reserves in the Lake Chad Basin.

It wants to reduce its reliance on the southern Niger Delta energy hub, which last year was hit by militant attacks on oil facilities.

(Reporting by Ardo Abdullahi and Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos; Additional reporting by Ahmed Kingimi; Writing by Paul Carsten and Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Eyeing Deir al-Zor, Syrian army advances on Islamic State town

FILE PHOTO - Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stand on their military vehicle in northern Deir al-Zor province ahead of an offensive against Islamic State militants, Syria February 21, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces are nearing the last major town held by Islamic State (IS) in Homs province, part of their multi-pronged advance toward the jihadist group’s strongholds in the east of the country, a military source said on Thursday.

The source said combat operations would accelerate toward the town of al-Sukhna, some 50 km (30 miles) from the administrative frontier of Deir al-Zor province, where IS has redeployed many fighters after losing ground in Syria and Iraq.

“Capturing al-Sukhna means opening the door and path for forces to move to Deir al-Zor directly,” the source told Reuters, adding that the military had captured positions 8 km (5 miles) southwest of the town on Wednesday evening.

Islamic State is losing ground fast in Syria to separate campaigns waged by the Russian-backed Syrian government on the one hand, and to U.S.-backed Kurdish forces and their allies on the other.

Government forces, backed by the Russian air force and Iran-backed militias, have also been advancing against IS in Hama province and in southern areas of Raqqa province.

U.S.-led operations against IS are currently focused on taking Raqqa city.

Government forces have been approaching al-Sukhna gradually since capturing the ancient city of Palmyra, some 50 km away, in March.

“It is natural that combat operations escalate in this direction and take on a stronger and faster nature,” the source said, adding that Islamic State had concentrated forces in al-Sukhna.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government forces were being supported in the attack by Russian air strikes and allied militias, and had moved to within 5 km of al-Sukhna.

Deir al-Zor province, which borders Iraq to the east, is almost entirely under Islamic State control. The Syrian government has held on to a pocket of territory in the provincial capital of Deir al-Zor city, and at nearby air base.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Booby-traps plague north Iraq as Islamic State targets returning civilians

A member of the Iraqi Federal Police runs for cover on the frontline in the Old City, June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

By Angus MacSwan

SHEIKH AMIR, Iraq (Reuters) – As people return home to Mosul and other areas of northern Iraq freed from Islamic State, homemade bombs and explosives laid on an industrial scale by the insurgents are claiming hundreds of victims and hampering efforts to bring life back to normal.

Houses, schools, mosques and streets are all booby-trapped, a big problem in West Mosul following its recapture by government forces this month after nine months of fighting.

Beyond Mosul, in villages and fields stretching from the Plain of Nineveh to the Kurdish autonomous region, retreating Islamic State fighters have sown a vast area with improvised bombs and mines as their self-proclaimed caliphate shrinks.

“The scale of contamination? There are kilometers and kilometers and kilometers of active devices, sensitive enough to be detonated by a child and powerful enough to blow up a truck,” Craig McInally, operations manager for Norwegian People’s Aid anti-explosives project, said.

While mines are usually laid in rows in open ground, improvised explosives in buildings are wired into household appliances such as fridges, heaters and televisions, primed to explode at the flick of a switch or an opened door, experts say.

Since clearing operations began last October, about 1,700 people have been killed or injured by such explosives, according to the United Nations Mines Action Service, which co-ordinates the clearing campaign.

By targeting civilians, Islamic State hopes to thwart a stabilization effort aiming to get people back to their homes, jobs and studies, rebuild infrastructure and reinstate government rule.

While the crisis lasts, Islamic State – whose strategy extends far beyond military operations – could thrive again, said Charles Stuart, charge d’affaires at the European Union mission in Iraq.

UNDER THE RUBBLE

Sheikh Amir, on the main Erbil-Mosul road at the line between Kurdish and Iraqi army control, is an abandoned, bombed-out ruin – one of hundreds of villages in such a state.

On a sweltering morning, Haskim Hazim, 37, was working with his brother and a few friends to repair his house, mixing cement and erecting a cinder-block wall.

Apart from his, only one other family out of a village that once had 120 Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim households has returned since it was recaptured from Islamic State in October, he said.

When he came back, his house, adjacent buildings and animal pens had been booby-trapped. “All were connected together. The bomb was a jerry can,” he said.

Many other houses had been rigged with improvised explosives. Islamic State had also dug tunnels in and around the village. A Mines Advisory Group (MAG) team had gone through and cleared most of that but it was still dangerous, he said.

A few weeks ago, a 12-year-old boy tending sheep nearby had picked up an object from the ground. It exploded and blew the fingers off one of his hands, Hazim said.

“We don’t know what is under the rubble,” said his brother, Jassan Abbas Hazim, 35, pointing to houses demolished by U.S.-led coalition air strikes and Islamic State.

Their families were staying in rented rooms in Erbil and Qaraqosh, the men said.

“There’s nothing here, no school, no medicine, no water – just a well,” Hazim said. “I hope other people come back. If they don’t, then what?”

In Qarqashah, in the same area, two returning families were killed when the pick-ups they were driving in triggered a mine. Today, only one family of shepherds lives there full-time, the NPA’s McInally said.

In nearby Kaberli, about 20 families have returned since February after NPA teams cleared schools and houses.

The EU’s Stuart gave the example of a schoolroom in Fallujah where explosives were packed beneath a classroom’s floorboards to kill children as they went to their desks. It was discovered in time.

A big problem is civilians taking matters into their own hands and trying to clear their homes themselves, Stuart said, and children playing in the streets are particularly vulnerable.

CRUSH NECKLACES

In the NPA office in Erbil, McInally, a U.S. army veteran who has cleared explosive hazards in countries from Colombia to Afghanistan, showed off a collection of devices, many fashioned from rusty bits of metal.

The most common is a “pressure plate” – two long plates held apart by spacers, one connected to a negative lead the other to a positive lead. When trodden on, the circuit closes and detonates the main charge.

Other devices, so-called “crush necklaces”, are like miniature pressure plates made from small metal or plastic clips. They are difficult to find with metal detectors and hard to spot visually.

“This is an industrialized assembly line. These are guys who are educated. They understand electronics,” McInally said.

The bomb-makers are also learning from clearers’ techniques and are adapting to them, he said.

The anti-explosives campaign involves Iraqi and Kurdish authorities, the United Nations, and an array of NGOs and commercial outfits. It extends beyond decontaminating sites.

Community liaison teams give mine-risk awareness lessons to hundreds of people.

At the Kadiz Abdulajad School in West Mosul, recently reopened after three years of Islamist rule, head teacher Thekriat Mohammed Hussein said the children were given lessons in mine and explosives awareness as part of the curriculum.

MAG is also training people to handle explosives-clearing in their own communities and civilians are being trained as first-responders to give emergency medical treatment to blast victims.

Bureaucracy and funding can hinder the effort though and resources are insufficient, clearers say. For 2017, UNMAS has received $16 million of the required $112 million.

And the liberation of Mosul signifies the only the latest phase of the scourge. Iraq is peppered with “legacy” explosives going back to the Iran-Iraq War, former leader Saddam Hussein’s war against the Kurds, and the U.S.-led war following the 2003 invasion. Islamic State militants are also expected to plant new areas as they fall back to the Syrian border.

It could take decades to clear them, experts say.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

NATO offers to broker compromise in Turkish-German stand-off

FILE PHOTO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel greets Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the beginning of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Bernd Von Jutrczenka/POOL/File Photo

By Paul Carrel and Robin Emmott

BERLIN (Reuters) – NATO’s secretary general is offering to broker a visit by German lawmakers to troops serving on a Turkish air base in an attempt to heal a rift between the two allies which is disrupting anti-Islamic State operations.

The mediation offer by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, announced on Monday, came as Ankara itself sought to limit the economic fallout from the damaging row with Berlin, dropping a request for Germany to help it investigate hundreds of German companies it said could have links to terrorism.

Germany has become increasingly worried by President Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on the Turkish opposition since a coup attempt last year – concerns made more acute by the arrest this month of six human rights activists, including one German.

Adding to tensions is Turkey’s refusal to let German members of parliament visit soldiers stationed at two air bases. For historical reasons, Germany’s soldiers answer to parliament and Berlin insists lawmakers have access to them.

This has already led Germany to move troops involved in the campaign against Islamic State from Turkey’s Incirlik base to Jordan. The risk of further decampments has sparked deep concern in NATO and now prompted it to intervene.

“The Secretary General has now offered to arrange a visit for parliamentarians to Konya airfield within a NATO framework,” alliance spokesman Piers Cazalet said on Monday. “Konya airfield is vital for NATO operations in support of Turkey and the Counter-ISIS Coalition.”

With Germany Ankara’s largest export market and home to a three million strong Turkish diaspora, it is in Turkey’s economic interests to resolve the row. The swift deterioration in relations threatens to damage deep-rooted human and economic ties.

CLOSE TIES

Germany has warned its nationals traveling to Turkey that they do so at their own risk, and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Erdogan was “jeopardizing the centuries-old partnership”.

Stepping back from confrontation, Turkey’s interior minister on Monday told his German counterpart that Ankara’s submission to Interpol of a list of nearly 700 German companies suspected of backing terrorism had stemmed from “a communications problem”.

Turkey had merely asked Interpol for information regarding the exports of 40 Turkish companies with alleged links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed for the failed putsch last July, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said. He promised that Turkey would remain a “safe haven” for foreign investors.

Germany’s DIHK Chambers of Industry and Commerce said firms remained uncertain about doing business in Turkey, from which Germany bought $14 billion worth of goods in 2016.

“I hear it a lot: if the political environment does not improve, if legal certainty is in question, then there will hardly be a recovery in new investments by German firms (in Turkey),” DIHK foreign trade chief Volker Treier said.

(Additional reporting by Rene Wagner in Berlin, Robin Emmott in Brussels and Ece Toksabay in Ankara, writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Kansas man gets 30-year sentence for foiled bomb plot targeting U.S. military base

U.S. Army Soldiers, assigned to 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, fire a TOW missile from a Bradley Fighting Vehicle during training at Fort Riley, Kansas, May 18, 2016. U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jonathan Camire

(Reuters) – A Kansas man was sentenced on Monday to 30 years in federal prison for plotting a failed suicide bombing at a U.S. military base on behalf of Islamic State, federal prosecutors said.

John Booker Jr., 22, of Topeka, pleaded guilty in February to plotting the April 2015 attack on Army personnel at Fort Riley, Kansas, and aiding the Islamic State fight against the United States, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Booker was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, on one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of attempted destruction of government property by fire or explosion.

Booker was arrested as part of a sting operation in which he went to Fort Riley with two undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to detonate what he did not know was an inert bomb.

Booker had planned to build a vehicle bomb holding 1,000 pounds (455 kg) of ammonium nitrate and trigger it himself, dying in the process, the Justice Department statement said.

Prosecutors said they had tracked Booker since he posted Facebook messages in March 2014 in which he said: “Getting ready to get killed in jihad is a HUGE adrenaline rush!!” He had been in unwitting contact with an undercover FBI agent since October 2014.

A friend of Booker, Alexander Blair, of Topeka, pleaded guilty to storing bomb equipment for him and was sentenced to 15 months in prison in October 2016.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)