Tag Archives: Islamic State

Tillerson arrives in Iraq after rebuke from Baghdad over paramilitaries

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson listens to a reporter's question alongside Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani during a media availability after their meeting, in Doha, Qatar October 22, 2017. REUTERS/Alex Brandon/Pool

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived on Monday in Iraq, hours after the government rebuked him for calling on it to send home Iranian-backed paramilitary units that helped defeat Islamic State and capture the Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk.

Iraq is one of the few countries allied closely to both the United States and Iran, and Tillerson’s effort to drive a wedge between Baghdad and Tehran appeared to have backfired, drawing a sharp statement from Prime Minister Haidar Abadi’s office.

Tillerson visited Iraq a day after a rare joint meeting with Abadi and Saudi Arabia’s king Salman in the kingdom’s capital Riyadh.

After that meeting he called on Iraq to halt the work of the Tehran-backed paramilitary units, which have operated alongside government troops in battles against Islamic State and, since last week, in a lightning advance that seized the oil city of Kirkuk from Kurdish security forces.

Iraqi forces are deploying tanks and artillery just south of a Kurdish-operated oil pipeline that crosses into Turkey, a Kurdish security official said, the latest in a series of Iranian-backed operations against the Kurds.

“Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against Daesh and ISIS is coming to a close, those militias need to go home,” Tillerson said on Sunday in Saudi Arabia.

Abadi’s office responded sharply.

“No party has the right to interfere in Iraqi matters,” a statement from his office read. It did not cite the prime minister himself but a “source” close to him. It referred to the mainly Shi’ite paramilitaries, known as “Popular Mobilization”, as “patriots”.

 

SAME SIDE

The international battle against Islamic State fighters in northern Iraq since 2014 saw the United States and Iran effectively fighting on the same side, with both supporting the Iraqi government against the militants.

Washington has 5,000 troops in Iraq, and provided air support, training and weapons to Iraqi government forces, even as Iran armed, trained and advised Shi’ite paramilitaries which often fought alongside the army.

The latest twist in the Iraq conflict, pitting the central government against the Kurds, is trickier for U.S. policymakers. Washington still supports the central government but has also been allied to the Kurds for decades.

Iran is the pre-eminent Shi’ite power in the Middle East. Shi’ites, including Abadi, are the majority in Iraq which also has large Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities.

Iran exhibited its sway over Baghdad’s policies during tensions over a referendum last month in which the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region voted to secede from Iraq against Baghdad’s wishes, Kurdish officials say.

Baghdad responded to the vote by seizing the oil city of Kirkuk, which the Kurds see as the heart of any future homeland.

Major-General Qassem Soleimani, commander of foreign operations for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, repeatedly warned Kurdish leaders to withdraw from Kirkuk or face an onslaught by Iraqi forces and allied Iranian-backed fighters, Kurdish officials briefed on the meetings said.

Iraq’s Sunni neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, share Washington’s concerns over Iran’s influence in Iraq.

 

IRAN DISMISSES TILLERSON REMARKS

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed Tillerson’s remarks. The paramilitaries could not go home because “they are at home” already, he was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA.

Abadi has asserted his authority with the defeat of Islamic State in Mosul and the Iraqi army’s sweep through Kirkuk and other areas which were held by the Kurds.

The buildup at the Kurdish oil export pipeline is taking place northwest of Mosul, an official from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) security council said.

The loss of Kirkuk dealt a major blow to the Kurds, who had been steadily building an autonomous region in northern Iraq since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, who oppressed them for decades.

“We are concerned about continued military build-up of Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces towards the Kurdistan Region,” said the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) in a statement.

Elections for Iraq’s Kurdistan region’s presidency and parliament set for Nov. 1 will be delayed because political parties failed to present candidates, the head of the electoral commission Hendrean Mohammed told Reuters.

Parties have been unable to focus on the elections because

of turmoil that followed the referendum, a Kurdish lawmaker said on condition of anonymity.

 

(additional reporting by Jon Landay; writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Peter Graff)

 

As battle rages, devastated Philippine city starts its long cleanup

As battle rages, devastated Philippine city starts its long cleanup

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – War might still be raging in the ruins of the Philippine city of Marawi, but the cleanup has already began.

Under the guard of dozens of police and soldiers, about 100 of the 200,000 residents driven from their homes during 150 days of fighting have returned to start what will be a massive operation to clear the city of the debris of war.

Army trucks crawled through the deserted streets to take displaced people to safe areas of Marawi, where echoes of gunfire and explosions could still be heard as troops sought to finish off the remaining Maute group militants hemmed into a shrinking battle zone.

They swept away trash, rocks and belongings scattered on streets, among them toys of children who fled when the pro-Islamic State rebels ran amok on May 23, setting buildings ablaze and ransacking churches and schools.

Spray painted on the shutter of one abandoned building reads “Maute ISIS”, a term used for the militant alliance.

“This is very important for the normalization of Marawi because we are responding to the call for them to return back, so we need to prepare,” said Lieutenant Colonel Rosendo Abad of a joint task force.

Defense officials say it could take until January before rebuilding can start, with the heart of the city littered with unexploded bombs and booby traps and buildings on the brink of collapse after months of government air strikes.

Military operations have cost 5 billion pesos ($97 million) and the government estimates it could be 10 times that much to rebuild Marawi.

The government on Tuesday said 20-year “patriotic bonds” would be sold to generate 30 billion pesos.

Australia, the United States, Singapore, Russia, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are among the countries and organizations that have offered to help.

But already close to the front lines of the effort is China, which has donated 47 heavy-duty industrial vehicles, among them excavators, bulldozers, tractors, cement mixers and dump trucks.

Those vehicles are on standby at the port in nearby Iligan City, waiting for the guns to finally go silent before starting the task of restoring the country’s only designated Islamic City.

Omarshariff Yassin, an engineer in charge of equipment at the Department of Public Works and Highways, said there was enough skilled manpower, but a lack of machinery.

“Before the Chinese equipment arrived, we have 15 equipment in use. We have 17 units on standby,” he said.

“The more, the better. What’s happening is we lack equipment so we borrow from other regions. But we really need more.”

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Boston man found guilty in Islamic State beheading plot

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) – A Boston-area man was found guilty on Wednesday of conspiracy to commit acts of international terrorism and supporting Islamic State for a 2015 plot to attack police and behead a conservative blogger who organized a “Draw Mohammed” contest.

David Wright, 28, was found guilty of five criminal charges for planning with his uncle and a friend to behead blogger Pamela Geller. The plot fell apart after Wright’s uncle said he wanted to kill law enforcement officers instead and was shot dead by police.

During a 3-1/2-week trial, federal prosecutors presented evidence that Wright, who lived in the Boston suburb of Everett, had read and viewed copious amounts of online propaganda from the militant group and vowed to join its cause. They also showed evidence suggesting he had been in touch with members of the Islamic State in Syria.

Wright, his uncle Usamaah Abdullah Rahim and friend Nicholas Rovinski had focused their attention on Pamela Geller, the blogger who organized the “Draw Mohammed” contest in Garland, Texas, which she described as an exercise of free speech, though many Muslims consider cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed offensive.

Two gunman attacked that contest and were shot dead, leading Wright and his counterparts to hatch a plan to behead Geller in New York.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Philippine president declares Marawi liberated as battle goes on

FILE PHOTO: Government soldiers stand guard in front of damaged building and houses in Sultan Omar Dianalan boulevard at Mapandi district in Marawi city, southern Philippines September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Neil Jerome Morales and Manolo Serapio Jr

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared the southern city of Marawi liberated from pro-Islamic State militants on Tuesday, although the military said 20-30 rebels were holding about 20 hostages and still fighting it out.

In a rousing address to soldiers a day after the killing of two commanders of the rebel alliance, Duterte said he would never again allow militants to stockpile so many weapons, but Marawi was now free and it was time to heal wounds and rebuild.

“I hereby declare Marawi City liberated from terrorist influence, that marks the beginning of rehabilitation,” Duterte, wearing a camouflage cap and dark sunglasses, said during his unannounced visit.

Isnilon Hapilon, who was wanted by the United States and was Islamic State’s Southeast Asian “emir”, and Omarkhayam Maute, one of two brothers central to the alliance, were killed in a targeted operation on Monday. Their bodies were recovered and identified, authorities said.

The 148-day occupation marked the Roman Catholic-majority Philippines’ biggest security crisis in years and triggered concerns that with its mountains, jungles and porous borders, the island of Mindanao could become a magnet for Islamic State fighters driven out of Iraq and Syria.

More than 1,000 people, mostly rebels, were killed in the battle and the heart of the city of 200,000 has been leveled by air strikes.

Duterte said the liberation was not a cause for celebration and later apologized to the people of Marawi for the destruction.

“We had to do it,” he said. “There was no alternative.”

Armed forces chief Eduardo Ano said the remaining gunmen were now a “law enforcement matter”, while military spokesman Restituto Padilla described them as “stragglers”.

“There is no way that they can get out anymore, there is no way for anyone to get in,” Padilla told news channel ANC.

NOT A FIGHTER, NOT A PROBLEM

Padilla said the military believed Malaysian operative Mahmud Ahmad was in Marawi, but it could not be certain. He said Mahmud was no threat.

“Dr. Mahmud is an academic, he’s not a fighter,” Padilla said. “We don’t feel he is a problem.”

But some security experts say otherwise and believe Mahmud, 39, a recruiter and fundraiser who trained at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, could replace Hapilon as Islamic State’s point-man in Southeast Asia.

Another leader, Abdullah Maute, has yet to be accounted for. Intelligence indicated he died in an August air strike, though no body was found.

Defence officials say the core leadership was key to recruiting young fighters and arranging for extremists from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and beyond to join the push to carve out an East Asian “Wilaya”, or Islamic State province.

Hapilon had teamed up with the moneyed Maute clan in their stronghold of Lanao del Sur, one of the Philippines’ poorest provinces, and brought with him fighters from his radical faction of Abu Sayyaf, a group better known for banditry.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who estimated Marawi operations to have cost 5 billion pesos ($97.5 million), said reconstruction could start in January.

“There are still stragglers and the structures are still unsafe because of unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices,” he said on radio.

The Marawi occupation set alarm bells ringing in the Philippines, with militants surprising security forces with their combat prowess, the volume of arms and ammunition they stockpiled and their ability to withstand intensive air strikes aided by U.S. surveillance drones and technical support.

($1 = 51 pesos)

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S.-backed campaign against IS in eastern Syria to speed up: SDF militia

A view of a part of downtown Raqqa after it was liberated from the Islamic State militants, in Raqqa, Syria October 17, 2017. Picture taken October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S.-backed campaign against Islamic State in eastern Syria will accelerate now the jihadist group has been defeated in its former capital Raqqa, a spokesman for U.S.-allied Syrian militias said on Wednesday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which announced the defeat at Raqqa on Tuesday, will redeploy fighters from the city to frontlines with Islamic State in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, Talal Silo told Reuters by telephone.

The SDF is fighting Islamic State in Deir al-Zor in areas to the east of the Euphrates River. The Syrian government, supported by the Russian air force and Iran-backed militias, is waging a separate campaign against the jihadists in the province, focused mostly in areas to the west of the river.

Islamic State has lost ground rapidly there in recent weeks. The Syrian army and its allies are battling for control of the last remaining IS-held areas of Deir al-Zor city, and have also captured the town of al-Mayadin from IS.

Silo said the Raqqa victory would have a “positive impact” on the SDF’s campaign in Deir al-Zor because it meant fighters could be redeployed as internal security forces take control of Raqqa.

“Most of the military forces will head towards these areas to continue the participation in the campaign with the Deir al-Zor Military Council,” he said. The Council is a militia leading the SDF’s campaign in the province.

“This is all to the benefit of the campaign and accelerating the end of this campaign,” he said.

(Reporting by Tom Perry; editing by John Stonestreet)

Trial of Islamic State beheading plot in Massachusetts nears end

BOSTON (Reuters) – The case of a Massachusetts man who prosecutors say plotted to attack police and behead a conservative blogger on behalf of Islamic State nears a close on Tuesday as lawyers make closing arguments.

Federal prosecutors contend that David Wright, 28, along with his uncle and a friend had plotted to kill the woman who organized the 2015 “Draw Mohammed” contest in Garland, Texas, a plan they said unraveled when the uncle lost patience and said he wanted to kill police officers instead.

Wright, who took the witness stand in his own defense last week, testified that his discussions with the other two men about Islamic state were “role playing” that served as a distraction when he was broke, weighed 530 pounds (240 kg), and was living in his family’s home in the Boston suburb of Everett and spending his days playing video games.

“I created a fantasy world,” Wright testified, denying that there had been a plan to kill Pamela Geller, the organizer of the “Draw Mohammed” contest. “I’m beginning to realize how horrible some of the stuff I said was. It makes me really sick.”

Prosecutors said they had been monitoring communications between Wright, his uncle, Usamaah Abdullah Rahim, and friend Nicholas Rovinski, and heard them plot the attack. They also overheard Rahim when he told the pair he planned to kill law enforcement officers, a message that prompted police to try to question him in a supermarket parking lot.

Rahim pulled a knife on the officers, who shot him dead.

If Wright is found guilty of the charge of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, he could face a life sentence. He is also charged with conspiracy to support a terrorist organization and obstruction of justice, allegedly for telling Rahim to destroy his phone before attacking police, as well as for attempting to destroy all information on his computer.

Geller had organized the Texas event in May 2015 highlighting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, images that many Muslims consider blasphemous. Two gunmen had attacked that event and were shot dead by police.

Geller contends her event was intended as a demonstration of the free-speech rights protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Rovinski in 2016 pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. Rahim’s family have denied he had shown any signs of radicalization.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Islamic State defeated in its Syrian capital Raqqa

Islamic State defeated in its Syrian capital Raqqa

By John Davison and Rodi Said

RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) – U.S.-backed militias said they had defeated Islamic State in its former capital Raqqa on Tuesday, raising their flags over the jihadist group’s last footholds in the city after a four-month battle.

The fighting was over but the alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias was clearing the stadium of mines and any remaining militants, said Rojda Felat, commander of the Raqqa campaign for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

A formal declaration of victory in Raqqa will soon be made, once the city has been cleared of mines and any possible Islamic State sleeper cells, said Talal Silo, the SDF spokesman.

The fall of Raqqa, where Islamic State staged euphoric parades after its string of lightning victories in 2014, is a potent symbol of the jihadist movement’s collapsing fortunes.

Islamic State has lost most of its territory in Syria and Iraq this year, including its most prized possession, Mosul. In Syria, it has been forced back into a strip of the Euphrates valley and surrounding desert.

The SDF, backed by a U.S.-led international alliance, has been fighting since June to take the city Islamic State used to plan attacks abroad.

Another Reuters witness said militia fighters celebrated in the streets, chanting slogans from their vehicles.

The fighters and commanders clasped their arms round each other, smiling, in a battle-scarred landscape of rubble and ruined buildings at a public square.

The flags in the stadium and others waved in the city streets were of the SDF, its strongest militia the Kurdish YPG, and the YPG’s female counterpart, the YPJ.

Fighters hauled down the black flag of Islamic State, the last still flying over the city, from the National Hospital near the stadium.

“We do still know there are still IEDs and booby traps in and amongst the areas that ISIS once held, so the SDF will continue to clear deliberately through areas,” said Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition.

In a sign that the four-month battle for Raqqa had been in its last stages, Dillon said there were no coalition air strikes there on Monday.

TRAPPED BY FIGHTING

Fatima Hussein, a 58-year-old woman, sitting on a pavement smoking a cigarette said she had emerged from her house after being trapped for months by the fighting. Islamic State had killed her son for helping civilians leave the city, she said.

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, took the National Hospital in fierce fighting overnight and early on Tuesday, said spokesman Mostafa Bali in a statement.

“During these clashes, the National Hospital was liberated and cleared from the Daesh mercenaries, and 22 of these foreign mercenaries were killed there,” said Bali, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

An SDF field commander who gave his name as Ager Ozalp said three militiamen had been killed on Monday by mines that have become an Islamic State trademark in its urban battles.

Another field commander, who gave his name as Abjal al-Syriani, said SDF fighters had found burned weapons and documents in the stadium.

The stadium and hospital became the last major positions held by Islamic State after the departure of some of its fighters on Sunday, leaving only foreign jihadists to mount a last stand.

The SDF has been supported by a U.S.-led international coalition with air strikes and special forces on the ground since it started the battle for Raqqa city in early June.

The final SDF assault began on Sunday after a group of Syrian jihadists quit the city under a deal with tribal elders, leaving only a hardcore of up to 300 fighters to defend the last positions.

PASSPORTS AND MONEY

Raqqa was the first big city Islamic State captured in early 2014, before its rapid series of victories in Iraq and Syria brought millions of people under the rule of its self-declared caliphate, which passed laws and issued passports and money.

It used the city as a planning and operations centre for its warfare in the Middle East and its string of attacks overseas, and for a time imprisoned Western hostages there before killing them in slickly produced films distributed online.

The SDF advance since Sunday also brought it control over a central city roundabout, where Islamic State once displayed the severed heads of its enemies, and which became one of its last lines of defence as the battle progressed.

The offensive has pushed Islamic State from most of northern Syria, while a rival offensive by the Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi’ite militias, has driven the jihadists from the central desert.

On Tuesday, a military media unit run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said the Syrian army on whose side Hezbollah fights had pushed into the last Islamic State districts in Deir al-Zor.

The only populated areas still controlled by the jihadist group in Syria are the towns and villages downstream of Deir al-Zor along the Euphrates valley. They are areas that for the past three years Islamic State ran from Raqqa.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Francis and Dahlia Nehme in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Islamic State faces imminent Raqqa defeat, Syrian YPG says

By John Davison and Tom Perry

AIN ISSA, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State is on the verge of defeat in Raqqa, once its de facto Syrian capital, and the city may finally be cleared of the jihadists on Saturday or Sunday, the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia told Reuters.

A local official said tribal elders were seeking to broker a deal where remaining Islamic State fighters, including foreigners, would leave the city, taking civilians with them as human shields.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by air strikes and special forces from a U.S.-led international coalition, have been battling since June to oust Islamic State from Raqqa, a base that it had used to plan attacks against the West.

The retaking of Raqqa will be a major milestone in efforts to roll back the theocratic “caliphate” that Islamic State declared in Syria and Iraq, where earlier this year it was driven from the city of Mosul.

“The battles are continuing in Raqqa city,” YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud, whose group dominates the SDF, told Reuters by telephone. “Daesh (Islamic State) is on the verge of being finished. Today or tomorrow, the city may be liberated.”

The U.S.-led coalition said a convoy was set to depart Raqqa on Saturday under an arrangement brokered by local officials.

Its statement said the coalition was not involved in the discussions, and described the arrangement as “a civilian evacuation”.

Its spokesman, Col. Ryan Dillon, said the coalition’s stance was that IS fighters must surrender unconditionally, but added that he could not comment on who would be in the convoy. He said difficult fighting was expected in the days ahead.

“SAVING INNOCENT LIVES”

The coalition statement said the arrangement brokered by the Raqqa Civil Council and local Arab tribal elders on Oct. 12 was “designed to minimize civilian casualties and purportedly excludes foreign Daesh terrorists”.

The coalition believed the arrangement would “save innocent lives and allow Syrian Democratic Forces and the coalition to focus on defeating Daesh terrorists in Raqqa with less risk of civilian casualties”, it said.

Omar Alloush, a member of the Raqqa Civil Council, set up to run Raqqa after it is freed from IS, said the 100 Islamic State fighters who had already surrendered had been convinced to do so during talks with the tribal elders.

“Others didn’t surrender, so now they’re looking for a plan where they (IS) leave and take civilian hostages with them to another place far from the city, and then release the civilians,” he told Reuters in an interview in Ain Issa, north of Raqqa. The IS fighters would go to remaining territory held by the group in Syria, he said.

The deal could happen as soon as Saturday, he said.

A tribal leader said he expected the evacuation to take place on Saturday or Sunday.

BUSES ARRIVE

An activist group that reports on Raqqa, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, said on its Facebook page that dozens of buses had entered Raqqa city overnight from the countryside to the north.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that reports on the war, said Syrian Islamic State fighters and their families had already left the city, and buses had arrived to evacuate remaining foreign fighters and their families.

The Syrian army, which is supported by Iran-backed militias and the Russian air force, declared another significant victory over Islamic State on Saturday, saying it had captured the town of al-Mayadin in Deir al-Zor province.

The eastern province is Islamic State’s last major foothold in Syria, and it is under attack there from the SDF on one side and Syrian government forces supported by Iran-backed militias and Russian air strikes on the other.

Islamic State fighters had previously agreed to an evacuation last August, from an area on the Syrian-Lebanese border.

But as their convoy moved towards Islamic State-held territory in eastern Syria, coalition planes blocked its route by cratering roads, destroying bridges and attacking nearby Islamic State vehicles.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Hundreds of suspected Islamic State militants surrender in Iraq: source

Kurdish Peshmerga forces detain men suspected of being Islamic State militants southwest of Kirkuk, Iraq October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Several hundred suspected Islamic State fighters surrendered last week to Kurdish authorities after the militant group lost its last stronghold in northern Iraq, a security official said on Tuesday.

The suspects were part of a group of men who fled toward Kurdish-held lines when Iraqi forces captured the Islamic State base in Hawija, the Kurdish official told Reuters, asking not to be identified.

The report of militants fleeing, rather than fighting to the finish as in previous battles, suggested their morale may be fading, said Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based expert on Islamic State affairs.

“They no longer seem to believe in the cause,” Hashimi told Reuters.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio recording two weeks ago that indicated he was alive, after several reports he had been killed. He urged his followers to keep up the fight despite setbacks in Iraq and Syria.

“Approximately 1,000 men surrendered over the last week. Not all, however, are terrorists,” said the security official in Erbil, the northern Iraqi base of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

They handed themselves in to Peshmerga forces in the Kurdish-held oil city of Kirkuk, east of Hawija, he said. “It’s fair to say hundreds probably are ISIS (Islamic State) members, but that will be clear after the debriefs,” he said.

The town of Hawija and surrounding areas fell on Oct. 5 in an offensive by U.S.-backed Iraqi government troops and Iranian-trained and armed Shi’ite paramilitary groups known as Popular Mobilisation.

Islamic State’s last territory in Iraq is now a stretch along the western border with Syria, including the border town of al-Qaim.

The militants also hold areas on the Syrian side of the border, but they are retreating there in the face of two sets of hostile forces – a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition and Syrian government troops with foreign Shi’ite militias backed by Iran and Russia.

Islamic State’s cross-border “caliphate” effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces captured Mosul, the group’s de facto capital in Iraq, in a nine-month battle.

(Editing by Catherine Evans and Andrew Heavens)

Russia accuses U.S. of pretending to fight Islamic State in Syria, Iraq

Russia accuses U.S. of pretending to fight Islamic State in Syria, Iraq

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia accused the United States on Tuesday of pretending to fight Islamic State and of deliberately reducing its air strikes in Iraq to allow the group’s militants to stream into Syria to slow the Russian-backed advance of the Syrian army.

In the latest sign of rising tensions between Moscow and Washington, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the U.S.-led coalition had sharply reduced its air strikes in Iraq in September when Syrian forces, backed by Russian air power, had started to retake Deir al-Zor Province.

“Everyone sees that the U.S.-led coalition is pretending to fight Islamic State, above all in Iraq, but continuing to allegedly fight Islamic State in Syria actively for some reason,” said Major-General Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for Russia’s defense ministry.

The result, he said, had been that militants had moved in large numbers from Iraqi border areas to Deir al-Zor where they were trying to dig in on the left bank of the River Euphrates.

“The actions of the Pentagon and the coalition demand an explanation. Is their change of tack a desire to complicate as much as they can the Syrian army’s operation, backed by the Russian air force, to take back Syrian territory to the east of the Euphrates?,” asked Konashenkov.

“Or is it an artful move to drive Islamic State terrorists out of Iraq by forcing them into Syria and into the path of the Russian air force’s pinpoint bombing?”

He said Syrian troops were in the midst of trying to push Islamic State out of the city of al-Mayadin, southeast of Deir al-Zor, but that IS tried daily to reinforce its ranks there with “foreign mercenaries” pouring in from Iraq.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Dmitry Solovyov)