Tag Archives: ISIS

Without school, children of Mosul feared lost to poverty and conflict

Falah, 11, sells vegetables and fruits in a market in eastern Mosul, Iraq April 20, 2017. REUTERS/ Muhammad Hamed

By Ahmed Aboulenein

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Ahmed Abdelsattar was 14 when Islamic State swept into Mosul and declared a caliphate in 2014. Fearing he would be indoctrinated and sent to fight by the militants, his parents took him out of school.

Three years later, he sells ice cream at a refugee camp for internally displaced Iraqis. His family have lost their home and his father is too old for the manual labor positions at the camp, which means he is his family’s sole breadwinner.

Coupled with a shortage of teachers, books and supplies, the 17-year-old sees no reason to go to the makeshift schools set up in the Khazar camp near Erbil.

“Going to school is now useless. I am helping my family,” he said. He adds that it is too late for him anyway. Had his education not been interrupted, Abdelsattar would be graduating in a few weeks.

Abdelsattar is one of tens of thousands of children orphaned or left homeless by the war on Islamic State and forced to work to support their families in Mosul, the militant’s last major city stronghold in Iraq.

Returning these children to school is a priority for Iraq to end the cycle of sectarian violence fueled in part by poverty and ignorance, the United Nations says.

“Investment in education is urgently needed, without which Iraq could lose an entire generation,” said Laila Ali, a spokeswoman for the UN’s children agency UNICEF.

“Children from different ethnicities and religions, in the same classroom, will promote a cohesive society and will get children to think differently.”

Even in the half of Mosul east of the Tigris River that has been retaken by Iraqi forces, where 320 of the 400 schools have reopened, Reuters interviewed dozens of children working as rubbish collectors, vegetable vendors or mechanics.

“I did not go to school because Islamic State came and they would teach children about fighting and send them to fight,” says 12-year-old Falah by his vegetable cart in Mosul.

Within earshot, fighting was still raging. Just across the river, government troops, artillery and aircraft were attacking Islamic State’s last stronghold in western Mosul.

Falah has four younger brothers. None of them have ever been to school.

ONE PLUS ONE EQUALS TWO

Huzayfa studied up to the fifth grade but stopped when Islamic State came. The militants taught math using bullets, rifles and bombs, said the 12-year-old, who sells scrap metal.

“They taught us ‘one bullet plus one bullet’ and how to fire weapons,” he said.

The local education department in Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, estimates 10 percent of children in east Mosul are still out of school. There has been no official count for almost four years, it said.

There are also no official statistics on the dropout rate, a spokesman for Iraq’s Education Ministry said, especially as many families have fled Mosul or Iraq altogether.

“We are counting on parent-teacher conferences and local officials to convince parents to send their kids back to school,” said Ibrahim al-Sabti.

Government funds normally allocated to education have been depleted by corruption and mismanagement, lawmakers and non-governmental organizations say, citing the results of investigations in 2014 and 2016.

Oil-rich Iraq historically had very high literacy rates and primary school enrolment was 100 percent in the 1980s.

Illiteracy became rampant after international sanctions were imposed due to the August 1990-1991 occupation of Kuwait. Economic hardship was made worse by the civil war that broke out after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

LOST FUTURE

Schools in east Mosul started reopening in January and so far around 350,000 students are back in class, compared to 183,229 in 2013, with much of the increase due to displaced people from west Mosul and surrounding villages.

UNICEF estimates around 1.2 million Iraqi children are not in school nationwide.

The Iraqi military expects to dislodge Islamic State from the rest of Mosul in May but the militants are mounting a strong resistance in the densely populated Old City.

Iraqi troops began their offensive in October backed by a U.S.-led international coalition providing air and ground support. The militants are fighting back using booby traps, suicide motorcycle attacks, sniper and mortar fire and sometimes shells filled with toxic gas.

For children like Ahmed Abdelsattar, whether or not the group is finally ousted from Mosul has little bearing on their fate.

If he is lucky, he will return to where his home used to be in western Mosul’s Al-Jadida district, an area where local officials and eyewitnesses have said as many as 240 people may have died in March when a building collapsed after a blast, burying families inside.

“The future is lost,” he said with an air of resignation.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Islamic State attack kills at least 32 in northeast Syria: monitor

BEIRUT (Reuters) – An Islamic State attack in an area held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria killed at least 32 people on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The attack on Rajm al-Salibi, the location of a checkpoint and refugee camp near the border with Iraq, led to fierce clashes, injuring dozens, the Britain-based war monitor said.

The SDF has been battling Islamic State since dawn in nearby areas of Hasaka province, which Kurdish forces largely control, it said.

An adviser to the SDF, Nasser Haj Mansour, confirmed that several civilians had died, including people fleeing Islamic State in Syria’s Deir al-Zor and in Iraq.

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, has seized large swathes of northern Syria from Islamic State in a campaign to drive the jihadist group out of Raqqa city, its base of operations in Syria.

This week, the SDF said it captured most of the strategic town of Tabqa, 40 km (25 miles) west of Raqqa along the Euphrates.

The SDF said fighting continued on Tuesday to capture the last few districts of Tabqa as well as an adjacent dam, Syria’s largest, and the last major obstacle as the militias prepare to launch an assault on Raqqa.

The Islamic State attack in Hasaka was targeted at the Asayish, a Kurdish internal security force that operates in northeast Syria, the Observatory said.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Ellen Francis; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

U.S.-backed forces push against IS in slowed Raqqa campaign

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter rests near destroyed airplane parts inside Tabqa military airport after taking control of it from Islamic State fighters, west of Raqqa city, Syria April 9, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed forces fighting Islamic State in Syria took several neighborhoods from the militant group in the town of Tabqa on Friday, they said in a statement, part of a campaign to oust Islamic State from its stronghold in Raqqa city.

The multi-phased campaign against the jihadists by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance made up of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighting groups, was launched in November but has slowed in recent weeks.

Pushing down from the north, the SDF is trying to take the Islamic State-held Tabqa area and its adjacent Euphrates dam, the largest in Syria, some 40 km (25 miles) upstream of Raqqa.

SDF forces surround Tabqa town, having cut it off in late March from a swathe of Islamic State territory which runs across Syria into Iraq.

On Friday the SDF said it had pushed up into the town and taken the southern neighborhoods of Nababila and Zahra, having taken Wahab neighborhood to their south on Thursday.

In recent weeks the SDF has also squeezed Islamic State’s pocket of territory around Raqqa, which the jihadist group has used as a base to plot attacks and manage much of its self-declared caliphate since seizing the city in 2014.

The Kurdish YPG militia is the strongest unit of the SDF and is taking part in the assault on Tabqa and Raqqa, but it is seen by Turkey as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency against Ankara.

On Tuesday the Turkish military conducted air strikes and cross-border shelling against YPG targets in Syria in what it said was retaliation for mortar attacks, prompting the U.S. State Department to voice concern. Sporadic clashes have continued along the border in recent days.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Iraqi paramilitaries shut more Islamic State escape routes to Syria border

A view shows the ancient city of Hatra, south of Mosul, Iraq April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi paramilitary units captured the northern province of Hatra on Thursday, cutting off several desert tracks used by Islamic State to move between Iraq and Syria, the military.

The operations in Hatra are carried out by Popular Mobilisation, a coalition of mostly Iranian-trained militias of Shi’ite volunteers formed in 2014 after Islamic State, a hardline Sunni group, overran a third of Iraq.

The militias on Wednesday dislodged Islamic State from the ancient ruins of Hatra, which suffered great destruction under the militants’ three-year rule, a military spokesman said.

Hatra, a city that flourished in the first century AD, lies 125 km (80 miles) south of Mosul, where the militants have been fighting off a U.S.-backed offensive since October.

The militants are now surrounded in the northwestern part of Mosul, including the Old City and its landmark Grand al-Nuri Mosque from where their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared in mid-2014 a caliphate also spanning parts of Syria.

Mosul is by far the largest city that had fallen to the militants in both countries. The density of the population is slowing the advance of Iraqi forces.

Hatra is also located west of Hawija, a region north of Baghdad still under Islamic State control.

Popular Mobilisation, which operates with the approval of Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government, said on Tuesday the Hatra campaign aims at cutting off Islamic State’s routes between Hawija, Mosul and eastern Syria.

Iraq’s border region with Syria is a historic hotbed of the Sunni insurgency against the rule of the Shi’ite majority community, empowered after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Mosul businesses start reconstruction without waiting for final Islamic State defeat

Workers rebulid a shop that was destroyed during fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic state fighters, eastern Mosul, Iraq, April 21, 2017. REUTERS/ Muhammad Hamed

By Mohammed Al-Ramahi

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Some businessmen in Mosul have begun rebuilding their shattered premises without waiting for financial support from the cash-strapped Iraqi government or for the final defeat of Islamic State in the city.

“If we wait for support, it could take a long time,” said Rafeh Ghanem, who owns an automotive spare-parts business in the eastern side of the city.

An airstrike in January reduced the two-storey building that houses his shop and dozens of others to a heap of rubble and twisted steel rods.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces took back the eastern side of Mosul in January, after 100 days of fighting. They are now fighting Islamic State in districts lying west of the Tigris river that bisects the city.

Ghanem said he and the 25 other businesses that rent space in the building agreed to contribute funds to help the landlord clear the debris and rebuild one of the two storeys.

Reconstruction started on April 11 and Ghanem hopes to return to business in three to four months.

He says waiting is of no use since the price of building materials is expected to rise as more reconstruction projects get under way, boosting demand for steel and cement.

The city, captured by IS in 2014, has suffered extensive damage as hundreds of houses and public buildings including the airport, the main railway station and the university have been destroyed.

Cement and steel prices have gone down steeply since the militants were defeated in eastern Mosul, as road connections have opened up with the rest of Iraq and Turkey, allowing supplies to resume.

A metric ton of cement used to sell for up to 350,000 Iraqi dinars ($300) after the militants took over nearly three years ago. It now costs 80,000 to 90,000, said an importer, Saif Ibrahim.

For Ghanem, there is no other choice but to rebuild the city which had a pre-war population of more than 2 million.

“We live in this city, we have to bring it back.” ($1 = 1,167.0000 Iraqi dinars)

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

U.S. says raised deep concerns with Turkey over air strikes

Fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) inspect the damage at their headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria April 25, 2017. REUTERS/ Rodi Said

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Tuesday expressed “deep concern” over Turkish air strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq and said they were not authorized by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

The raids in Iraq’s Sinjar region and northeast Syria killed at least 20 in a campaign against groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey for Kurdish autonomy.

Turkey is part of the U.S.-led military coalition fighting militants in Syria.

Ankara has strongly opposed Washington’s support for Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters who are part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have been closing in on the Islamic State bastion of Raqqa.

“We have expressed those concerns with the government of Turkey directly,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on a conference call.

“These air strikes were not approved by the coalition and led to the unfortunate loss of life of our partner forces in the fight against” Islamic State, he said.

Toner said while the United States recognized Turkey’s concerns with the PKK, the cross-border raids harmed the coalition’s efforts to fight Islamic State.

“We recognize their concerns about the PKK but these kinds of actions frankly harm the coalition’s efforts to go after ISIS and frankly harm our partners on the ground who are conducting that fight,” he added.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Paul Simao)

Iraqi forces using siege and stealth to evict Islamic State from Mosul

FILE PHOTO - Federal police members fire a rocket at Islamic State fighters' positions during a battle at Jada district in western Mosul. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

By Ahmed Aboulenein

MOSUL, Iraq, (Reuters) – Iraqi forces are using siege and stealth tactics to drive Islamic State militants out of Mosul’s Old City, an Iraqi general said, as his forces sought to minimize casualties among hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the cramped, historic neighborhood.

Explosions from two car bombs could be heard nearby as Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi spoke to Reuters at his command post on Monday, and a Reuters correspondent saw thick smoke rising from the blasts.

“Most houses in the Old City are very old and its streets and alleyways are very narrow,” said Assadi, a commander of Iraqi counter-terrorism units in Mosul. “So to avoid civilian losses we are using siege, but that does not mean we will not enter the Old City.”

Assadi said his units were refraining from engaging enemy forces in positions where the militants were holding civilians as human shields.

“Using very careful methods and considerations, we will liberate our people from Daesh,” he said, using an Arab acronym of Islamic State.

Government forces have surrounded the militants in the northwestern quarter, including the Old City, home to the Grand al-Nuri mosque, where their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a “caliphate” over parts of Iraq and Syria.

The ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim fighters are countering the offensive using booby traps, suicide motorcycle attacks, sniper and mortar fire and, occasionally, shells filled with toxic gas.

With food and water becoming scarcer in neighborhoods of Mosul still under IS control, up to half a million people are believed to be trapped there, including 400,000 in the Old City alone, according to United Nations estimate.

Lise Grande, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, told Reuters last week fighting in the Old City could lead to “a humanitarian catastrophe, perhaps the worst” in the three-year war to evict Islamic State from Iraq.

International aid organizations have estimated the civilian and military death toll at several thousand since the U.S.-backed offensive by government forces to retake Mosul began in October. More than 330,000 people have been displaced so far, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

“Humanitarian partners are preparing contingency plans for a number of different displacement scenarios in western Mosul, including for a possible mass outflow of 350,000-450,000 civilians, or a siege-like situation of the Old City,” the U.N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report on Tuesday.

Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, was captured by Islamic State in mid-2014, but government forces have retaken most of it, including the half that lies east of the Tigris River.

The Iraqi military gained additional ground on Tuesday, dislodging the militants from Hay al-Tanak, one of Mosul’s largest districts by area, on the western edge of the city.

Assadi said the battle should end “very soon, God willing” but declined to indicate a time frame. “This is a guerrilla war, not a conventional one, so we cannot estimate how long it will take; Daesh is fighting house to house.”

The Iraqi military estimate the number of Islamic State fighters who remain in Mosul at 200 to 300, mostly foreigners, compared with about 6,000 when the offensive started.

The militants “don’t let themselves get captured,” said Assadi. “They came to die and the majority of them are now in hell.”

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Larry King)

Hundreds more join Mosul exodus as Iraqi forces retake two more western districts

Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) fires towards Islamic State militants during a battle, west of Mosul,Iraq April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Maher Chmaytelli

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Pushing carts loaded with bags, babies and the elderly, hundreds of people fled Mosul on Saturday after Iraqi forces retook two more districts in the west of the city from Islamic State.

After walking for miles, families were taken by bus from a government checkpoint in the south of the city to camps housing more than 410,000 people displaced since the offensive to retake Mosul began in October.

“We left with no water, food or electricity,” said 63-year-old Abu Qahtan, the elder of a group of 41 people from five families. “We left with the clothes on our backs.”

Iraqi forces have taken much of Mosul from the militants who overran the city in June 2014. The military now controls the eastern districts and are making advances in the west.

Islamic State fighters, holding out in the Old City, are surrounded in the northwest and are using booby traps, sniper and mortar fire to defend themselves.

On Saturday, artillery and gun fire could be heard as families arrived from Hay al-Tanak district which they said was still half controlled by the militants.

Troops, backed by helicopters, were moving towards the al-Nuri mosque where, nearly three years ago, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced his self-declared caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria.

A Reuters reporter, standing within sight of the mosque, saw heavy smoke in that area after an air strike.

The U.S.-trained Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) has retaken the nearby al-Thaura and al-Saha districts, statements said.

CTS commander Major General Maan Saadi said his troops were linking up with Iraq’s Federal Police moving in on the Old City from a different position.

“We are completing the encirclement of the terrorists in the Old City,” he told Reuters.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians are still trapped in western Mosul, where Iraqi forces are making slow progress against Islamic State in what is a labyrinth of narrow streets.

As of April 20, some 503,000 people have been displaced from Mosul, of which 91,000 have returned, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said, citing government figures.

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, is the militants’ last urban stronghold in the country.

(Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Louise Ireland)

At Mosul waterfalls, Iraqis savor small joys of post-Islamic State life

Iraqi families and youths enjoy their Friday holiday at Shallalat district (Arabic for "waterfalls") in eastern Mosul, Iraq, April 21, 2017. REUTERS/ Muhammad Hamed

By Ahmed Aboulenein

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Crowds of Iraqis flocked to the waterfalls of eastern Mosul on Friday to savor simple freedoms like dancing or wearing colorful clothes that were strictly banned during almost three years of Islamic State rule.

Music blasted from tall speakers mounted on pickup trucks and mini-vans. Children splashed in the water in the city’s Shallalat (Waterfalls) district or rode bikes, horses and donkeys in the surrounding park.

It was like a mass picnic, with about 2,000 people out enjoying the sunshine, while fighting between U.S.-backed forces and Islamist militants raged only 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) away in the part of Mosul west of the Tigris River.

“We were besieged. We are happy now – families can now go out. Everyone would stay home before,” said Moaayad Ahmed, who was out with his wife and daughter at the park along a tributary to the Tigris north of the city.

“They would ask about negative, irrelevant things,” he added, referring to Islamic State, which took over Mosul in 2014 and was driven out of eastern Mosul in January.

The Sunni Muslim militants enforced a strict interpretation of Islam during their reign which included forcing men to grow long beards and women to cover their faces. Anyone breaking the rules would be severely punished.

That atmosphere was gone on Friday as women ululated with joy, all wearing bright colors rather than the black dress enforced by Islamic State fighters. Beer and whiskey bottles lay on the ground.

“Everything is great now. We could not do this under Islamic State. Back then, everything was forbidden. They would ask the men about their beard length and the women about face veils. Now everyone is happy,” said Mohammed Abu Qassem.

“We would come and they wouldn’t let us picnic. They would say cover your face. This is banned, this is haram, this is halal,” he said, using the words for forbidden and allowed.

Sporting a pink headscarf, his wife Umm Qassem chimed in: “They were harassing us – about men’s pants length, beards and face veils.”

“And whipping …,” her young son interjected.

“We are in heaven now. We were in hell under Islamic State,” she went on.

Even at the waterfall park, signs of war were not far away. There were burned out cars along the road leading into the area.

Iraqi soldiers manned checkpoints at a bridge leading to the park and patrolled the area to ensure the safety of day-trippers who snapped photos with selfie sticks, smoked hookahs and queued to buy shawarma and Moroccan chicken.

“We are very happy we got rid of Islamic State. For three years, we were destroyed, we could not wear stylish clothes,” said Muthana Irshad, who had grown his hair long and donned a gold chain dangling a dollar sign

“They destroyed youths and families. They killed two of my brothers,” he said, before going back to dance with his friends again.

(Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Paris gunman’s criminal past in focus as police hunt second suspect

French CRS police patrol the Champs Elysees Avenue the day after a policeman was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting incident in Paris, France, April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

By Emmanuel Jarry and John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) – The man who shot dead a French policeman in an Islamist militant attack had served time for armed assaults on law enforcement officers, police sources said on Friday, as authorities sought a second suspect flagged by Belgian security services.

The gunman, identified as Karim Cheurfi, opened fire on a police vehicle parked on the Champs Elysees in Paris late on Thursday, killing one officer and injuring two others before being shot dead.

The attack overshadowed the last day of campaigning for Sunday’s presidential election first round, bringing raw issues surrounding Islamist militancy to the fore.

Cheurfi, a French national who lived in the eastern Paris suburb of Chelles, had been convicted for previous armed assaults on law enforcement officers going back 16 years, the sources said, and was well known to authorities.

In addition to the assault rifle used in the attack, he had a pump action shotgun and knives in his car, the sources said. Three of his family members have been placed in detention, the French interior ministry announced on Friday.

While in detention, Cheurfi had also shot and wounded a prison officer after seizing his gun. Eventually freed after serving most of his sentence, he was arrested again this year on suspicion of preparing an attack on police – but released for lack of evidence.

A French interior ministry spokesman confirmed on Friday that a manhunt was underway for a second individual, based on information from Belgian security services.

“It’s too early to say how or whether he was connected to what happened on the Champs Elysees,” ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said. “There are a certain number of leads to check. We are not ruling anything out.”

A potential second suspect was identified as Youssouf El Osri in a document seen by Reuters. Belgian security officials had warned French counterparts before the attack that El Osri was a “very dangerous individual en route to France” aboard the Thalys high-speed train.

The warning was circulated more widely among French security services in the hour following the Champs Elysees attack.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Champs Elysees shooting hours after the attack, in a statement identifying the attacker as “Abu Yousif the Belgian.”

El Osri’s connection with either Cheurfi or the man named in Islamic State’s statement remained unclear on Friday.

Coming just days after police said they had foiled another planned Islamist attack, arresting two men in the southern city of Marseille, the Champs Elysees shooting dominated the final day of election campaigning.

Conservative candidate Francois Fillon and Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, both talked up their tough law-and-order stances while centrist front-runner Emmanuel Macron stressed he was also up to the challenge.

(Additional reporting by John Irish, Gerard Bon and Yves Clarisse; Writing by Laurence Frost; Editing by Andrew Callus)