Tag Archives: ISIS

Islamic State counter attack causes fierce clashes in Syria’s Raqqa

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter sit as medics treat his comrades injured by sniper fired by Islamic State militants in a field hospital in Raqqa, Syria June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State mounted a fierce counter-attack against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of militias in the city of Raqqa on Friday, but there were divergent accounts of its success in regaining ground.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said the group had managed to regain control over most of Raqqa’s industrial district, but the SDF said fighting was limited to the edges of that area and the attack was repelled.

West of Raqqa, the Syrian army advanced on Friday, driving the group from its last territory in Aleppo province in a move that relieves pressure on an important government supply route, a Syrian military source said.

The SDF, a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab groups, took the industrial district this month in its biggest gain so far in Islamic State’s de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.

It said on Friday heavy clashes had taken place since late Thursday in east Raqqa, where the industrial district is located, in the areas of al-Rawdha, al-Nahdha and al-Daraiyah.

However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Islamic State had regained control over most of the industrial area in fierce fighting.

The SDF, on its social media feed, acknowledged there had been intense clashes but said the whole industrial district was still in its hands and the attack had been thwarted.

ARMY ADVANCE

The army took the last stretch of the Ithriya-Rasafa road, part of the highway from Hama to Raqqa, forcing Islamic State to withdraw from a salient it held to the north, the military source and the Observatory said.

Islamic State had used that salient, an area containing a range of hills and a dozen villages, to mount frequent attacks on a different road linking Ithriya to Khanaser, part of the government’s only available land route to Aleppo.

The capture of the Ithriya-Rasafa road also shortens the Syrian army’s route to its battlefront with Islamic State south of Tabqa, a possible route for its multi-pronged offensive to relieve the government’s enclave in Deir al-Zor.

Although Islamic State has withdrawn from the salient east of Khanaser, the army has not yet combed the entire area, the Syrian military source said.

On Thursday, the Observatory said the SDF had managed to take the last stretch of the Euphrates’ south bank opposite Raqqa, completely encircling Islamic State inside the city.

Since all Raqqa’s bridges were already destroyed, and the U.S.-led coalition was striking boats crossing the river, the city had already been effectively isolated since May.

Naser Haj Mansour, a senior SDF official, told Reuters on Thursday he thought it could be “maybe more than a month or a month and a half” before the group took the city. Previous SDF timescales for its war on Islamic State have proven optimistic.

Beyond Raqqa, Islamic State still retains most of the 200km (130 mile) stretch of the Euphrates valley flowing to the border with Iraq. The Syrian army still holds a big enclave in Deir al-Zor, the area’s largest city, on which it is slowly advancing from the direction of Palmyra.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams and Angus MacSwan)

Iraqi forces close in on IS redoubt in Mosul after declaring end of caliphate

The ruined Grand al-Nuri Mosque is seen after it was retaken by the Iraqi forces from the Islamic State militants at the Old City in Mosul, Iraq, June 30, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Iraqi forces attacked Islamic State’s remaining redoubt in Mosul’s Old City on Friday, a day after hailing the end of the insurgents’ self-declared caliphate with the capture of an historic mosque that symbolized their power.

Dozens of civilians, mostly women and children, fled across the frontline toward the troops as bullets whizzed through the air. They were thirsty and tired, and some had been wounded.

Commanders of Iraq’s Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) cautioned that with the mostly non-Iraqi IS militants dug in among thousands of civilians and likely to fight to the death, the battle ahead remained challenging.

CTS Major General Maan al-Saadi told Reuters it could take at least four to five days of fighting to capture the last handful of neighborhoods along the banks of the Tigris River, defended by about 200 militants.

“The advance continues to Midan neighborhood,” he said. “Controlling it means we have reached the Tigris River.”

The IS militants themselves denied the setbacks. The group, whose leader declared a caliphate over parts of Iraq and Syria three years ago, still occupies an area the size of Belgium across the two neighboring countries, according to one estimate.

The fall of Mosul would mark the effective end of the Iraqi half of the caliphate, although the group still controls territory west and south of the city, ruling over tens of thousands of people.

Its stronghold in Syria, Raqqa, is also under siege. U.S.-backed forces encircled the city after closing the militants’ last way out from the south, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. Islamic State forces launched a counter-attack on Friday..

DESPERATE CIVILIANS

The insurgent position in Mosul is several hundred meters wide and thousands of civilians are trapped there in harrowing conditions, with little food, water, medicine and no access to health services, according to those who managed to flee.

Those who escaped on Friday streamed through alleyways near the Grand al-Nuri Mosque, which Islamic State fighters blew up a week ago.

They scrambled over mounds of rubble in the street, carrying small children and helping the elderly across.

A Reuters correspondent saw smoke billowing over the riverside districts amid artillery blasts and burst of gunfire. Western troops from the U.S.-led coalition were helping with aerial surveillance and mortar fire, he said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Hailer al-Abadi declared the end of Islamic State’s caliphate — which he called “a state of falsehoood” — on Thursday after CTS units captured the ground of the ruined 850-year-old mosque.

It was from the mosque’s pulpit that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his caliphate three years ago to the day.

The insurgents chose to blow it up rather than see their black flag taken down from its al-Hadba, or Hunchback, leaning minaret where it had been flying since June 2014.

The suffering of tens of thousands whose lives have been wrecked for having lost relatives, their homes or their businesses dampened feelings of victory.

“I hear victory speeches on the radio but I cannot help feeling sad when you see people without homes and others fleeing with their children under the blazing sun,” said Mahmoud, a taxi driver in the eastern side of Mosul which was taken back from the militants in the first 100 days of the campaign.

GRINDING WARFARE

The symbolic victory of the Iraqi forces came after more than eight months of grinding urban warfare which has displaced 900,000 people, about half the city’s pre-war population, and killed thousands of civilians, according to aid organizations.

Islamic State’s weekly publication al-Nabaa, denying they were losing the battle for Mosul, said the Iraqi army had virtually collapsed and suffered 300 killed and wounded.

“The epic battle of Mosul is one of the most important battles of Islam and its lessons will be applied in other confrontations, God willing,” read a headline.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the offensive, which army and federal police units are also taking part in, attacking from different directions.

“Tight alleyways with booby traps, civilians and ISIS fighters around every corner make the Iraqi security force’s advance extremely challenging,” coalition spokesman U.S. Army Colonel Ryan Dillon said.

Baghdadi’s speech from the Grand al-Nuri Mosque on July 4, 2014 was the first and only time he has revealed himself to the world.

He has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is believed to be hiding on the Iraq-Syrian border, according to U.S. and Iraqi military sources.

The group has moved its remaining command and control structures to Mayadin, in eastern Syria, U.S. intelligence sources said last week, without indicating if Baghdadi was also hiding in the same area.

The secretive Islamic State leader has frequently been reported killed or wounded. Russia said on June 17 its forces might have killed him in an air strike in Syria. But Washington says it has no information to corroborate such reports and Iraqi officials have also been skeptical.

Graphic of Battle for Mosul http://tmsnrt.rs/2rEoDr4

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Richard Balmforth)

Snipers, bombs, mortars – Philippine troops battle against Islamists

A Filipino soldier lies on a mattress at their combat position in a house as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group in Marawi city, Philippines July 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

By Kanupriya Kapoor

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Sprawled on the boarded-up balcony of a two-storey house, the barrel of his rifle poked into a hole cut in the wood, the Philippine army sniper calls for quiet before taking his shot.

“Firing,” he says evenly, before the .50 caliber shot rings out, sending tremors through the house. He was firing at a home less than a kilometer (a half mile) away, believed to be a stronghold of Islamist militants who have been holed up in Marawi City for over five weeks.

A spotter sat next to him, with his scope set into another hole. The two spoke quietly to each other as the sniper took three more shots across the Agus river into the militant-held commercial district of Marawi, now a battleground strewn with debris from ruined buildings. Scores of bodies are rotting in the area, and the stench mixes with the smell of gunpowder.

Thousands of soldiers are battling to retake the southern Philippine city, where militants loyal to Islamic State launched a lightning strike on May 23.

The southern Philippines has been marred for decades by insurgency and banditry. But the intensity of the battle in Marawi and the presence of foreign fighters from Indonesia, Malaysia, Yemen and Chechnya fighting alongside local militants has raised concerns that the region may be becoming a Southeast Asian hub for Islamic State as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria.

As troops poured in to contain the siege, few were expecting a slow, difficult and unfamiliar urban war.

“We are used to insurgencies… but a deployment of this magnitude, this kind of conflict is a challenge for our troops,” said Lt Col Christopher Tampus, one of the officers commanding ground operations in Marawi.

He said progress in clearing the city has been hindered by militant fire and booby traps like gas tanks rigged with grenades.

Filipino 62-year-old woman Linda is rescue by soldiers from the combat zone where she and her family were trapped more than 5 weeks in Marawi city, Philippines July 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

Filipino 62-year-old woman Linda is rescue by soldiers from the combat zone where she and her family were trapped more than 5 weeks in Marawi city, Philippines July 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

REDUCED TO RUBBLE

After weeks of military airstrikes and shelling, Marawi, a lakeside city of around 200,000 is now a ghost town, the center of which has been reduced to charred rubble and hollow structures. Buildings in the military-controlled areas of the city are still standing but deserted after residents fled.

Authorities estimate around 100 to 120 fighters, some of them as young as 16 years, remain holed up in the commercial district of the city, down from around 500 at the beginning of the siege.

The fighters are holding around 100 hostages, according to the military, who have been forced to act as human shields, take up arms or become sex slaves.

Military aircraft drop bombs on the militant zone almost every day. From the outskirts of the city, mortar teams take aim at what they call “ground zero”, the heart of the conflict.

“Mortars are designed to target people and smaller areas than the airstrikes.” said mortar specialist Sgt. Jeffery Baybayan, as he jotted down coordinates that come crackling over a radio from an observer closer to the conflict area.

“Hitting targets accurately can be difficult and we’re expending rounds without hitting targets. We are concerned about our own troops that are very close to the enemy area,” he added, as the mortars exploded in the city, sending up plumes of thick black smoke.

“SURRENDER NOW OR DIE”

During the day’s battle, Tampus received reports that three civilians, trapped for weeks near the fighting, were trying to escape. Several soldiers responded to help rescue them – moving to the area in two lines along the sides of streets to avoid sniper fire.

Three civilians – two men and a woman using a walking stick – came out and sat by the side of the street once they were in the military zone.

“The bombs were so frequent coming from both sides,” said Jose Locanas, a 53-year-old Christian man trapped with his wife and friend in his house. “We were caught in the middle.”

Troops said they received word from their relatives that the three were trapped and managed to escort them out.

More than 400 people, including over 300 militants, 82 security forces and 44 civilians are known to have died in Marawi.

Some of the bodies of civilians were found decapitated and the military has warned the number of residents killed by rebel “atrocities” could rise sharply as troops retake more ground.

Every day, troops make announcements through loudspeakers for the militants to “surrender now or die”. To the trapped civilians, they offer help to get out of the conflict area.

Authorities say they believe the militants are running out of supplies and ammunition, but they say there is no deadline to retake the city.

Tampus, the officer, said when troops reinforcements come into Marawi, they are initially apprehensive because of the high death toll.

“But once they are here, the discipline kicks in and they are focused,” he said.

For a graphic on the “Battle for Marawi”, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/PHILIPPINES-ATTACK/010041F032X/index.html

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

New conflicts threaten Syria after Islamic State defeat

Sheen Ibrahim, Kurdish fighter from the People's Protection Units (YPG) walks in Raqqa, Syria June 16, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

By Michael Georgy and John Walcott

RAQQA, Syria/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sheen Ibrahim’s track record fighting ultra-hardline militants explains U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy of arming Syrian Kurds like her as he seeks to eradicate Islamic State. It also highlights the risks.

Taught by her brother to fire an AK-47 at 15 and encouraged by her mother to fight for Syrian Kurdish autonomy, she says she has killed 50 people since she took up arms in Syria’s six-year-old civil war, fighting first al Qaeda, then crossing into Iraq to help Kurds there against Islamic State.

Now 26, she leads a 15-woman unit hunting down the hardline group in its global headquarters Raqqa, speeding through streets once controlled by the militants in a pick-up truck as fellow fighters comb through ruined buildings for booby traps.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, have taken several parts of the northern Syrian town since their assault began this month.

This week U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said Washington may arm the SDF for future battles against Islamic State while taking back weapons it no longer needs.

The plan is the “headline” of a still-unfinished stabilization plan for Syria by the Trump administration, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The risk is that it causes new instability in a war in which outside powers are playing ever larger roles.

The U.S.-YPG relationship has infuriated Syria’s northern neighbor Turkey, a NATO ally which says the YPG is an extension of the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, designated terrorist by both Ankara and Washington for its insurgency against the Turkish state.

Turkey has sent troops into Syria, partly to attack Islamic State, but also to keep the YPG, which controls Kurdish-populated areas of northern Syria, from moving into an Arab and Turkmen area that would give it control of the whole frontier.

On Wednesday Ankara said its artillery had destroyed YPG targets after local Turkish-backed forces came under attack.

Turkey has recently sent reinforcements into Syria, according to the rebel groups it backs, prompting SDF concern it plans to attack Kurdish YPG forces. The SDF warned on Thursday of a “big possibility of open, fierce confrontation”.

“WE’LL DO WHAT WE CAN”

Syrian Kurdish leaders say they want autonomy in Syria, like that enjoyed by Kurds in Iraq, rather than independence or to interfere in neighboring states. They say Turkish warnings that YPG weapons could end up in PKK hands are unjustified.

“We were the victims of the nation state model and we have no desire to reproduce this model,” said Khaled Eissa, European representative of the PYD, the YPG’s political affiliate.

Ibrahim and other fighters interviewed by Reuters said they were not terrorists but would “stand up” to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. “Turkey is fighting us,” Ibrahim said. “Anyone who fights us, we will fight.”

Washington is working to calm tensions over its relationship with the YPG, which is also backed by Russia. “There is absolute transparency between Turkey and the United States on that subject,” said Major General Rupert Jones, the British deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

But disarmament will not be easy, judging by the comments of YPG fighters on the ground. “We will not give up our weapons,” said a sniper aiming at Islamic State positions, who only gave her first name, Barkaneurin. “We need them to defend ourselves.”

Fellow fighter Maryam Mohamed agreed. “Erdogan is our biggest enemy, we cannot hand over our weapons,” she said.

One of the U.S. officials said Washington did not know exactly how many weapons the YPG has because some Arabs had joined its ranks, taking U.S.-supplied weapons with them, when their groups suffered setbacks on the battlefield.

“Loyalties are as variable as the battle lines and sometimes follow them,” the official said.

Asked about weapons recovery, Mattis, in his first public remarks on the issue, said: “We’ll do what we can,” while YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud emphasized the target was Islamic State. “We are fighting a global terrorist group,” he said.

Battlefield victory is tantalizingly close. U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Iraq announced on Thursday they had retaken Mosul, Islamic State’s largest stronghold and the twin capital, with Raqqa, of the “caliphate” it declared in 2014.

But the U.S. official and two others who also declined to be named, noted other huge obstacles to stabilizing Syria they said the administration was papering over.

Rebuilding Raqqa will need billions of dollars and an unprecedented level of compromise among groups long hostile to each other, all three officials said. One said Iranian forces backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were poised to exploit any setbacks.

Kurds are spearheading the attack on Raqqa, but a mainly Arab force is planned to maintain security in the overwhelmingly Arab town thereafter.

While Kurds and Arabs fight side by side against Islamic State, with the militants’ self-proclaimed caliphate shrinking, competition for territory will intensify.

“We are getting ourselves into the middle of another potential mess we don’t understand,” one of the U.S. officials said.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in PARIS, Dominic Evans in ANKARA and Tom Perry in BEIRUT; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Civilians flee as Iraqi forces attack last Islamic State redoubt in Mosul

Armoured fighting vehicles of the Counter Terrorism Service maneuver at the positions of the Iraqi forces near the Grand al-Nuri Mosque at the Old City in Mosul, Iraq June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces attacked Islamic State’s remaining redoubt in Mosul’s Old City on Friday, a day after formally declaring the end of the insurgents’ self-declared caliphate and the capture of the historic mosque which symbolized their power.

Dozens of civilians fled in the direction of the Iraqi forces, mostly women and children, some wounded by insurgents fire, thirsty and tired.

The battles ahead will be difficult as most of the militants are foreigners expected to fight until the death. They are dug in among civilians, using them as human shields, Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) commanders in the city told Reuters.

CTS Major General Maan al-Saadi said it could take four to five days of fighting to capture the insurgents’ redoubt by the Tigris River, defended by about 200 fighters,

“The advance continues to Midan neighborhood,” he said. “Controlling it means we have reached the Tigris River.”

The insurgent position is several hundred meters wide and tens of thousands of civilians are trapped there in harrowing conditions, with little food, water, medicine and no access to health services, according to those who managed to flee.

Those who escaped on Friday streamed through alleyways near the Grand al-Nuri Mosque, which Islamic State fighters blew up a week ago.

Plumes of smoke billowed over the riverside districts amid artillery blasts and burst of gunfire. Western troops from the U.S.-led coalition were helping adjust artillery fire with air surveillance, he said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Hailer al-Abadi declared the end of Islamic States’ caliphate — which he called “a state of falsehoood”‘ — on Thursday after CTS captured the ground of the ruined 850-year-old mosque.

It was from the mosque’s pulpit that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his caliphate over parts of Syria and Iraq almost three years ago to the day.

The insurgents chose to blow it up rather than see their black flag taken down from its al-Hadba, or Hunchback, minaret where it had been flying since June 2014.

GRINDING WARFARE

The symbolic victory of the Iraqi forces was won after more than eight months of grinding urban warfare which displaced 900,000 people, about half the city’s pre-war population, and killed thousands of civilians, according to aid organizations.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the offensive, which army and federal police units are also taking part in, attacking from different directions.

The fall of Mosul would in effect mark the end of the Iraqi half of the IS caliphate, although the group still controls territory west and south of the city, ruling over hundreds of thousands of people. Its stronghold in Syria, Raqqa, is also under siege..

The group continues to occupy an area as big as Belgium across Iraq and Syria, according to IHS Markit, an analytics firm.

Al-Baghdadi’s speech from the Grand al-Nuri Mosque on July 4, 2014, was the first and only time he has revealed himself to the world.

He has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is believed to be hiding in the border area between Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. and Iraqi military sources.

The group has moved its remaining command and control structures to Mayadin, in eastern Syria, U.S. intelligence sources said last week, without indicating if Baghdadi was also hiding in the same area.

The secretive Islamic State leader has frequently been

reported killed or wounded. Russia said on June 17 its forces might have killed him in an air strike in Syria. But Washington says it has no information to corroborate such reports and Iraqi officials have also been skeptical.

Graphic of Battle for Mosul http://tmsnrt.rs/2rEoDr4

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Khamenei’s representative says Islamic state’s Baghdadi ‘definitely dead’: IRNA

An Islamic State flag is seen in this picture

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran’s state news agency quoted a representative of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday as saying Islamic State’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was “definitely dead”.

“Terrorist Baghdadi is definitely dead,” IRNA quoted cleric Ali Shirazi, representative to the Quds Force, as saying, without elaborating. IRNA later updated the news item, omitting the quote on Baghdadi’s death.

The Quds Force is in charge of operations outside Iran’s borders by the country’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian Foreign Ministry officials were not available to comment on the report of Baghdadi’s death.

The secretive Islamic State leader has frequently been reported killed or wounded since he declared a caliphate to rule over all Muslims from a mosque in Mosul in 2014, after his fighters seized large areas of northern Iraq.

Russia said on June 17 its forces might have killed Baghdadi in an air strike in Syria. Washington said on Thursday it had no information to corroborate such reports. Iraqi officials have also been skeptical in recent weeks.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; editing by Andrew Roche)

U.S.-backed SDF sees big risk of clash with Turkey in northwest Syria

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces warned on Thursday of the prospect of fierce confrontation with the Turkish army in northwestern Syria if it attacks SDF areas, and said this would undermine the assault on Islamic State at Raqqa.

Naser Haj Mansour, a senior SDF official, told Reuters the SDF had taken a decision to confront Turkish forces “if they try to go beyond the known lines” in the areas near Aleppo where the sides exchanged fire on Wednesday.

“Certainly there is a big possibility of open and fierce confrontations in this area, particularly given that the SDF is equipped and prepared,” he said. “If it (the Turkish army)attacks we will defend, and if it attacks there will be clashes.”

Turkey has recently deployed reinforcements into the area, according to Turkey-backed rebel groups, prompting SDF concern that Ankara is planning to attack nearby areas that are under SDF control.

The SDF is an alliance of Kurdish and Arab groups spearheaded by the YPG militia which Turkey views as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey.

The Turkish military said on Wednesday it had fired artillery at YPG positions south of the town of Azaz in what it said was a response to the YPG’s targeting of Turkey-backed rebels. Mansour said the SDF had responded to Turkish shelling.

On Thursday, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmus, said it would retaliate against any cross-border gunfire from the YPG and not remain silent in the face of anti-Turkey activities by terrorist groups abroad.

Kurtulmus also reiterated Ankara’s opposition to the U.S. arming of YPG combatants and said U.S. officials would understand this was the “wrong path”.

Mansour said an attack on SDF-controlled areas would “do great harm” to the U.S.-backed Raqqa assault by drawing some SDF fighters away from front lines.

The SDF launched a long-anticipated assault on Raqqa city earlier this month. Mansour said SDF forces would soon completely besiege the city by closing the last remaining way out from the south. “There is a plan to impose a complete siege, but if this will take a day or two days, I can’t say,” he said.

Raqqa is bordered to the south by the River Euphrates.

He said that Islamic State fighters were focusing their efforts on defending certain key positions in the city, “meaning they are conducting fierce battles in some strategic positions”.

“This may be due to a shortage of numbers and ammunition,” he said. He also said the Islamic State was deploying fewer car bombs than in previous battles and this also indicated a shortage of supplies.

(Reporting by Tom Perry and Daren Butler; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Richard Balmforth)

Iraq declares end of caliphate after capture historic Mosul mosque

Smoke billows from the Islamic State militants positions after an artillery attack by Iraqi forces. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government troops on Thursday captured the mosque in Mosul from where Islamic State proclaimed its self-styled caliphate three years ago, the Iraqi military said.

Seizing the 850 year-old Grand al-Nuri Mosque hands a symbolic victory to the Iraqi forces who have been battling for more than eight month to recapture Mosul, the northern city that served as Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq.

“Their fictitious state has fallen,” an Iraqi military spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, told state TV.

The insurgents blew up the medieval mosque and its famed leaning minaret a week ago as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces started a push in its direction. Their black flag had been flying from al-Hadba (The Hunchback) minaret, since June 2014.

Iraqi authorities expect the battle to end in the coming days as Islamic State has been bottled up in a handful of neighborhoods of the Old City.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi “issued instructions to bring the battle to its conclusion,” his office said on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Iraqi forces seize more ground in Mosul from Islamic State, PM sees victory soon

A member of Iraqi Federal Police carries his weapon at the frontline in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces on Tuesday pushed towards the river side of Mosul’s Old City, their key target in the eight-month campaign to capture Islamic State’s de-facto capital, and Iraq’s prime minister predicted victory very soon.

Iraqi forces, battling up to 350 militants dug in among civilians in the Old City, said federal police had dislodged IS insurgents from the Ziwani mosque and were only a few days away from ousting militants completely from the Old City.

“The victory announcement will come in a very short time,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on his website on Monday evening.

“The operation is continuing to free the remaining parts of the Old City,” Lieutenant General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) told a Reuters correspondent near the frontline in the heart of the Old City.

Iraqi forces had about 600 meters (2,000 ft) of ground left to cover before reaching Mosul’s Corniche road along the western bank of the Tigris, federal police commander Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat told Iraqi State TV.

“In a few days our forces will reach Corniche and bring the battle to its conclusion,” said Jawdat.

The fall of the northern Iraqi city would mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” proclaimed by Islamic State, though the militant group remains in control of large areas of both Iraq and Syria.

In Syria, the Islamic State-held capital of Raqqa, is virtually encircled by a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition.

Federal police and elite CTS units in Mosul were battling with IS fighters in the Old City’s maze of narrow alleyways, along with the army and interior ministry units.

Islamic State has lost about half the Old City since the battle for the historic district started ten days ago. About one sq km (0.4 sq mile) remained under its control, according to Iraqi state TV.

The army’s 16th infantry division seized on Tuesday the al-Mashahda quarter, in the northwestern corner of the Old City, and federal police took al-Bayd and Ras al-Jadda, in the southwestern quarter, military statements said.

Up to 350 militants are estimated by the Iraqi military to be dug in the Old City among civilians in wrecked houses and crumbling infrastructure. They are trying to slow the advance of Iraqi forces by laying booby traps and using suicide bombers and snipers.

Those residents who have escaped say many of the civilians trapped behind Islamic State lines — put at 50,000 by the Iraqi military – are in a desperate situation with little food, water or medicines.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support in the eight-month-old offensive.

HUMAN SHIELDS

The Iraqi government once hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but fighting has dragged on as militants have reinforced positions in civilian areas, effectively using residents as human shields.

Hundreds of civilians who managed to escape as the forces advanced into the Old City gathered on the side of the road at the edge of western Mosul on Tuesday.

But hundreds of civilians have been killed in the past month as they tried to flee the Old City.

The militants last week destroyed the historic Grand al-Nuri Mosque and its leaning minaret from which their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria three years ago. The mosque’s grounds remain under the militants’ control.

Iraqi troops on Monday captured the al-Faruq quarter, facing the mosque, the military said.

Only a handful of districts remained to be cleared, al-Saadi said, standing atop a rooftop overlooking al-Faruq street which now marks the frontline, a few dozen meters (yards) from the old mosque.

Sporadic sniper fire could be heard, and an incoming rocket, as the troops used a drone to survey the insurgents’ defenses. The Iraqi forces started attacking the western side of Mosul in February, a month after taking the side located east of the Tigris.

About 850,000 people, more than a third of Mosul’s pre-war population, have fled, seeking refuge with relatives or in camps, according to aid groups.

Islamic State’s Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is assumed to be hiding on the Iraqi-Syrian border. There has been no confirmation of Russian reports over the past days that he has been killed.

The group has carried out sporadic suicide bombings in parts of Mosul using sleeper cells. It launched a wave of such attacks late on Sunday, trying to take control of a district west of the Old City, Hay al-Tanak, and the nearby Yarmuk quarter.

Security forces blocked their attempted fight-back, al-Saadi said.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Turkey returns fire on YPG in Syria, warplanes hit militants in Iraq

FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the Kurdish city of Afrin, northwest Syria March 18, 2015. REUTERS/Mahmoud Hebbo/File Photo

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish forces retaliated with an artillery barrage overnight and destroyed Kurdish YPG militia targets after the group’s fighters opened fire on Turkey-backed forces in northern Syria, the military said on Wednesday.

It said Turkish warplanes separately struck Kurdish militants in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing seven fighters from the PKK group which Ankara says is closely linked to the YPG.

The strikes came after Turkey’s defense minister warned that Ankara would retaliate against any threatening moves by the YPG and after reports that Turkey was reinforcing its military presence in northern Syria.

The United States supports the YPG in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, while NATO ally Turkey regards them as terrorists indistinguishable from militants from the outlawed PKK which is carrying out an insurgency in southeast Turkey.

Turkey’s army said YPG machine-gun fire on Tuesday evening targeted Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army elements in the Maranaz area south of the town of Azaz in northern Syria.

“Fire support vehicles in the region were used to retaliate in kind against the harassing fire and the identified targets were destroyed/neutralised,” the military statement said.

The boom of artillery fire could be heard overnight from the Turkish border town of Kilis, broadcaster Haberturk said. It was not clear whether there were casualties in the exchange of fire.

Ankara was angered by a U.S. decision in June to arm the YPG in the battle for Islamic State’s Raqqa stronghold. President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that nations which promised to get back weapons from the YPG once Islamic State were defeated were trying to trick Turkey.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday left open the possibility of longer-term assistance to the YPG, saying the U.S. may need to supply them weapons and equipment even after the capture of Raqqa.

Ankara considers the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is deemed a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The PKK has carried out an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and more than 40,000 people, most of them Kurds, have died in the fighting.

Turkish warplanes on Wednesday morning destroyed PKK shelters and gun positions during air strikes in the Avasin-Basyan area of northern Iraq, killing seven militants planning an attack on Turkish border outposts, an army statement said.

Faced with turmoil across its southern border, Turkey last year sent troops into Syria to support Free Syrian Army rebels fighting both Islamic State and Kurdish forces who control a large part of Syria’s northern border region.

Erdogan has said Turkey would not flinch from taking tougher action against the YPG in Syria if Turkey believed it needed to.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun, Tulay Karadeniz and Omer Berberoglu, Writing by Daren Butler and David Dolan,; Editing by Ed Osmond and Richard Balmforth)