Tag Archives: War

Kurds abandon territory in the face of Iraq government advance

Kurds abandon territory in the face of Iraq government advance

By Ahmed Rasheed and Mustafa Mahmoud

BAGHDAD/KIRKUK (Reuters) – The Baghdad government recaptured territory across the breadth of northern Iraq from Kurds on Tuesday, making startingly rapid gains in a sudden campaign that has shifted the balance of power in the country almost overnight.

In the second day of a lightning government advance to take back towns and countryside from forces of the Kurdish autonomous region, Kurdish troops known as Peshmerga pulled out of the long disputed Khanaqin area near the Iranian border.

Government troops took control of the last two oilfields in the vicinity of Kirkuk, a city of 1 million people that the Peshmerga abandoned the previous day in the face of the government advance. A Yazidi group allied to Baghdad also took control of the town of Sinjar.

The government advances have redrawn the map of northern Iraq, rolling back gains by the Kurds who infuriated Baghdad last month by holding a referendum on independence.

The Kurds govern three mountainous northern provinces in an autonomous region, and have also held a wide crescent of additional territory in northern Iraq, much of which they captured after helping drive out Islamic State fighters.

Prime Minister Haidar Abadi ordered his troops on Monday to raise their flag over all Kurdish-held territory outside the autonomous region itself. They achieved a swift victory in Kirkuk, reaching the centre of the city in less than a day.

The fighting in one of Iraq’s main oil-producing areas has helped return a risk premium to oil prices. After months of range-bound trading, benchmark Brent crude is now above $58 a barrel, up almost a third from its mid-year levels.

Oil officials in Baghdad said all the fields near Kirkuk were working normally on Tuesday after the last came under government control. Kirkuk is the base of Iraq’s Northern Oil Company, one of the two giant state energy firms that provide nearly all government revenue.

DILEMMA FOR WASHINGTON

The advances create a dilemma for Washington, which has armed and trained both sides in its successful campaign to drive Islamic State fighters out of Iraq.

“We don’t like the fact that they’re clashing,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “We’ve had for many years a very good relationship with the Kurds as you know, and we’ve also been on the side of Iraq.”

So far most of the advances appear to have come unopposed, with Kurds withdrawing before government forces move in. There have been reports of just one major clash, in the early hours of Monday on the outskirts of Kirkuk.

In Kirkuk, one of Iraq’s most diverse cities, members of the Turkmen ethnic group who have opposed Kurdish rule had celebrated on Monday, driving through the streets in convoys and firing weapons in the air.

By Tuesday, the once ubiquitous green, red and white Kurdish flag with a blazing yellow sun had vanished from the streets. U.S.-trained Iraqi special forces and local police patrolled to maintain order. Markets, shops and schools were open as normal.

Some Kurdish families who had left the city on Monday were already returning home. They said thousands of Kurdish fighters in convoys were lining up in a long queue attempting to flee Kirkuk towards the Kurdish regional capital Erbil, which clogged the road and made it difficult for civilians to leave.

For the Kurds, the loss of territory, particularly Kirkuk which Kurdish folklore views as the heart of their homeland, is a severe blow just three weeks after they voted to declare the independent state that had been their goal for decades.

“Our leaders abandoned us in the middle of nowhere. Our future is dark,” said Malla Bakhtiyar, a retired schoolteacher in Kirkuk.

He said he tried to escape on Monday but returned with his wife and sons after an Arab neighbour phoned, begging him not to leave and assuring him the city was safe.

University lecturer Salar Othman Ameen blamed the Kurdish authorities for calling the independence referendum prematurely.

“We feel broken now. The referendum was a catastrophic decision…Our Kurdish leadership was supposed to think of the consequences before moving along with independence vote. Now we have lost what we have achieved over three decades.”

The setbacks led to recriminations among the two main Kurdish political parties, which each control separate units of Peshmerga fighters. Officials in the KDP of Kurdish regional government leader Masoud Barzani accused the PUK of his longterm rival Jalal Talabani of “treason” for abandoning Kirkuk.

Talabani, who served as ceremonial Iraqi president in Baghdad from 2003-2014, died two weeks ago. His widow denied blame for the fall of Kirkuk and said her party had tried to avert the advance through contact with U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Barzani was expected to issue a statement calling on Kurdish factions to avoid “civil war”, according to Kurdish Rudaw TV.

The advances were a second major triumph for Abadi, the soft-spoken Iraqi prime minister, months after his forces recaptured Mosul from Islamic State. Abadi had faced threats from Iran-backed Shi’ite armed groups to take matters into their own hands if he did not act decisively to take on the Kurds.

“If elections were held tomorrow, I would vote with ten fingers for Abadi. He succeeded in keeping Iraq a single state,” said Adel Abdul Kareem, a Baghdad lawyer.

“When Kurdish leaders were threatening Baghdad, Abadi was always smiling,” he said. “We did not expect he was hiding a tornado behind this smile. He proved he was a smart leader, and with his wisdom he won against Masoud (Barzani) with a knockout in the second round.”

In Sinjar, home to the small Yazidi religious minority that faced genocide in 2014 when the area was captured by Islamic State fighters, a Yazidi group called Lalesh took control of the town after Kurdish Peshmerga withdrew.

“There was no violence. The Lalesh group moved after the Peshmerga pulled out,” said a resident reached by telephone.

The decision by the Kurds to hold an independence referendum had angered neighbours Turkey and Iran. Washington, friendly to the Kurds for decades, had also called on them to cancel the vote, fearing it could trigger war.

(Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

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)

Danger of war, Germany warns after Trump’s move on Iran nuclear deal

BERLIN (Reuters) – If the United States terminates the Iran nuclear deal or reimposes sanctions on Tehran it could result in Iran developing nuclear weapons and raise the danger of war close to Europe, Germany’s foreign minister said on Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump refused on Friday to formally certify that Tehran was complying with the 2015 accord even though international inspectors say it is. He warned he might ultimately terminate the agreement.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Deutschlandfunk radio that Trump had sent a “difficult and dangerous signal” when the U.S. administration was also dealing with the North Korea nuclear crisis.

“My big concern is that what is happening in Iran or with Iran from the U.S. perspective will not remain an Iranian issue but many others in the world will consider whether they themselves should acquire nuclear weapons too given that such agreements are being destroyed,” Gabriel said.

“And then our children and grandchildren will grow up in a very dangerous world,” he said.

He said if the United States terminated the deal or if sanctions were reimposed on Tehran, it would give Iranian hardliners, who are against negotiations with the West, the upper hand.

“Then they might revert to developing nuclear weapons,” Gabriel said, adding Israel would not tolerate that and “then we will be back where we were 10, 12 years ago with the danger of war relatively close to Europe”.

He urged the United States not to endanger the security of its allies and its own people for domestic policy reasons.

Hailed by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama as key to stopping Iran from building a nuclear bomb, the deal was also signed by China, France, Russia, Britain, Germany and the European Union.

European allies have warned of a split with Washington over the nuclear agreement and say that putting it in limbo undermines U.S. credibility abroad.

Trump has given the U.S. Congress 60 days to decide whether to reinstate economic sanctions on Iran that were lifted in 2016.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Israel says Hezbollah runs Lebanese army, signaling both are foes

Israel's Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman speaks during the International Institute for Counter Terrorism's 17th annual conference in Herzliya, Israel September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said on Tuesday that the Hezbollah guerrilla group, its most potent enemy in neighboring Lebanon, had gained control over that country’s U.S.-sponsored conventional military, signaling both would be in Israeli gunsights in any future war.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s remarks were a hard tack from more measured recent Israeli estimates that the Lebanese army maintained autonomy even if some of its troops cooperated with the better-armed, Iranian-aligned guerrillas.

Outlining potential threats in Lebanon, where Israel last fought a war against Hezbollah in 2006, Lieberman said in a speech: “We are no longer talking about Hezbollah alone”.

“We are talking about Hezbollah and the Lebanese army, and to my regret this is the reality. The Lebanese army has turned into an integral part of Hezbollah’s command structure. The Lebanese army has lost its independence and become an inseparable part of the Hezbollah apparatus,” Lieberman said.

There was no immediate response from Lebanon, which is formally in a state of war with Israel, nor from the U.S. embassies in Beirut and Tel Aviv.

The Lebanese army has previously said it operates independently from Hezbollah, most recently during an operation against Islamic State militants at the Lebanese-Syrian border, during which the army said there was absolutely no coordination with Hezbollah fighters who attacked IS from the Syrian side.

“ONE THEATER”

Hosting Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri in July for aid talks, U.S. President Donald Trump praised Beirut’s efforts to stem the spread of Islamic State and pledged continued help from Washington.

“America’s assistance can help ensure that the Lebanese army is the only defender Lebanon needs,” Trump said.

The Pentagon said Washington has provided Lebanon with more than $1.5 billion in military assistance since 2006, and that U.S. special forces have been providing “training and support” for the Lebanese army since 2011.

“Strengthening the LAF (Lebanese Armed Forces) also advances a range of U.S. interests in the Middle East that includes not only countering the spread of ISIS (Islamic State) and other violent extremists but also stemming the influence of Iran and Hezbollah in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said.

While welcoming U.S. action against Islamic State, Israel sees Iran, Hezbollah and their allies as the greater threat and worries about their entrenchment in Syria as they help President Bashar al-Assad beat back a more than six-year-old rebellion.

Lieberman said Israel sought to avoid going to war again on its northern front, which, he predicted, would include Syria.

“In anything that transpires, it will be one theater, Syria and Lebanon together, Hezbollah, the Assad regime and all of the Assad regime’s collaborators,” he said.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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)

Iran has ‘all options on table’ if U.S. blacklists Revolutionary Guards

FILE PHOTO: Members of the Iranian revolutionary guard march during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran September 22, 2011. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) – Iran told the United States on Tuesday that it will keep “all options on table” if President Donald Trump designates its elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

It came hours after the government said Washington itself would be aiding terrorism if it took such an action.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce this week his final decision on how he wants to contain Iran’s regional influence.

Trump is also expected to “decertify” a landmark 2015 deal Iran struck with world powers to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of most international sanctions. Trump’s announcement would stop short of pulling out of the agreement, punting that decision to Congress which would have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions.

He is also expected to designate Iran’s most powerful security force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as a terrorist organization.

U.S. sanctions on the IRGC could affect conflicts in Iraq and Syria, where Tehran and Washington both support warring parties that oppose the Islamic State militant group.

“The Americans are too small to be able to harm the Revolutionary Guards,” Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying by ISNA. “We have all options on the table. Whatever they do, we will take reciprocal measures,” he added.

The Iranian nuclear deal, agreed in 2015 and supported by European countries, Russia and China, lifted international sanctions on Iran in return for it agreeing to curbs on its nuclear program.

“FIRM, DECISIVE AND CRUSHING”

Washington maintains separate unilateral sanctions on Iran over its missile program and allegations that it supports terrorism in the Middle East. It already blacklists some individuals and entities for supporting IRGC activities, but not the Guards themselves.

The Guards have a vast economic empire in Iran. Designating them terrorists could make it more difficult for some Iranian businesses to take advantage of the lifting of sanctions to interact with global banks, which are required to verify that their clients are not on terrorism blacklists.

Iran’s rial has dropped against the U.S. dollar in recent days in a sign of concern about Trump’s policy. The rial was quoted in the free market around 40,400 to the dollar, currency exchangers in Tehran told Reuters, compared to 39,200 last week. Several exchangers said they had stopped selling dollars from Monday and were waiting to assess the trend in the market.

An Iranian government spokesman said that the world should be “thankful” to the Revolutionary Guards for fighting against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

“By taking a stance against the Revolutionary Guards and designating it a terrorist group, the Americans would be joining the terrorists’ camp,” Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said in a weekly news conference broadcast live on state television.

IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said on Sunday that if Washington designated the Guards a terrorist organization, they “will consider the American army to be like Islamic State all around the world.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said on Monday that Tehran would give a “firm, decisive and crushing” response if the United States goes ahead with such a plan.

Washington aims to put more pressure on the IRGC, especially over its missile program. Trump said in September that recent IRGC missile tests illustrated the weakness of the nuclear deal reached by his predecessor Barack Obama.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran purposefully excluded its military capability from the nuclear deal, as “it is not intended as leverage or a bargaining chip in future negotiations”.

In an article published in the Atlantic on Monday Zarif added: “No party or country need fear our missiles … unless it intends to attack our territory.”

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Peter Graff)

Afghan-Pakistan border villages brace for Berlin Wall-style divide

Pakistani soldiers keep guard as citizens returning from Afghanistan at the border-crossing town of Chaman, Pakistan, October 5, 2017. Picture taken October 5, 2017. REUTERS/Drazen Jorgic

By Drazen Jorgic and Gul Yousafzai

CHAMAN/QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Thousands of Pashtun tribal people who for decades ignored the invisible line that bisects their dusty villages and demarcates the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier are bracing for a Berlin Wall-style divide of their neighborhoods.

Pakistan, worried by Islamist attacks, is building a fence to prevent militants criss-crossing the porous 2,500 km (1,500 mile) frontier along the disputed colonial-era Durand line drawn up by the British in 1893.

The fence, which Kabul opposes, will run down the middle of so-called “divided villages” where few people have passports and Pashtun tribal loyalty often trumps allegiance to the state.

Seven such villages are dotted around Chaman district, home to the bustling border-crossing town of Chaman in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan. Other divided villages are believed to exist further north in the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Pakistani officials in Baluchistan are now working on shifting Pakistani citizens in the divided villages to their side of the fence and say security worries override concerns that it will break up communities.

“(A border wall) was there in Germany, it is in Mexico. It is all over the world – why not in Afghanistan and Pakistan?” said Col. Muhammad Usman, commander of Pakistan’s Frontier Corps paramilitary force in Chaman.

“These tribals have to understand that this is Pakistan and that place is Afghanistan.”

Yet scepticism about the fence abounds. Pakistan’s previous attempts to build one failed about a decade ago and many doubt whether its possible to secure such a lengthy border.

THE TRUMP EFFECT

The appeal of erecting physical border barriers waned after the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989. But in recent years, several populist leaders have advocated building walls to curtail movement of foreigners, most notably U.S. President Donald Trump, who wants a wall along the entire border with Mexico.

Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban recently fenced the border with Serbia to prevent Syrian refugees and other Muslim migrants from entering the eastern European country that acts as a gateway to the European Union.

Pakistan, in anticipation of the fence, plans to build more than 100 new border posts and Islamabad is recruiting in excess of 30,000 soldiers to man them, according to a senior military source.

“Trump is doing as per requirements of America; we are doing as per requirements of Pakistan,” added Usman.

Tense relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan boiled over in two divided villages in May during Pakistan’s census survey. More than 10 people were killed when Afghan border troops, objecting to the census, clashed with the Frontier Corps in Killi Jahangir and Killi Luqman villages near Chaman.

Kabul and Islamabad accuse each other of sheltering militants and providing safe havens for Islamist groups who carry out cross-border attacks.

Many residents in Killi Jahangir and Killi Luqman welcome the fence in the hope it will prevent bloodshed. But others are concerned it will hurt business and separate them from friends and family.

“There will no infiltration of terrorists or suspects from Afghan areas… but my own small business, which I was doing with Afghan people, will be affected,” said Abdul Jabbar, a Pakistani owner of a small enterprise in Killi Jahangir.

Pakistani officials have long struggled to impose security in the Pashtun tribal heartland. The area stretches for hundreds of kilometers, including rugged mountainous terrain, and has been a hotbed of arms and heroin smuggling for decades. U.S drone strikes have also targeted militants from al Qaeda and other groups in the region.

For the likes of taxi driver Abdul Razzaq, 30, having peace of mind offsets the loss of business due to the fence.

“Now I can sleep in my home without any fear,” he said.

(Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Rohingya insurgents open to peace but Myanmar ceasefire ending

A Myanmar soldier stands near Maungdaw, north of Rakhine state, Myanmar September 27, 2017. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

By Robert Birsel

YANGON (Reuters) – Muslim Rohingya insurgents said on Saturday they are ready to respond to any peace move by the Myanmar government but a one-month ceasefire they declared to enable the delivery of aid in violence-racked Rakhine State is about to end.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) did not say what action it would take after the ceasefire ends at midnight on Monday but it was “determined to stop the tyranny and oppression” waged against the Rohingya people.

“If at any stage, the Burmese government is inclined to peace, then ARSA will welcome that inclination and reciprocate,” the group said in a statement.

Government spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.

When the ARSA announced its one-month ceasefire from Sept. 10, a government spokesman said: “We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists.”

The rebels launched coordinated attacks on about 30 security posts and an army camp on Aug. 25 with the help of hundreds of disaffected Rohingya villagers, many wielding sticks or machetes, killing about a dozen people.

In response, the military unleashed a sweeping offensive across the north of Rakhine State, driving more than half a million Rohingya villagers into Bangladesh in what the United Nations branded a textbook example of “ethnic cleansing”.

Myanmar rejects that. It says more than 500 people have been killed in the fighting, most of them “terrorists” who have been attacking civilians and torching villages.

The ability of the ARSA, which only surfaced in October last year, to mount any sort of challenge to the Myanmar army is not known but it does not appear to have been able to put up resistance to the military offensive unleashed in August.

Inevitably, there are doubts about how the insurgents can operate in areas where the military has driven out the civilian population, cutting the insurgents off from recruits, food, funds and information.

The ARSA accused the government of using murder, arson and rape as “tools of depopulation”.

‘NATIVE’

The ARSA denies links to foreign Islamists.

In an interview with Reuters in March, ARSA leader Ata Ullah linked the creation of the group to communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine in 2012, when nearly 200 people were killed and 140,000, mostly Rohingya, displaced.

The group says it is fighting for the rights of the Rohingya, who have never been regarded as an indigenous minority in Myanmar and so have been denied citizenship under a law that links nationality to ethnicity.

The group repeated their demand that Rohingya be recognized as a “native indigenous” ethnic group, adding that all Rohingya people should be allowed “to return home safely with dignity … to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social and cultural development”.

The Rohingya have long faced discrimination and repression in Rakhine State where bad blood between them and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, stemming from violence by both sides, goes back generations.

The ARSA condemned the government for blocking humanitarian assistance in Rakhine and said it was willing to discuss ceasefires with international organizations so aid could be delivered.

Some 515,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh but thousands remain in Rakhine.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced scathing criticism for not doing more to stop the violence, although a military-drafted constitution gives her no power over the security forces.

Suu Kyi has condemned rights abuses and said Myanmar was ready to start a process agreed with Bangladesh in 1993 by which anyone verified as a refugee would be accepted back.

Many refugees fear they will not have the paperwork they believe Myanmar will demand to allow them back.

(Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Turkey backs Syrian rebels for “serious operation” in Idlib

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York City, U.S., September 20, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Ece Toksabay and Angus McDowall

ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebel fighters are launching a major military operation, backed by Turkish forces from inside Turkey, in a northern Syrian province largely controlled by jihadist militants, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.

The rebels said they were preparing to start the operation in Idlib soon, and residents reported Turkish authorities removing sections of a border wall.

The operation, part of a deal between Turkey, Iran and Russia to reduce warfare between rebels and the government, appears aimed at crushing the Tahrir al-Sham alliance, which has taken over much of Idlib province and northwestern Syria.

The three countries have supported opposing sides in Syria’s six-year conflict, with Turkey backing rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, while Russian and Iranian military support helped Assad drive them back.

Erdogan’s comments, however, suggested Russia and Turkey would fight together against Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance led by the former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria that changed its name last year from the Nusra Front.

“There’s a serious operation in Syria’s Idlib today and it will continue,” Erdogan said in a speech to his AK Party, adding that Turkey would not allow a “terror corridor” on its border with Syria.

“For now Free Syria Army is carrying out the operation there,” Erdogan said. “Russia will be protecting outside the borders (of the Idlib region) and we will handle inside,” he said.

“Russia is supporting the operation from the air, and our armed forces from inside Turkey’s borders,” he added.

Mustafa Sejari, a senior official in the Liwa al-Mutasem Syrian insurgent group taking part in the operation, said Russian warplanes would not be militarily backing the rebels.

“As for the Russians, they will not have a role in the areas of our control at all. The role of the Russians is limited to areas under regime control,” he said.

Ankara, Moscow and Tehran announced a deal last month to establish and patrol a “de-escalation” zone in the Idlib region, where Erdogan has said Turkey will deploy troops, but Tahrir al-Sham pledged to keep on fighting.

FULL READINESS

Turkey already has troops stationed inside Syria after it launched an incursion east of Idlib last year, known as Euphrates Shield, to drive back Islamic State militants and prevent further gains by Kurdish fighters on the border.

Syrian rebel officials from factions which have fought alongside Turkey in Euphrates Shield said they were preparing to enter the area with the backing of Turkish forces.

“The Free Syrian Army with support from Turkish troops is in full readiness to enter the area but until this moment there is no movement,” said Sejari, the Liwa al-Mutasem official.

Tahrir al-Sham is well entrenched in the border area in Idlib and maintains a big military presence in nearby towns, a local rebel said. The jihadist group has not yet commented on the Turkey-backed operation on its usual social media channels.

Another FSA rebel told Reuters he believed an incursion into northwest Syria was imminent. The Hamza Brigade, also part of Euphrates Shield, posted a video online of what it said was a convoy of its forces heading for Idlib.

Residents near the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey in Syria sent Reuters photographs of what they said was a section of the frontier wall being removed by the Turkish authorities.

Idlib’s population has ballooned to at least two million as thousands of civilians and combatants have left areas seized by the Syrian army in other parts of the country, with the help of Russian jets and Iran-backed militias.

Asked how far Turkey might go in deploying troops inside Syria, Erdogan declined to give details. “When you enter a boxing match, you don’t count how many punches you throw,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, writing by Angus McDowall and Dominic Evans; editing by Clelia Oziel)

Debris and dust: Raqqa ‘sacrificed’ to defeat Islamic State

A view of Raqqa's National Hospital, last stronghold of the Islamic State militants, in Raqqa, Syria September 30, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By John Davison

RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) – The ancient mud brick walls circling Raqqa’s deserted old city are almost the only structure still intact. Inside, shops and homes spill crumbling concrete onto either side of the narrow roads, block after block.

Fighting between U.S.-backed militias and Islamic State in the jihadist group’s former Syria stronghold has peppered mosques and minarets with machine-gun fire while air strikes flattened houses. No building is untouched.

“The old clock tower could be heard from outside the walls once. It’s damaged now. It’s silent,” Mohammed Hawi, an Arab fighter from Raqqa, said at a nearby home occupied by the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance (SDF).

Raqqa, where Islamic State plotted attacks abroad during its three-year rule, is almost captured in a months-old offensive backed by U.S. air cover and special forces. But driving militants out has caused destruction that officials say will take years and cost millions of dollars to repair.

The nascent Raqqa Civil Council, set up to rebuild and govern Raqqa, faces a huge task. It says aid from countries in the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS is so far insufficient.

Raqqa’s uncertain political future, as it comes under the sway of Kurdish-led forces which neighbor Turkey opposes, and is still coveted by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is partly what has made coalition countries hesitate, diplomats say.

But failure to quickly return services to the city that was once home to more than 200,000 people, mostly now displaced, risks unrest, they warn.

“Infrastructure is completely destroyed, water, electricity networks, bridges. There’s not a single service functioning,” said Ibrahim Hassan, who oversees reconstruction for the Raqqa council at its headquarters in nearby Ain Issa.

“We gave our city as a sacrifice for the sake of defeating terrorism. It’s the world’s duty to help us,” he said.

A major bridge leading into eastern Raqqa lies collapsed after a coalition air strike. Beyond it, damaged water towers and the skeletons of teetering residential blocks dot the skyline.

Awnings hung by militants to hide their movements flap in the wind.

BODIES UNDER RUBBLE

Senior council member Omar Alloush estimated at least half the city is completely destroyed.

“There are also bodies under rubble, of civilians and terrorists. These need reburying to avoid disease outbreaks,” he said.

Amnesty International has said the U.S.-led campaign, including air strikes, has killed hundreds of civilians trapped in Raqqa. Residents have reported civilian deaths, but it is difficult to establish how many people have died.

The coalition says it does all it can to avoid civilian casualties. But the city is densely built up and militants firing from homes are often targeted by air raids.

Council officials said with the battle still raging in a small, encircled area of the city center and countless explosives rigged by militants in areas they abandoned, reconstruction has not yet begun.

“The focus is on emergency aid, food and water, de-mining,” Hassan said.

The council wants to get services up and running as soon as possible, but has limited capacity and is staffed by volunteers. At its headquarters the offices of several departments consist of a single desk in a shared room.

“Support from the international community has improved and we feel less isolated, but it’s been modest,” Hassan said.

The United States delivered several bulldozers and other vehicles to the council to clear debris recently, the Raqqa council said, out of a total of 56 due to arrive.

“Even 700 wouldn’t be enough,” Alloush said.

POLITICAL OBSTACLES

Raqqa council volunteers have said they told the coalition it will take 5.3 billion Syrian lira (about $10 million) a year to restore power and water supplies, roads and schools.

It is feared delays could reignite unrest.

“Groups that took over Raqqa in 2013 didn’t run it well,” a Western diplomat in the region said, referring to Syrian insurgents who seized the city from Assad’s forces earlier in the six-year-old civil war, before IS arrived.

“That’s partly what allowed Daesh (IS) to take over. If there’s a gap in humanitarian assistance and no effective local governance structure, the risk of future violence increases.”

The council said coalition countries were reluctant to aid the Raqqa council, made up of local engineers, teachers and doctors.

“We’ve suffered from bureaucracy in the decision making process for foreign aid,” Hassan said.

Some coalition countries were concerned about relations with NATO member Turkey over support for a governing body perceived to be allied to Kurdish militia, the diplomat said.

The SDF, which for now controls much of Raqqa, is spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, a foe of Ankara which is fighting its own Kurdish insurgency. Turkey opposes the YPG’s role in capturing Raqqa.

Council officials say Raqqa will be governed independently of a self-run administration for northeast Syria that is dominated by Kurds, but is expected to have close relations with it. The extent of those relations is to be decided by elected officials once elections can be held.

A second diplomat in the region said reluctance to aid the council was partly over concerns whether it properly represented the ethnic make-up of mostly Arab Raqqa, seeing tension if local Arabs were sidelined. Several prominent council members are Kurdish.

There is also uncertainty over whether Raqqa will remain allied to the self-run parts of northern Syria, or if it would fall back to Assad in future upheaval. Assad has sworn to retake the entire country.

For now, with Turkey’s borders closed to SDF-controlled areas, aid to Raqqa comes a longer route through Iraq’s Kurdish region.

Raqqa council says it may have to be self-sufficient.

“We’re waiting for help to repair the east bridge,” co-president Leila Mustafa, a civil engineer, said.

“If it doesn’t arrive soon, we’ll begin ourselves, using any means we have.”

(Reporting by John Davison, additional reporting by Issam Abdallah; editing by Philippa Fletcher)