Tag Archives: War

Islamic State’s stronghold Tal Afar about to fall: Iraqi military

Smoke rises during clashes between the Iraqi army with Shi'ite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and the Islamic State militants in Tal Afar, Iraq August 26, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Thaier Al-Sudani and Kawa Omar

TAL AFAR, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces are about to take full control of Tal Afar, Islamic State’s stronghold in northwestern Iraq, in a swift campaign against the outnumbered, exhausted militants, an Iraqi military spokesman said on Saturday.

The quick collapse of Islamic State in Tal Afar, a breeding ground for jihadist groups in Iraq, confirmed Iraqi military reports that the militants lack command and control structures in the areas west of Mosul.

Up to 2,000 militants were believed to be defending Tal Afar when the U.S.-backed campaign to take back the city started on Aug. 20. The attacking forces were estimated at 50,000, according to western military sources.

“Tal Afar city is about to fall completely into the hands of our forces, only five percent remains” under Islamic State’s control, a military spokesman told Reuters.

“God willing, the remaining part will be liberated soon,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said earlier at a news conference with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, and French Defence Minister Florence Parly, in Baghdad.

Tal Afar lies on the supply route between Syria and the former Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, 80 km (50 miles) to the east.

The elite Counter Terrorism Service “liberated the citadel neighborhood .. and raised the Iraqi flag on top of the citadel building,” a statement from the Iraqi joint operations command said.

Much of the Ottoman-era citadel itself was destroyed by the militants at the end of 2014.

The city has produced some of the militant group’s most senior commanders. It experienced cycles of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi’ites after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Tal Afar, which had a pre-war population of about 200,000, is the latest objective in the U.S.-backed war on Islamic State following the recapture of Mosul after a nine-month campaign that left much of the city, the biggest in northern Iraq, in ruins.

The fall of Mosul in effect marked the end of the self-proclaimed “caliphate” Islamic State declared over parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014. Tal Afar was cut off from the rest of IS-held territory in June.

The number of civilians believed to have remained in the city at the start of the offensive was estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000 by the U.S. military.

As in the battle for Mosul, civilians are suffering badly.

Waves of residents fled the city in the weeks before the battle started. Those remaining were threatened with death by the militants, who held had a tight grip there since 2014, according to aid organizations and residents who managed to flee.

On Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said those who had fled were suffering from dehydration and exhaustion, having lived on bread and dirty water for three to four months.

People were arriving at camps for displaced people with wounds from sniper fire and mine explosions.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

North Korea tests short-range missiles as South Korea, U.S. conduct drills

North Korea tests short-range missiles as South Korea, U.S. conduct drills

By Jack Kim and Phil Stewart

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea fired several short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast early on Saturday, South Korea and the U.S. military said, as the two allies conducted annual joint military drills that the North denounces as preparation for war.

The U.S. military’s Pacific Command said it had detected three short-range ballistic missiles, fired over a 20 minute period.

One appeared to have blown up almost immediately while two flew about 250 km (155 miles) in a northeasterly direction, Pacific Command said, revising an earlier assessment that two of the missiles had failed in flight.

The test came just days after senior U.S. officials praised North Korea and leader Kim Jong Un for showing restraint in not firing any missiles since late July.

The South Korean Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles were launched from the North’s eastern Kangwon province into the sea.

Later on Saturday, the South Korean Presidential Blue House said the North may have fired an upgraded 300-mm caliber multiple rocket launcher but the military was still analyzing the precise details of the projectiles.

Pacific Command said the missiles did not pose a threat to the U.S. mainland or to the Pacific territory of Guam, which North Korea had threatened earlier this month to surround in a “sea of fire”.

Tensions had eased somewhat since a harsh exchange of words between Pyongyang and Washington after U.S. President Donald Trump had warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un he would face “fire and fury” if he threatened the United States.

North Korea’s last missile test on July 28 was for an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to fly 10,000 km (6,200 miles). That would put parts of the U.S. mainland within reach and prompted heated exchanges that raised fears of a new conflict on the peninsula.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the missiles did not reach its territory or exclusive economic zone and did not pose a threat to Japan’s safety.

MILITARY DRILLS

The South Korean and U.S. militaries are in the midst of the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills involving computer simulations of a war to test readiness and run until Aug. 31.

The region where the missiles were launched, Kittaeryong, is a known military test site frequently used by the North for short-range missile drills, said Kim Dong-yub, a military expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.

“So rather than a newly developed missile, it looks to be short range missiles they fired as part of their summer exercise and also in response to the Ulchi Freedom Guardian drill,” he said.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with the North because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The North routinely says it will never give up its weapons programs, saying they are necessary to counter perceived U.S. hostility.

Washington has repeatedly urged China, North Korea’s main ally and trading partner, to do more to rein in Pyongyang.

China’s commerce ministry late on Friday banned North Korean individuals and enterprises from doing new business in China, in line with United Nations Security Council sanctions passed earlier this month.

TRUMP BRIEFED

The White House said Trump had been briefed about the latest missiles but did not immediately have further comment.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately comment about the Saturday launches. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson earlier this week credited the North with showing restraint by not launching a missile since the July ICBM test.

Tillerson had said he hoped that the lack of missile launches or other “provocative acts” by Pyongyang could mean a path could be opening for dialogue “sometime in the near future.”

Trump also expressed optimism earlier this week about a possible improvement in relations. “I respect the fact that he is starting to respect us,” Trump said of Kim.

North Korea’s state media reported on Saturday that Kim had guided a contest of amphibious landing and aerial strike by its army against targets modeled after South Korean islands near the sea border on the west coast.

The official KCNA news agency quoted Kim as telling its Army that it “should think of mercilessly wiping out the enemy with arms only and occupying Seoul at one go and the southern half of Korea.”

A new poster on a North Korean propaganda website on Saturday showed a missile dealing “a retaliatory strike of justice” against the U.S. mainland, threatening to “wipe out the United States, the source of evil, without a trace.”

On Wednesday, Kim ordered the production of more rocket engines and missile warheads during a visit to a facility associated with North Korea’s ballistic missile program.

Diagrams and what appeared to be missile parts shown in photographs published in the North’s state media suggested Pyongyang was pressing ahead with building a longer-range ballistic missile that could potentially reach any part of the U.S. mainland including Washington.

(For an interactive package on North Korea’s missile capabilities click http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/NORTHKOREA-MISSILES/010041L63FE/index.html)

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul, Nobuhiro Kubo and Tim Kelly in Tokyo, Christian Shepherd in Beijing and David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Michael Perry)

Iraqi forces make fresh gains in Tal Afar offensive

Shi'ite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) gather with Iraqi army on the outskirts of Tal Afar, Iraq, August 22, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Reuters Staff

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces made further gains in their offensive to dislodge Islamic State from Tal Afar, seizing five more villages on the eastern and southern outskirts of the city, the military said on Thursday.

In the fifth day of their onslaught, Iraqi forces continued to encircle jihadists holding out in the city in far northwestern Iraq close to the Syrian border, according to statements from the Iraqi joint operations command.

Within the city limits, Iraqi forces captured three more neighborhoods – al-Nour and al-Mo’allameen in the east and al-Wahda in the west, taking over several strategic buildings in the process.

The advances were the latest in the campaign to rout the militants from one of their last remaining strongholds in Iraq, three years after they seized wide swathes of the north and west in a shock offensive. On Tuesday, the army and counter-terrorism units broke into Tal Afar from the east and south.

The main forces taking part in the offensive are the Iraqi army, air force, Federal Police, the elite U.S.-trained Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) and some units from the Shi’ite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that began encircling the city on Sunday.

About three quarters of Tal Afar remains under militant control including the Ottoman-era citadel at its center, according to an operational map published by the Iraqi military.

Located 80 km (50 miles) west of Mosul, Tal Afar lies along the supply route between that city – which Iraqi forces retook from IS in July after nine months of fighting – and Syria.

Tal Afar has produced some of IS’s most senior commanders and was cut off from the rest of IS-held territory in June.

Up to 2,000 battle-hardened militants remain in Tal Afar, according to U.S. and Iraqi military commanders. Between 10,000 and 40,000 civilians are estimated to remain in the city and its surrounding villages.

(Reporting by Raya Jalabi; editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.S. fighter pilots in Afghanistan prepare for more air strikes

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft takes off for a nighttime mission at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, August 22, 2017. REUTERS/Josh Smith

By Josh Smith

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – For the fighter pilots at the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump’s new strategy for the war should mean escalating an already surging air campaign, and possibly including an unrestrained offensive against the Taliban.

The number of U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan has already dramatically spiked since Trump took office in January, from 1,074 in all of last year to 2,244 as of August 20 this year.

After a months-long review of his Afghanistan policy, Trump committed the United States last week to an open-ended conflict in the country and promised a stepped-up campaign against the Taliban insurgents.

Few details have emerged, but the pilots in Bagram are preparing for the possibility they’ll be taking the fight to the Taliban in a way they haven’t since the U.S.-led “combat mission” in Afghanistan was called off at the end of 2014.

Among their targets since then have been Islamic State militants, who are also active in the country.

“Between the two groups, the Taliban are definitely smarter,” F-16 pilot Maj. Daniel Lindsey told Reuters. “The Taliban are much harder to kill.”

While Islamic State has launched a series of deadly attacks around the country, it has nowhere near the influence, reach, and community ties that the Taliban has.

It’s those factors that pilots say make the Taliban a more challenging target, and one that has outlasted years of heavy bombardment.

“The Taliban is often embedded in the community, but nobody likes the Islamic State, so they are often separate,” Lindsey said.

NEW PARAMETERS

In many ways, Trump’s policy is less a new plan than the continuation of a slow slide back into combat for American troops, although officials are quick to say their mission will remain focused on training and advising Afghan forces.

On Thursday, the commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, confirmed that his forces would increase air support for Afghan troops.

“We know the enemy fears air power,” he told reporters in Kabul.

White House officials have said that rolling back territorial gains by the Taliban will be one of the key objectives of the new strategy.

For a time after former president Barack Obama declared America’s combat mission over in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, U.S. forces were restricted from attacking the Taliban in most circumstances except self-defense.

As the group expanded its hold in Afghanistan, however, Obama began to loosen some of those rules and Trump has gone further in sending U.S. troops back into battle with their old adversaries.

Asked about the recent effects of U.S. air strikes, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group’s fighters had become used to dodging American bombs.

“In 2010, 2011 and 2012 the U.S. air strikes were successful and we lost many Mujahideen,” he told Reuters. “But now we have enough experience to avoid casualties during their strikes by hiding in mountain holes and other places.”

Still, forcing the Taliban to hide and preventing them from massing fighters has in some cases been credited with helping Afghan security forces hold on to some cities and blunt Taliban offensives.

EXPANDING STRIKES

Trump also announced that he would “lift restrictions and expand authorities in the field,” but it remains unclear exactly what that would entail.

A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, Capt. William Salvin, said U.S. forces are still limited to conducting air strikes in three broad circumstances: self-defense, counter-terrorism strikes against specific groups, and helping Afghan troops achieve “strategic effects.”

He declined to say whether those parameters might change.

The U.S. military does not publicize its rules of engagement, but Lindsey said compared to when he was a fighter pilot at the height of the troop surge in Iraq in 2007, the so-called “ROE” in Afghanistan were less restrictive.

“Some guys can complain about it, but most I know don’t seem to have any problem finding Islamic State or Taliban to kill,” he said. “If you use the rules smartly, you’ll get the bad guys.”

The surge in air strikes has led the U.S. Air Force units at Bagram to increase their maintenance and intelligence efforts, said F-16 pilot Maj. Abraham Lehman.

Officials say ramping up the number of strikes further would require the deployment of more support staff as well as additional specialized troops on the ground to coordinate the strikes.

While he said he had no information on new plans to deploy additional aircraft, Lehman said it “made sense” to increase air support as the Pentagon sends thousands more troops to the country.

“What we do is always a joint effort between us and the ground troops,” Lehman said.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni in Kabul, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Yemen air strike kills 12, including six children, witnesses say

People carry the body of a woman they recovered from under the rubble of a house destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike in Sanaa, Yemen August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

DUBAI (Reuters) – An air raid struck a building in Yemen’s capital on Friday, killing 12 people, six of them children, when an adjacent apartment block collapsed, residents said.

Residents and rescuers dug frantically through debris after the attack on the Faj Attan area of Sanaa, retrieving the bloodied, dust-covered bodies of several children, some of whom appeared to be less than 10 years old.

Chunks of masonry lay strewn beside gaping fissures in walls that revealed the apartments’ shattered interiors.

People at the scene told Reuters the warplanes were from a Saudi-led Arab coalition, which has been fighting the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in a war that has lasted more than two years and killed at least 10,000 people.

“The air force of the countries of the American-Saudi aggression carried out a hideous massacre against the citizens in Faj Attan,” an official Houthi movement website said.

Residents said the strike did not target the apartment house where people were killed, but instead hit a vacant building next to it. The apartment house contained eight flats and appeared to have wooden ceilings, a witness said.

The buildings are in the vicinity of a military base housing missiles that has been a frequent target of air raids since the war began in 2015.

The Houthis and their ally, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, control much of the north of the country, including Sanaa. Yemen’s internationally recognized government is backed by the Saudi-led military alliance and is based in the south.

The United States and Britain provide arms and logistical assistance to the alliance for its campaign. The issue has caused controversy in Britain over the toll on civilians.

In addition to striking military targets, air strikes have hit hospitals, infrastructure and port facilities, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations human rights office called on Friday for an independent investigation into air strikes by the coalition on a hotel near Sanaa on Wednesday. Those attacks killed more than 30 people.

The hotel was a guest house usually used by farm workers, said William Spindler, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. Among those killed were five people displaced from elsewhere in Yemen, he said.

The coalition said that its review of Wednesday’s attack showed that those killed at the hotel were Houthi fighters, not civilians.

Some two million people have been displaced by the war, according to the UN.

“We remind all parties to the conflict, including the Coalition, of their duty to ensure full respect for international humanitarian law,” U.N. human rights spokeswoman Liz Throssell said.

In the week to Thursday Aug. 24, 58 civilians were killed in Yemen, “including 42 by the Saudi-led coalition,” with the rest attributed to unknown armed men and to the Popular Committees affiliated with the Houthi rebels, she said.

There was no immediate word from the coalition on Friday’s raid.

(Reporting by Reuters, additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva,; Writing by Reem Shamseddine and William Maclean; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Larry King)

Turkish nationalist leader says Iraqi Kurdish referendum a potential reason for war

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu meets with Iraq's Kurdistan region's President Massoud Barzani in Erbil, Iraq, August 23, 2017. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari

ANKARA (Reuters) – The head of Turkey’s nationalist opposition said on Thursday a planned independence referendum by Kurds in northern Iraq should be viewed by Ankara as a reason for war “if necessary”.

Turkey, which is battling a three-decade Kurdish insurgency in its southeast, is concerned the referendum could further stoke separatist sentiment among the 15 million Kurds in Turkey.

On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited Iraq, where he conveyed to Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani Ankara’s concerns about the decision to hold the referendum, planned for Sept. 25.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli, who allied with the government in supporting the ruling AK Party’s campaign in April’s referendum on boosting President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers, called on Ankara to oppose the vote.

“A position must be taken to the end against Barzani’s preparation for an independence referendum which incorporates Turkmen cities,” Bahceli told a news conference in Ankara.

“This is a rehearsal for Kurdistan. If necessary Turkey should deem this referendum as a reason for war,” he added.

Bahceli does not set policy, though his ideas reflect those of a segment of Turkish society fiercely opposed to the idea of an independent Kurdistan and supportive of Iraq’s Turkmen ethnic minority, which has historical and cultural ties to Turkey.

Kurds have sought an independent state since at least the end of World War One, when colonial powers divided up the Middle East and left Kurdish-populated territory split between modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Like Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria all oppose the idea of Iraqi Kurdish independence, fearing it may fuel separatism among their own Kurdish populations.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, deemed a terrorist organization by Ankara, the United States and European Union, has waged a 33-year insurgency in southeast Turkey in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.

The United States and other Western nations fear September’s vote could ignite a new conflict with Baghdad and possibly neighboring countries, diverting attention from the war against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

 

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan and Alison Williams)

 

Troops make progress in Tal Afar battle as U.S. defense secretary visits Iraq

Shi'ite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) with Iraqi army gather on the outskirts of Tal Afar.

By Idrees Ali and Raya Jalabi

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Government forces breached the city limits of Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq on Tuesday on the third day of a U.S.-backed offensive to seize it back from Islamic State militants.

Tal Afar, a longtime Islamic State stronghold, is the latest objective in the war following the recapture of Mosul after a nine-month campaign that left much of that city in ruins.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, speaking just before arriving in Iraq on Tuesday, said the fight against IS was far from over despite recent successes by the Western-backed government. The Sunni Muslim jihadists remain in control of territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria.

On Tuesday, however, army and counter-terrorism units broke into Tal Afar from the eastern and southern sides, the Iraqi joint operations command said.

About three quarters of the city remain under militant control, including the Ottoman-era citadel in its center, according to an operational map published by the Iraqi military.

The main forces involved are the Iraqi army, air force, Federal Police, the U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), as well as units from the Shi’ite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), who began encircling the city on Sunday.

Located 80 km (50 miles) west of Mosul, Tal Afar is strategic as it lies along the supply route between Mosul and Syria. It has produced some of IS’s most senior commanders and was cut off from the rest of IS-held territory in June.

Up to 2,000 battle-hardened militants remain in Tal Afar, according to U.S. and Iraqi military commanders.

“ISIS’ days are certainly numbered, but it is not over yet and it is not going to be over anytime soon,” Mattis told reporters in Amman.

CIVILIANS PLIGHT

As was the case with the battle for Mosul, aid organizations groups are concerned about the plight of civilians in Tal Afar.

U.S. Brigadier General Andrew Croft, chief of coalition air operations over Iraq, said between 10,000 and 20,000 civilians remained in Tal Afar. Up to 20,000 are thought to remain in the surrounding areas, but aid agencies say these are just estimates as they have been without access to Tal Afar since 2014.

Waves of civilians have fled the city and villages under cover of darkness over the past few weeks. Those remaining are threatened with death by the militants, who have held a tight grip there since 2014. About 30,000 have fled Tal Afar since April, according to the United Nations.

In Geneva, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said those fleeing this week were suffering from dehydration and exhaustion, having lived off unclean water and bread for the past three to four months.

“Many talk of seeing dead bodies along the way, and there are reports that some were killed by extremist groups,” UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said. “Others appear to have died due to dehydration or illnesses.”

People were also arriving at camps with wounds from sniper fire and exploding mines, he said.

Several thousand civilians are believed to have been killed in the battle for Mosul, where Islamic State tried to keep them in areas it controlled to act as human shields against air strikes and artillery bombardments.

Defense Secretary Mattis met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defence Minister Arfan al-Hayali in Baghdad to discuss the role of U.S. forces in Iraq after the recapture of the remaining cities under Islamic State.

”There are plans under consideration… that will look at residual presence in the future,” Lt. General Steve Townsend, the U.S.-led coalition’s commanding general, told reporters in a joint press briefing with Mattis.

Croft said that over the past two or three months, he had seen a fracturing in the Islamic State leadership.

“It just seems less coordinated. It appears more fractured, less robust, and sort of flimsy, is the word I would use… it is sporadic,” Croft told reporters.

Islamic State leaders fled Mosul during the fighting there and the whereabouts of its chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, are unknown. Unconfirmed reports in the past few months have said he is dead.

U.S. officials said that while big cities like Mosul have largely been cleared of Islamic State militants, there were concerns about the ability of Iraqi forces to hold territory.

Pockets of resistance remained in west Mosul, including sleeper cells, Mattis said.

Islamic State is also on the back foot in Syria, where Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition have captured swathes of its territory in the north and are assaulting its main Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

McGurk said about 2,000 Islamic State fighters remained in Raqqa and as much as 60 percent of the city had been retaken.

The jihadist group is now falling back deeper into the Euphrates valley region of eastern Syria.

Mattis said the next step for forces fighting Islamic State in Syria would be a move against the middle Euphrates valley, a reference to the militants’ stronghold in Deir al-Zor province southeast of Raqqa.

KURDISH REFERENDUM

A U.S. official also said Mattis would press Massoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, to call off a planned referendum on independence.

Iraq’s Kurds have said they will hold the referendum on Sept. 25 despite concerns from Iraq’s neighbors who have Kurdish minorities within their borders and a U.S. request to postpone it.

However, a senior Kurdish official said the Kurds may consider the possibility of a delay in return for financial and political concessions from the central government in Baghdad.

The United States and other Western nations fear the vote could ignite a new conflict with Baghdad and possibly neighboring countries, diverting attention from the ongoing war against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

For a graphic on the map of Iraq conflict, click: http://apac1.proxy.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/fingfx/gfx/rngs/1/1696/2934/MIDEAST-CRISIS-IRAQ-BLAST.jpg

(Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Erbil, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Trump commits U.S. to open-ended Afghanistan war; Taliban vow ‘graveyard’

Military personnel watch as U.S. President Donald Trump announces his strategy for the war in Afghanistan during an address to the nation from Fort Myer, Virginia, U.S., August 21, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Steve Holland and Hamid Shalizi

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) – President Donald Trump committed U.S. troops to an open-ended war in Afghanistan, a decision the Afghan government welcomed on Tuesday but which Taliban insurgents warned would make the country a “graveyard for the American empire”.

Trump offered few specifics in a speech on Monday but promised a stepped-up military campaign against the Taliban who have gained ground against U.S.-backed Afghan government forces. He also singled out Pakistan for harboring militants in safe havens on its soil.

Trump, who had in the past advocated a U.S. withdrawal, acknowledged he was going against his instincts in approving the new campaign plan sought by his military advisers but said he was convinced that leaving posed more risk.

“The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable,” he said. “A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill.”

Still, he promised an end to “nation-building” by U.S. forces in what has become American’s longest war and stressed that ultimately Afghanistan’s struggling police and army must defeat the Taliban.

“The stronger the Afghan security forces become, the less we will have to do. Afghans will secure and build their own nation and define their own future. We want them to succeed.”

Most of the approximately 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan work with a NATO-led training and advising mission, with the rest part of a counter-terrorism force that mostly targets pockets of al Qaeda and Islamic State fighters.

While Trump said he would not discuss troop levels or details of the new strategy, U.S. officials said on Monday he had signed off on Defense Secretary James Mattis’ plans to send about 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in welcoming the strategy, said it would increase the capacity of the training mission for Afghan forces, including enhancing its fledgling air force and doubling the size of the Afghan special forces.

“I am grateful to President Trump and the American people for this affirmation of support … for our joint struggle to rid the region from the threat of terrorism,” Ghani said in a statement.

The Taliban swiftly condemned Trump’s decision to keep American troops in Afghanistan without a withdrawal timetable, vowing to continue “jihad” until all U.S. soldiers were gone.

“If the U.S. does not pull all its forces out of Afghanistan, we will make this country the 21st century graveyard for the American empire,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

Republican Trump, who had criticized his predecessors for setting deadlines for drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, declined to put a timeline on expanded U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

Trump now inherits the same challenges as George W. Bush and Barack Obama, including a stubborn Taliban insurgency and a weak, divided Kabul government. He is laying the groundwork for greater U.S. involvement without a clear end in sight or providing specific benchmarks for success.

‘NO BLANK CHECK’

Trump warned that U.S. support “is not a blank check,” and insisted he would not engage in “nation-building,” a practice he has accused his predecessors of doing at huge cost.

Trump insisted through his speech that the Afghan government, Pakistan, India, and NATO allies step up their own commitment to resolving the 16-year conflict.

“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens,” he said.

Senior U.S. officials warned he could reduce security assistance for nuclear-armed Pakistan unless it cooperated more.

A Pakistani army spokesman said on Monday that Pakistan had taken action against all Islamist militants.

“There are no terrorist hideouts in Pakistan,” spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said.

Pakistan sees Afghanistan as a vital strategic interest. Obama sent Navy SEALs into Pakistan to kill al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that triggered the war in Afghanistan.

The Taliban government was overthrown by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001 but U.S. forces have been bogged down there ever since. About 2,400 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan.

Trump expanded the U.S. military’s authority for American forces to target militant and criminal networks, warning “that no place is beyond the reach of American arms”.

“Our troops will fight to win,” he said.

Trump’s speech came after a months-long review of U.S. policy in which the president frequently tangled with his top advisers.

He suggested he was hoping for eventual peace talks, and said it might be possible to have a political settlement with elements of the Taliban.

He said he was convinced by his national security advisers to strengthen the U.S. ability to prevent the Taliban from ousting Ghani’s government.

“My original instinct was to pull out,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, David Alexander, Yeganeh Torbati and Jeff Mason in WASHINGTON, Mirwais Harooni in KABUL, and Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR; Writing by Steve Holland and Warren Strobel; Editing by Yara Bayoumy, Peter Cooney and Paul Tait)

U.S. defense secretary in Iraq as troops battle for Tal Afar

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis gives a news conference after a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Vidal/File Photo

By Idrees Ali

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited Iraq on Tuesday just days after the start of an offensive to oust Islamic State from the city of Tal Afar, with talks focused on backing Iraqi efforts to stabilize areas recaptured from the militant group.

Prior to arriving, Mattis said the fight against Islamic State was far from over despite recent successes by Western-backed Iraqi government forces. The battle for Tal Afar would be difficult, U.S. officials said.

Iraqi security forces opened the offensive to take back Tal Afar on Sunday, their latest objective in the war following the recapture of Mosul after a nine-month campaign that left much of the city in ruins.

Lying 80 km (50 miles) west of Mosul in Iraq’s far north, Tal Afar is a long-time stronghold of the hardline Sunni Muslim insurgents,

“ISIS’ days are certainly numbered, but it is not over yet and it is not going to be over anytime soon,” Mattis told reporters in Amman.

Mattis said that after retaking Tal Afar, Iraqi forces would move against the western Euphrates River valley.

Brigadier General Andrew Croft, responsible for coalition air operations over Iraq, said that between 10,000 and 20,000 civilians remained in Tal Afar. The plight of civilians was a big factor in the battle of Mosul as Islamic State tried to keep them areas it controlled to act as human shields against air strikes and artillery bombardments. Several thousand are believed to have been killed.

Croft said that over the past two or three months, he had seen a fracturing in Islamic State leadership.

“It just seems less coordinated. It appears more fractured, less robust, and sort of flimsy, is the word I would use… it is sporadic,” Croft told reporters.

Islamic State leaders fled Mosul during the fighting there and the whereabouts of its chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, are unknown. Unconfirmed reports in the past few months have said he is dead.

Brett McGurk, U.S. special envoy to the coalition, said that while the battle for Tal Afar would be difficult, Iraqi forces had retaken 235 square km (90 miles) in the first 24 hours.

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mattis, who will meet Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defence Minister Arfan al-Hayali, will discuss the future of U.S. forces in Iraq after the recapture of the remaining cities under Islamic State, and the role they could play in stabilizing operations.

The officials said that while big cities like Mosul have been largely been cleared of Islamic State militants, there were concerns about the ability of Iraqi forces to hold territory.

Mattis said pockets of resistance remained in west Mosul, including sleeper cells. Iraqi security forces were capable of carrying out simultaneous operations, he added.

Islamic State is also on the back foot in Syria, where Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition have captured swathes of its territory in the north and are assaulting its main Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

McGurk said about 2,000 Islamic State fighters remained in Raqqa and as much as 60 percent of the city had been retaken.

The jihadist group is now falling back deeper into the Euphrates valley region of eastern Syria.

Mattis said the next step for forces fighting Islamic State in Syria would be a move against the middle Euphrates valley, a reference to the militants’ stronghold in Deir al-Zor province southeast of Raqqa.

KURDISH REFERENDUM

A U.S. official also said Mattis would press Massoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, to call off a planned referendum on independence.

Iraq’s Kurds have said they will hold the referendum on Sept. 25 despite concerns from Iraq’s neighbors who have Kurdish minorities within their borders and a U.S. request to postpone it.

However, a senior Kurdish official said the Kurds may consider the possibility of a postponement in return for financial and political concessions from the central government in Baghdad.

McGurk said the Kurdish delegation’s recent visit to Baghdad was encouraging.

The Pentagon signed an agreement with Peshmerga forces last year to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and equipment.

The U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the memorandum of understanding would expire soon and suggested that Mattis could use it as a bargaining chip.

The United States and other Western nations fear the vote could ignite a new conflict with Baghdad and possibly neighboring countries, diverting attention from the ongoing war against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Iraqi forces prepare to retake Tal Afar from Islamic State militants

Displaced Iraqis from Talafar are seen in Salamya camp, east of Mosul, Iraq August 6, 2017. Picture taken August 6, 2017. REUTERS/Khalid Al-Mousily

By Raya Jalabi and Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Five weeks after securing victory in Mosul, Iraqi forces have moved into positions around the city of Tal Afar, their next objective in the U.S.-backed campaign to defeat Islamic State militants, Iraqi military commanders say.

A longtime stronghold of hardline Sunni insurgents, Tal Afar, 50 miles (80 km) west of Mosul, was cut off from the rest of the Islamic State-held territory in June.

The city is surrounded by Iraqi government troops and Shi’ite volunteers in the south, and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in the north.

About 2,000 battle-hardened militants remain in the city, according to U.S. and Iraqi military commanders. They are expected to put up a tough fight, even though intelligence from inside the city indicates they have been exhausted by months of combat, aerial bombardments, and by the lack of fresh supplies.

Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate all but collapsed last month when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul after a brutal nine-month campaign. But parts of Iraq and Syria remain under its control, including Tal Afar, a city with a pre-war population of about 200,000.

Waves of civilians have fled the city and surrounding villages under cover of darkness for weeks now, although several thousand are estimated to remain, threatened with death by the militants who have held a tight grip there since 2014.

Thousands of troops stand ready at the frontline, awaiting orders from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to start the offensive, Iraqi army Major-General Uthman al-Ghanimi said this week.

TURKEY WORRIES

The main forces deployed around Tal Afar are the Iraqi army, Federal Police and the elite U.S.-trained Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), Iraqi commanders told Reuters.

Units from the Shi’ite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), some of which are trained and armed by Iran, are also likely to take part in the battle, as well as volunteers from Tal Afar fighting alongside government troops, they said.

The involvement of the PMF is likely to worry Turkey, which claims an affinity with the area’s predominantly ethnic Turkmen population.

Tal Afar experienced cycles of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi’ites after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has produced some of Islamic State’s most senior commanders.

Iraqi forces have already begun conducting air strikes aimed at “wearing them down and keeping them busy,” Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said.

The coalition’s targets on Friday included weapons depots and command centers, in preparation for the ground assault.

The war plan provides for the Iraqi forces to gradually close in on the city from three sides — east, west and south — under the cover of air and artillery strikes.

Major General Najm al-Jabouri told Reuters last month he expected an easy fight in Tal Afar. He estimated fewer than 2,000 militants and their families were left there and they were “demoralized and worn down”.

“I don’t expect it will be a fierce battle even though the enemy is surrounded,” al-Jabouri said.

Residents who left Tal Afar last week told Reuters the militants looked exhausted.

“[Fighters] have been using tunnels to move from place to place to avoid air strikes,” said 60-year-old Haj Mahmoud, a retired teacher. “Their faces looked desperate and broken.”

But Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said he “fully expects this to be a difficult fight”.

“Intelligence gathered shows clearly that the remaining fighters are mainly foreign and Arab nationals with their families and that means they will fight until the last breath,” said Colonel Kareem al-Lami from the Iraqi army’s 9th Division.

But Lami said Tal Afar’s open terrain and wide streets will allow tanks and armored vehicles easy passage. Only one part of Tal Afar, Sarai, is comparable to Mosul’s Old City, where Iraqi troops were forced to advance on foot through narrow streets, moving house-to-house in a battle that resulted in the near total destruction of the historic district.

Lieutenant Colonel Salah Abdul Abbas of the 16th Infantry Division, said they were bracing for guerrilla street-fighting fight, based on the lessons learned in West Mosul.

CIVILIANS HAVE FLED

The United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), estimates that about 10,000 to 40,000 people are left in Tal Afar and surrounding villages. Iraqi commanders say the number of people left inside the city itself, including militants and their families, is closer to 5,000.

However, aid groups say they are not expecting a huge civilian exodus as most the city’s former residents have already left.

On Sunday, 2,760 people fleeing Tal Afar and the surrounding area were processed by the IOM before being sent on to displaced persons’ camps.

“We were living in horror and thinking of death at every moment,” Haj Mahmoud, the retired teacher, said. He decided to make a run for it with his wife and four sons and has been living with them at the Hammam al-Alil camp ever since.

Residents spoke of fleeing in the middle of the night to avoid the militants, who shot anyone caught trying to escape.

“We escaped at night, during evening prayers,” said 20-year-old Khalaf. “All the IS fighters were praying at the mosque, so they didn’t catch us. If they had, they would’ve sprayed bullets into our heads”, like they did his neighbors.

Khalaf said he fled five weeks ago with his two children and 40 other people from his village of Kisik. They walked for a full day to reach safety at a Peshmerga checkpoint.

“People in Kisik are completely trapped,” he said. “Those left tell us there’s no water, no food, no bread, no medicines – nothing.” Up until he left, 1kg bag of rice cost roughly $40.

Sultan Abdallah and his family escaped Kisik with Khalaf. They are now all living at the al-Salamiya refugee camp.

“We had spent three months with no food,” said Abdallah. He still has a brother, a cousin and an uncle left in Kisik, but he has not been able to speak to them since he left.

“You were forced to work for the militants to feed your family,” Abdallah said.

Saad al-Bayati fled Tal Afar five days ago with his family, fearing aerial bombardments. He is now living in the Hammam al-Alil camp with his wife and sick baby.

“I heard what happened in Mosul’s Old City, where whole families were killed by air strikes,” al-Bayati said. “I didn’t want to see my family buried under the rubble.”

(Additional reporting by Isabel Coles, Writing by Raya Jalabi, Editing by Angus MacSwan)