Tag Archives: Middle East

Babies starve as war grinds on in Mosul

Patients Iraqi children lie at a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres in Qayyara, Iraq April 6, 2017. Picture taken April 6, 2016. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Isabel Coles

QAYYARA, Iraq (Reuters) – The babies cry with hunger but are so severely malnourished that doctors treating them at a hospital in Iraq would make their condition worse if they fed them enough to stop the pangs.

Many of the starving infants are from Mosul, where war between Islamic State militants and Iraqi forces is taking a heavy toll on several hundred thousand civilians trapped inside the city.

A new, specialist ward was opened recently to deal with the growing number of children from Mosul showing signs of malnutrition as the conflict grinds on -– most of them less than six-months-old.

That means they were born around the time Iraqi forces severed Islamic State’s last major supply route from Mosul to Syria, besieging the militants inside the city, but also creating acute shortages of food.

“Normally nutritional crises are much more common in Africa and not in this kind of country,” said pediatrician Rosanna Meneghetti at the hospital, which is run by aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Qayyara, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Mosul. “We did not anticipate this”.

So far, the number of cases recorded is below the level considered critical but it nonetheless highlights the hardship faced by civilians who are effectively being held hostage by Islamic State.

Iraqi forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition have retaken most of the city but are struggling to dislodge the militants from several districts in the west, including the Old City.

Residents who have managed to escape say there is almost nothing to eat but flour mixed with water and boiled wheat grain.

What little food remains is too expensive for most residents to afford, or kept for Islamic State members and their supporters.

FORMULA MILK SHORTAGE

In the ward, a team of doctors monitors the babies’ progress in grams, feeding them a special peanut-based paste that will gradually accustom them to eating and increase their weight.

On one bed lies a six-month-old boy weighing 2.4 kg – less than half the median weight for an infant of that age.

The diminutive patients are also treated for other diseases associated with malnutrition, which weakens the immune system, making them even more vulnerable.

“It’s a new thing in Iraq,” said MSF project coordinator Isabelle Legall. “Most of the (Iraqi) doctors have never seen it (malnutrition)”.

Part of the problem, Legall said, is a lack of tradition of breast-feeding among Iraqi mothers, who usually raise their babies on formula milk, which is now almost impossible to come by in Mosul.

Even if they want to breastfeed, many mothers find it difficult due to the physical and emotional strain of living in a warzone: “The mother is very stressed and can’t find much food herself so cannot produce so much milk,” Meneghetti said.

One of the mothers from Mosul told the doctors she had no option but to feed her baby sugar dissolved in water, yogurt, or a mixture of flour and water.

“All of this is because of Daesh (Islamic State),” said another mother, keeping vigil over her emaciated baby.

Some of the babies come from villages that were retaken from Islamic State months ago, pointing to a wider trend of food insecurity.

TWO PATIENTS TO A BED

On average, more than half the patients seen in the emergency room of the MSF hospital are under the age of 15, partly because there is a shortage of pediatricians in the area, so many children are referred there.

Signs on the doors of the portacabins that house different wards prohibit visitors from entering with weapons.

The pediatric ward is so full there are two patients to each bed, and most of the women’s wing is taken up by children recovering from war injuries such as broken limbs, burns and shrapnel.

Many babies are brought to the hospital with respiratory problems such as bronchiolitis and pneumonia -– most of them from camps for the displaced, where cramped conditions enable viruses to spread.

Two children buried under blankets are suffering from birth asphyxia which occurs when a baby’s brain and other organs do not get enough oxygen before, during or immediately after being born.

Meneghetti said their mothers had probably needed a surgical birth but were unable to reach a hospital so delivered at home and experienced complications.

Lying listless on another bed is a boy who was wounded by shrapnel when his father picked up a box of explosives, intending to move the danger away. It blew up in his hands, wounding them both along with several other family members.

The expression on eight-year-old Dua Nawaf’s face is haunting.

The girl suffered burns to the head and hands in an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition that killed more than 100 people in the Mosul Jadida district last month, including both her parents.

“The family told me this morning that she (Dua) had some problems, especially in the night, so we are organising a mental health (assessment) for her,” Meneghetti said, reaching into her pocket for a balloon, which she inflated and gave to the girl.

Only the faintest hint of a smile appeared on Dua’s face.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.S.-backed forces push back Islamic State in Raqqa campaign – officials

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters shoot a drone they said belonged to Islamic State fighters on the bank of the Euphrates river, west of Raqqa city, Syria April 8, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed forces fighting Islamic State in Syria advanced to within 2 km (1 mile) of a key stronghold near the jihadist group’s de facto capital of Raqqa on Tuesday, and a counter-attack by the militants was repulsed, officials said.

The multi-phased campaign by the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by air strikes and military advisers from a U.S.-led coalition, ultimately aims to oust Islamic State from Raqqa. IS is also losing ground to U.S.-backed offensives in Iraq.

Officials have given different estimates for how long the campaign will take, and the assault on Raqqa itself appears to have been delayed, after one high-ranking military official said it would begin at the start of April.

Meanwhile the immediate goal is to capture the city of Tabqa, some 40 km (25 miles) west of Raqqa, and a nearby dam on the Euphrates river, an official for the Raqqa campaign said.

“For now, the target in front of our eyes is the city of Tabqa, and the dam,” Gharib Rasho, a media official for the campaign, told Reuters.

He said the SDF had taken control of around 60 percent of the dam, after capturing its northern entrance last month. The SDF is made up of Syrian Arab and Kurdish forces, including a large contingent from the powerful Kurdish YPG militia.

On Tuesday, SDF forces thwarted an Islamic State counter-attack near Tabqa and advanced to within 2 km of the city from the east, an SDF statement said.

Rasho said Islamic State had been trying to break a siege the SDF had imposed on Tabqa by attacking both from inside and from areas to its south which Islamic State still holds.

It is unclear how many Islamic State insurgents remain in Tabqa, but Rasho said they were “few”, based on the estimates of residents fleeing the city.

Thousands of residents have left in recent weeks, though tens of thousands are thought to remain in Tabqa.

The militants were using car bombs, mortar fire and suicide attackers – methods similar to those the jihadists have employed to defend their urban bastion of Mosul in Iraq, he said.

WEEKS OR MONTHS?

Launched in November, the SDF offensive aims initially to isolate Raqqa, Islamic State’s main urban base in Syria. Forces have advanced on the city from the north, east and west. Encircling and capturing Tabqa is a major part of the campaign as the city and dam comprise a strategic base for IS.

The focus on Tabqa does not rule out a simultaneous assault on Raqqa, campaign officials have said.

But that assault appears already to have been delayed as Islamic State resistance keeps forces busy around Tabqa.

The head of the YPG said last month the Raqqa assault would begin at the start of April, and would take no more than a few weeks. The commander of the Raqqa operation, also a YPG official, later said the offensive to capture the city would likely last several months.

U.S. coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said Washington’s partners on the ground would choose when to move in on Raqqa. “Ultimately we are isolating Raqqa and we’re going to, at a time of our partner’s choosing, move in and liberate that city from Daesh (Islamic State),” he said in a statement.

“This is an important task. It’s the equivalent in Syria of what’s being done to eliminate the enemy in Mosul.”

The parallel U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul has also taken longer than the Iraqi government predicted. Fighting there rages on between the armed forces and jihadists who are holed up in its Old City.

(Additional reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh in Baghdad and Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Michael Georgy/Mark Heinrich)

G7 powers seek broad support to isolate Syria’s Assad

(L-R) E.U. High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Italy's Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida pose for a family photo during a G7 for foreign ministers in Lucca, Italy April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Max Rossi

By Steve Scherer and Crispian Balmer

LUCCA, Italy (Reuters) – The Group of Seven major global powers were joined by Middle Eastern allies on Tuesday in a push to isolate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, hours before the U.S. secretary of state flies to Moscow, Assad’s top backer.

G7 foreign ministers sat down early on Tuesday with their counterparts from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Qatar – all of whom oppose Assad’s rule – to discuss the six-year-old civil war in Syria.

Pressure is building on Russian President Vladimir Putin to break ties with Assad, whose forces stand accused of launching a nerve gas attack on a rebel-held town last week that killed 87 people including 31 children.

On Monday, British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump, with both agreeing that there was “a window of opportunity” to persuade Russia to break ties with Assad, May’s office said.

Also on Monday, Britain and Canada said sanctions could be tightened on Moscow if it continued to back Assad. Later in the day, Trump spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the U.S. strike on a Syrian airbase last week – launched in retaliation for the alleged chemical weapons attack – and thanked her for her support.

“I think we have to show a united position and that in these negotiations we should do all we can to get Russia out of Assad’s corner, at least to the point that they are ready to participate in finding a political solution,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Monday.

“It is the right moment to talk about this, how the international community, with Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Europe, with the U.S., can drive forward a peace process for Syria and avoid further military escalation of the conflict.”

ADDITIONAL STRIKES

The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at the Syrian airbase near Homs on Friday and has said it is open to authorising additional strikes on Syria if its government uses chemical weapons again or deploys barrel bombs.

Assad’s allies have been robust in their response, however. A joint command centre made up of the forces of Russia, Iran and militias supporting the Syrian president said on Sunday that the U.S. strike crossed “red lines” and it would respond to any new aggression and increase its support for its ally.

The missile attack has increased expectations that Trump is ready to adopt a tougher stance with respect to Russia, and that he is ready to engage in world affairs instead of following the more isolationist stance he had previously taken.

Up until the chemical attack, Trump had said Washington would no longer act as the world’s guardian, especially if it was not in the interest of the United States.

But on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the site of a World War Two Nazi massacre in Italy and said Washington would never let such abuses go unchallenged.

“We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” Tillerson told reporters in Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

G7 efforts to build a united front against Assad comes just ahead of Tillerson’s trip to Moscow, the first for a high-ranking Trump administration official.

Russia has rejected accusations that Assad used chemical arms against his own people and has said it will not cut its ties with the Syrian president.

That means Tillerson, who has significant business experience with Russia as a former chief executive at Exxon Mobil but none in government, is about to face his toughest test yet in international diplomacy.

Besides Syria, the ministers will talk on Tuesday about Libya, where people smugglers operate with impunity and rival governments and militias vie for power.

Growing tensions with North Korea are also expected to be on the agenda, as the United States moves a navy strike group near the Korean peninsula amid concerns over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer and Hanna Rantala; Editing by Tom Heneghan, Crispian Balmer, Pravin Char)

‘Fight to the death’: snipers slow down Iraqi forces in Mosul’s Old City

A machine gun is seen on the floor next to a map drawn to show distances, on the wall of a sniper's nest in a building controlled by Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, April 6, 2017. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

By Ulf Laessing

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Taking aim through a telescope on his rifle, the police officer opened fire on an Islamic State sniper from the top floor of a tower in Mosul before quickly pulling back to take cover.

“Hit the sniper at the mosque,” his commanding officer told him as he aimed at his target in the Old City, one of the only districts still in the militants’ hands in their last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

Iraqi forces are trying to advance through the narrow, maze-like streets toward the symbolic al-Nuri mosque, where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in 2014.

But progress is much slower than in the early phases of the campaign, during which government forces took nearly three quarters of the city within five months.

The front line has hardly moved in the past three weeks, and the militants, along with roughly 400,000 residents, are trapped inside a ring of Iraq troops.

The soldiers expect the militants to fight to the death.

“Daesh fighters are resisting on a professional level because they have no escape routes left,” said a second policeman Hussein Qassem, using an Arabic acronym for the militants.

“They are resisting until they are killed. God willing we will not leave any Islamic State fighters. We will fight till the end.”

But advances are hard-won and fragile.

On Thursday, members of the Federal Police co-leading the advance said it was not safe to go to Mosul museum, which they had retaken three weeks ago.

“There is a lot of sniper activity over there behind that building,” a third police officer said, pointing toward an area behind the museum about 100 meters (yards) away.

Just days ago, they had taken journalists to the museum, and other areas closer to the front line.

“It’s now only about snipers and car bombs,” said an officer deployed from a Baghdad unit, as gunfire rang out and soldiers took cover among troop carriers and Humvees behind piles of sand. “They don’t have many snipers but they move around.”

They now face an extra danger.

Late on Thursday, the militants shot down a helicopter providing air support for the Federal Police, the first aircraft downed by Islamic State over Mosul since the start of the U.S.-backed offensive in October.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Exclusive: Situation in Syria constitutes international armed conflict – Red Cross

A Syrian national flag flutters as Qasioun mountain is seen in the background from Damascus, Syria April 7, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The situation in Syria “amounts to an international armed conflict” following U.S. missile strikes on a Syrian airbase, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Reuters on Friday.

The United States fired cruise missiles at a base from which President Donald Trump said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched on Tuesday, the first direct U.S. assault on the government of Bashar al-Assad in six years of civil war.

“Any military operation by a state on the territory of another without the consent of the other amounts to an international armed conflict,” ICRC spokeswoman Iolanda Jaquemet told Reuters in Geneva in response to a query.

“So according to available information – the U.S. attack on Syrian military infrastructure – the situation amounts to an international armed conflict.”

Previous air strikes on Syrian territory by a U.S.-led coalition have been against only the militant group Islamic State, which is also the enemy of the Syrian government.

Russia has carried out air strikes in tandem with its ally Syria since Sept. 2015, while Iranian militias are also fighting alongside the troops of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

ICRC officials were raising the U.S. attack with U.S. authorities as part of its ongoing confidential dialogue with parties to the conflict, Jaquemet said, declining to give details.

The ICRC, guardian of the Geneva Conventions setting down the rules of war, declared Syria an internal armed conflict – or civil war, in layman’s terms – in July 2012.

Under international humanitarian law, whether a conflict is internal or international, civilians must be spared and medical facilities protected. Warring parties must observe the key principles of precaution and proportionality and distinguish between combatants and civilians.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Andrew Roche)

U.S. lawmakers back Syria strikes, ask for broader strategy

Sen. Marco Rubio introduces Alex Acosta, President Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Labor, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S. March 22, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers from both parties on Friday backed President Donald Trump’s cruise missile strikes on Syria, while urging him to spell out a broader strategy for dealing with the conflict.

In the biggest foreign policy decision of his presidency thus far, Trump ordered the firing of cruise missiles at a Syrian air base that U.S. officials said was the launching point for a deadly chemical weapons attack against Syrian civilians earlier in the week.

“I am hopeful these strikes will convince the Assad regime that such actions should never be repeated,” said Senator Mark Warner, West Virginia Democrat, referring to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But Warner, who said he had been briefed on the strikes by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, urged Trump, a Republican, to lay out his plans for the multi-sided Syria conflict.

“President Trump has said repeatedly that his objective in Syria is to defeat (Islamic State militants). Last night’s strike was aimed at a different objective,” he said in a statement. ​”President Trump needs to articulate a coherent strategy for dealing with this complex conflict, because the consequences of a misstep are grave.”

Armed Services Committee chairman, Senator John McCain, who has long called for more aggressive action against Assad, said “the signal I think that was sent last night … was a very, very important one.”

But the Arizona Republican, speaking on MSNBC, said “despite all the enthusiasm we see this morning, if I might quote Churchill, it’s the end of the beginning not the beginning of the end.”

Trump, he said, should be “prepared to take other action,” including establishing safe zones within Syria and further arming and training of anti-Assad rebels.

Several lawmakers said Trump should seek Congress’ approval if he decides to take additional military action in Syria.

Senator Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said the strikes in Syria could send a message to other U.S. adversaries such as North Korea.

“I think the time has come for some of these countries to be worried about us a little bit, not us always worried about what they might do,” Rubio told Fox News.

(Reporting by David Alexander, Eric Walsh and Warren Strobel; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

U.S. fires missiles at Assad airbase; Russia denounces ‘aggression’

U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Porter conducts strike operations against Syria in the Mediterranean Sea. Ford Williams/Courtesy U.S. Navy

By Steve Holland, Andrew Osborn and Tom Perry

PALM BEACH, Fla./MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The United States fired cruise missiles on Friday at a Syrian airbase from which President Donald Trump said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched, the first direct U.S. assault on the government of Bashar al-Assad in six years of civil war.

In the biggest foreign policy decision of his presidency so far, Trump ordered the step his predecessor Barack Obama never took: directly targeting the Syrian military for its suspected role in a poison gas attack that killed at least 70 people

That catapulted Washington into confrontation with Russia, which has military advisers on the ground aiding its ally, President Assad. The Kremlin called the U.S. strikes illegal aggression.

“Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically,” Trump said as he announced the attack from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, where he was meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack,” he said of Tuesday’s chemical weapons strike, which Western countries blame on Assad’s forces. “No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”

U.S. officials said that the strike was a “one-off” intended to deter future chemical weapons attacks, and not part of a wider expansion of the U.S. role in the Syria war.

But the swift action is likely to be interpreted as a signal to Russia, as well as to other countries such as North Korea, China and Iran where Trump has faced foreign policy tests early in his presidency, that he is willing to use force.

“This clearly indicates the president is willing to take decisive action when called for,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters. “I would not in any way attempt to extrapolate that to a change in our policy or our posture relative to our military activities in Syria today. There has been no change in that status.”

Even without any promise of more U.S. action, the strikes could embolden Assad’s enemies, after months when Western powers appeared to grow increasingly resigned to him staying in power.

The Syrian government and Moscow have denied that Syrian forces were behind the gas attack, but Western countries have dismissed their explanation – that chemicals leaked from a rebel weapons depot after an air strike – as beyond credibility.

The Syrian army said the U.S. attack killed six people at its air base near the city of Homs. It called the strike “blatant aggression” and said it made the United States a “partner” of “terrorist groups” including Islamic State. Homs Governor Talal Barazi told Reuters the death toll was seven.

Syrian state television later said nine civilians were killed in villages near the base. There was no independent confirmation of civilian casualties.

RAISING STAKES IN THE SKIES

“President Putin views the U.S. strikes on Syria as aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of international law and on a made-up up pretext,” said a Kremlin statement. “This step by Washington will inflict major damage on U.S.-Russia ties.”

Russian television showed craters and rubble at the site of the airbase and said nine aircraft had been destroyed.

Moscow suspended communication with U.S. forces designed to stop planes colliding over Syria, one of the few direct forms of cooperation since the two rivals began flying combat missions in the same air space for the first time since the Cold War.

A Russian frigate carrying cruise missiles sailed through the Bosphorus Strait into the Mediterranean Sea, a sign of Moscow’s military presence in the area although there was no indication it was directly in response to U.S. action.

Western allies of the United States backed the decision to launch the strikes, with several countries describing it as a proportionate response to Assad’s suspected use of poison gas.

Several countries said they were notified in advance, but none had been asked to take part.

Iran, Assad’s other main ally, denounced it.

U.S. officials said they had taken pains to ensure Russian troops were not killed, warning Russian forces in advance and avoiding striking parts of the base where Russians were present.

Syrian officials and their allies also said they did not expect the attack to lead to an expansion of the conflict.

“No doubt this will leave great tension on the political level, but I do not expect a military escalation,” a senior, non-Syrian official in the alliance fighting in support of Assad who declined to be identified told Reuters. “Currently I do not believe that we are going toward a big war in the region.”

Washington has long backed rebels fighting against Assad in a multi-sided civil war under way since 2011 that has killed more than 400,000 people. The war has driven half of Syrians from their homes, creating the world’s worst refugee crisis.

The United States has been conducting air strikes against Islamic State militants who control territory in eastern and northern Syria, and a small number of U.S. troops are on the ground assisting anti-Islamic State militias. But until now, Washington had avoided direct confrontation with Assad.

Russia, meanwhile, joined the war on Assad’s behalf in 2015, action that decisively turned the momentum of the conflict in the Syrian government’s favor. Although they support opposing sides in the war between Assad and rebels, Washington and Moscow both say they share a single main enemy, Islamic State.

Trump’s decision to strike Syrian government forces is a particularly notable shift for a leader who in the past had repeatedly said he wanted better relations with Moscow, including to cooperate with Russia to fight Islamic State.

However, Trump had also criticized Obama for setting a “red line” threatening force against Assad if he used chemical weapons, only to pull back from ordering air strikes in 2013 when Assad agreed to give up his chemical arsenal.

Russian media long portrayed Trump as a figure who would promote closer relations with Moscow. At home, Trump’s opponents have accused him of being too supportive of Putin. Tillerson is due in Russia next week, and Russian officials said they hoped to patch over the differences over Syria.

For a graphic on attack location, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/MIDEAST-CRISIS-SYRIA/010031Y84ET/MIDEAST-CRISIS-SYRIA.jpg

For a graphic on cruise missiles, click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/MIDEAST-CRISIS-SYRIA/010040JP16Q/MIDEAST-CRISIS-SYRIA-MISSILES.jpg

LIMP CORPSES, CHOKING CHILDREN

Tuesday’s attack was the first time since 2013 that Syria has been accused of using sarin, a banned nerve agent it was meant to give up under the Russian-brokered, U.N.-enforced deal that persuaded Obama to call off air strikes four years ago.

Video and pictures of the aftermath were shown around the world this week, depicting limp bodies and children choking while rescue workers hosed them down to try to wash off the poison gas. In Russia, state television blamed rebels and did not show footage of victims.

Tomahawk missiles were fired from the USS Porter and USS Ross around 0040 GMT, striking multiple targets – including the airstrip, aircraft and fuel stations – on the Shayrat Air Base, which the Pentagon says was used to store chemical weapons.

Over the previous few months, many Western countries had been quietly backing away from long-standing demands that Assad leave power, accepting that rebels no longer had the power to remove him by force. But after the chemical weapons attack on Tuesday, several countries renewed calls for Assad to go.

Among them was Turkey, long one of Assad’s principal foes, which had in recent months reached a rapprochement with Russia and had been co-sponsoring Syrian peace talks with Moscow. Ankara’s change of tone could make it harder for Russia to put forward a peace plan that would keep Assad.

The attacks spurred a flight to safety in global financial markets, sending yields on safe-haven U.S. Treasury securities to their lowest since November. Stocks weakened in Asia and U.S. equity index futures slid, indicating Wall Street would open lower on Friday. Prices for oil and gold both rose, and the dollar slipped against the Japanese yen.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali, Yara Bayoumy, Jonathan Landay, John Walcott, Lesley Wroughton, Patricia Zengerle, Roberta Rampton, David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Megan Davies in New York and Jack Stubbs in Moscow; Writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership)

Warplane hits Syrian town where gas attack killed scores: witness, Observatory

Men salvage a motorbike amid the damage from inside a medical point at a site hit by airstrikes on Tuesday, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A warplane on Friday bombed the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, where a chemical attack killed scores of people this week and prompted U.S. missile strikes, a witness in the rebel-held area and a war monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that monitors the war, said a Syrian government or Russian warplane hit Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib province before noon.

The Syrian army and the Russian defense ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

The witness, an activist working with an air raid warning service in opposition areas, said the jet struck at around 11 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) at the northern edge of the town, causing damage but no known casualties.

The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles on Friday at an airfield from which it said the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack was launched that killed at least 70 people on Tuesday.

Washington blamed the gas attack on Syrian government forces. The Syrian government strongly denies responsibility and says it does not use chemical weapons.

The Observatory and the witness said earlier this week that the aircraft which they accused of carrying out the suspected gas attack had flown out of the Shayrat air base, the one attacked by U.S. missiles on Friday.

The Syrian army said the missile attack on its airbase killed six people and caused extensive damage, describing it as a “blatant aggression”.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis and Tom Perry; editing by Andrew Roche)

Assad tells paper he sees no ‘option except victory’ in Syria

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Croatian newspaper Vecernji List in Damascus, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on April 6, 2017. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said there is no “option except victory” in the country’s civil war in an interview published on Thursday, saying the government could not reach “results” with opposition groups that attended recent peace talks.

The interview with Croatian newspaper Vecernji List appeared to have been conducted before U.S. President Donald Trump accused Assad of crossing “many, many lines” with a poison gas attack on Tuesday.

Assad was not asked about the chemical attack in the northwestern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, a text of the interview published by the Syrian state news agency SANA showed. The government has strongly denied any role.

More than six years into the Syrian conflict, Assad appears militarily unassailable in the areas of western Syria where he has shored up his rule with decisive help from the Russian military and Iranian-backed militias from across the region.

The interview published on Thursday underlined Assad’s confidence as he reiterated his goal of dealing a total defeat to the insurgency. He also reiterated his rejection of federalism sought by Kurdish groups in northern Syria.

“As I said a while ago, we have a great hope which is becoming greater; and this hope is built on confidence, for without confidence there wouldn’t be any hope. In any case, we do not have any other option except victory,” he said.

“If we do not win this war, it means that Syria will be deleted from the map. We have no choice in facing this war, and that’s why we are confident, we are persistent and we are determined,” he said.

More than 70 people, including at least 20 children, were killed in the chemical attack on Tuesday.

The Russian allies say the deaths were caused by a leak from an arms depot where rebels were making chemical weapons, after it was hit in a Syrian air strike. Rebels deny this.

Rebels have in recent weeks launched two of their boldest offensives in many months, attacking in Damascus and north of the government-held city of Hama. The army says both assaults have been repelled.

Assad, citing recent rebel offensives in Damascus and near the northern city of Hama, said “the opposition which exists is a jihadi opposition in the perverted sense of jihad”.

“That is why we cannot, practically, reach any actual result with this part of the opposition (in talks). The evidence is that during the Astana negotiations they started their attack on the cities of Damascus and Hama and other parts of Syria, repeating the cycle of terrorism and the killing of innocents.”

The Russian-backed Astana talks were launched with support from Turkey, a major backer of the opposition to Assad. They sponsored a ceasefire between the government and rebels which has been widely violated since it was declared in December.

A new round of indirect peace talks concluded in Geneva in late March without any major breakthrough towards ending the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and created millions of refugees.

The Syrian government views all the groups fighting it as terrorists with agendas determined by foreign governments including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

After grueling journey, Mosul’s displaced find refuge in camp

Displaced Iraqi woman Farah Taha, 60, poses for a photograph with her three sons, her daughter-in-law, her six-month-old grandchild as well as the brother and sister of her daughter-in-law, in the family tent in Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq March 29, 2017. Taha says she has been unable to find any work to support her family since fleeing their Mosul home. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Ulf Laessing and Suhaib Salem

HAMMAM AL-ALIL CAMP, Iraq (Reuters) – The husband of Orouba Abdelhamid was killed in a rocket strike when Iraqi government forces arrived in her home city Mosul as part of the military campaign to expel Islamic State fighters.

The 31-year-old Orouba was then trapped at home for days as her district in western Mosul turned into a battle zone between the government and the militants defending their last stronghold in Iraq. She eventually managed to flee with her three children.

“No one is left for me over there so I came here … I cannot return to the house,” she told Reuters, sitting in the tent she shares with her brother’s family in the Hammam al-Alil camp, which is home to some 30,000 displaced people.

Orouba was eventually reunited with her brother in the camp after the two had little contact since Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014 and banned mobile phones under their extreme version of Sunni Islam.

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Those who have fled Iraq’s second largest city describe a grueling journey, where in some instances entire neighborhoods have left together, often at daybreak, sometimes under mortar shelling or air strikes.

Fathers covered their children’s eyes, neighbors helped carry the disabled, and men were often separated from their wives to be questioned by the Iraqi army manning the checkpoints around the city.

Like many others, Gorha Mahmoud said she and her family walked for 48 hours in the rain and cold before reaching Hammam al-Alil. They had to wait a further 24 hours at the entrance gate as there was no tent for them at first.

In the camp, a semblance of normality has returned for the families. Children over six attend morning classes, women carry out domestic chores while men look for work and food.

“Here life is normal. The aid is plentiful and the people are nice,” Orouba said.

The United Nations refugee agency said in March it had opened two new camps to host those fleeing the fighting in Mosul, adding 40,000 places to its existing facilities.

More than 302,000 people have left Mosul since the military campaign began in October, according to the International Organization for Migration. Around 30,000 people were displaced

last week alone.

Even worse, some 400,000 people are still trapped in western Mosul while the battles rage.

Mahmoud Abu Mohamed, who lives in a tent around the corner from Orouba after also fleeing from Mosul with his family, said the government needed to restore water in the city and remove dangerous debris from the fighting before people would return.

“If the water returns, everyone will go back,” he said.

(Reporting By Ulf Laessing and Suhaib Salem; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Marine Hass and Andrew Bolton)