Tag Archives: War

France sees Syria opportunity through closer dialogue with Russia

French President Emmanuel Macron walks next to Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian after a meeting about Qatar crisis at the Elysee Place in Paris France, June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

By John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) – France said on Thursday it saw a chance to break the stalemate in Syria’s war as Russia now seemed to accept there could be no military solution and preconditions set by some opponents of President Bashar al-Assad had been dropped.

The election of President Emmanuel Macron has provided an opening for Paris to re-examine its Syria policy, with the view that the previous government’s stance that Assad must step down was too intransigent and an obstacle to peacemaking.

Macron last week reversed France’s stance on the future of Assad, saying he saw no legitimate successor at this time and the priority was to prevent Syria becoming a failed state. The United States has also backed away this year from an insistence on Assad’s departure to allow a political solution.

Assad has held on with Russian and Iranian military support in a six-year war with rebels and Islamist militants that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

New Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has been pushing for closer dialogue with Moscow as Paris also seeks to use the lack of clear U.S. policy on Syria to give itself a greater role.

“I can’t give any details, but I think that there is a window of opportunity at the moment. Like everybody, I think the Russians are conscious that there is no military solution to the conflict,” Le Drian, who was defense minister under Macron’s predecessor Francois Hollande, said in an published interview.

“We should be able to get there with a new method that encompasses establishing robust principles that seem unquestionable, without setting rhetorical preconditions but by creating new bridges between the different actors,” he said.

Le Drian did not explain in the interview with Le Monde what those principles were or what incentives Russia would be given.

France, a supporter of the Syrian opposition until now, has demanded the conflict be resolved through a credible political transition based on U.N. Security Council resolutions negotiated between the warring parties with the United Nations in Geneva.

Le Drian, who held six hours of talks primarily on Syria with Russian officials in Moscow last week and has said the priority for France was weakening the threat from Islamic State militants, made no mention of the those resolutions or Geneva.

He called for diplomatic support from permanent members of the Security Council and regional players. A French diplomat said Paris hoped to create a small contact group that could push peace efforts forward.

French officials said part of the reason why Paris has pushed for renewed dialogue with Russia on Syria is the vacuum left by the United States, which they deem has no clear policy beyond defeating Islamic State.

“The Russians have nobody else. They have no coherent interlocutor. The Russians have nothing else to get their teeth into other than the French,” said a European diplomat.

Syria’s civil war has turned to Assad’s favor since 2015, when Russia sent its jets to help his army and allied Shi’ite militias backed by Iran turned back rebels and won new ground.

But the conflict is far from over, with rebels holding swathes of Syria, especially in the northwest and southeast, and Islamic State controlling other areas in the north and east.

(Reporting by John Irish; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Iraq declares end of caliphate after capture historic Mosul mosque

Smoke billows from the Islamic State militants positions after an artillery attack by Iraqi forces. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government troops on Thursday captured the mosque in Mosul from where Islamic State proclaimed its self-styled caliphate three years ago, the Iraqi military said.

Seizing the 850 year-old Grand al-Nuri Mosque hands a symbolic victory to the Iraqi forces who have been battling for more than eight month to recapture Mosul, the northern city that served as Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq.

“Their fictitious state has fallen,” an Iraqi military spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, told state TV.

The insurgents blew up the medieval mosque and its famed leaning minaret a week ago as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces started a push in its direction. Their black flag had been flying from al-Hadba (The Hunchback) minaret, since June 2014.

Iraqi authorities expect the battle to end in the coming days as Islamic State has been bottled up in a handful of neighborhoods of the Old City.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi “issued instructions to bring the battle to its conclusion,” his office said on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Iraqi forces seize more ground in Mosul from Islamic State, PM sees victory soon

A member of Iraqi Federal Police carries his weapon at the frontline in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces on Tuesday pushed towards the river side of Mosul’s Old City, their key target in the eight-month campaign to capture Islamic State’s de-facto capital, and Iraq’s prime minister predicted victory very soon.

Iraqi forces, battling up to 350 militants dug in among civilians in the Old City, said federal police had dislodged IS insurgents from the Ziwani mosque and were only a few days away from ousting militants completely from the Old City.

“The victory announcement will come in a very short time,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on his website on Monday evening.

“The operation is continuing to free the remaining parts of the Old City,” Lieutenant General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) told a Reuters correspondent near the frontline in the heart of the Old City.

Iraqi forces had about 600 meters (2,000 ft) of ground left to cover before reaching Mosul’s Corniche road along the western bank of the Tigris, federal police commander Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat told Iraqi State TV.

“In a few days our forces will reach Corniche and bring the battle to its conclusion,” said Jawdat.

The fall of the northern Iraqi city would mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” proclaimed by Islamic State, though the militant group remains in control of large areas of both Iraq and Syria.

In Syria, the Islamic State-held capital of Raqqa, is virtually encircled by a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition.

Federal police and elite CTS units in Mosul were battling with IS fighters in the Old City’s maze of narrow alleyways, along with the army and interior ministry units.

Islamic State has lost about half the Old City since the battle for the historic district started ten days ago. About one sq km (0.4 sq mile) remained under its control, according to Iraqi state TV.

The army’s 16th infantry division seized on Tuesday the al-Mashahda quarter, in the northwestern corner of the Old City, and federal police took al-Bayd and Ras al-Jadda, in the southwestern quarter, military statements said.

Up to 350 militants are estimated by the Iraqi military to be dug in the Old City among civilians in wrecked houses and crumbling infrastructure. They are trying to slow the advance of Iraqi forces by laying booby traps and using suicide bombers and snipers.

Those residents who have escaped say many of the civilians trapped behind Islamic State lines — put at 50,000 by the Iraqi military – are in a desperate situation with little food, water or medicines.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support in the eight-month-old offensive.

HUMAN SHIELDS

The Iraqi government once hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but fighting has dragged on as militants have reinforced positions in civilian areas, effectively using residents as human shields.

Hundreds of civilians who managed to escape as the forces advanced into the Old City gathered on the side of the road at the edge of western Mosul on Tuesday.

But hundreds of civilians have been killed in the past month as they tried to flee the Old City.

The militants last week destroyed the historic Grand al-Nuri Mosque and its leaning minaret from which their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria three years ago. The mosque’s grounds remain under the militants’ control.

Iraqi troops on Monday captured the al-Faruq quarter, facing the mosque, the military said.

Only a handful of districts remained to be cleared, al-Saadi said, standing atop a rooftop overlooking al-Faruq street which now marks the frontline, a few dozen meters (yards) from the old mosque.

Sporadic sniper fire could be heard, and an incoming rocket, as the troops used a drone to survey the insurgents’ defenses. The Iraqi forces started attacking the western side of Mosul in February, a month after taking the side located east of the Tigris.

About 850,000 people, more than a third of Mosul’s pre-war population, have fled, seeking refuge with relatives or in camps, according to aid groups.

Islamic State’s Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is assumed to be hiding on the Iraqi-Syrian border. There has been no confirmation of Russian reports over the past days that he has been killed.

The group has carried out sporadic suicide bombings in parts of Mosul using sleeper cells. It launched a wave of such attacks late on Sunday, trying to take control of a district west of the Old City, Hay al-Tanak, and the nearby Yarmuk quarter.

Security forces blocked their attempted fight-back, al-Saadi said.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Turkey returns fire on YPG in Syria, warplanes hit militants in Iraq

FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the Kurdish city of Afrin, northwest Syria March 18, 2015. REUTERS/Mahmoud Hebbo/File Photo

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish forces retaliated with an artillery barrage overnight and destroyed Kurdish YPG militia targets after the group’s fighters opened fire on Turkey-backed forces in northern Syria, the military said on Wednesday.

It said Turkish warplanes separately struck Kurdish militants in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing seven fighters from the PKK group which Ankara says is closely linked to the YPG.

The strikes came after Turkey’s defense minister warned that Ankara would retaliate against any threatening moves by the YPG and after reports that Turkey was reinforcing its military presence in northern Syria.

The United States supports the YPG in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, while NATO ally Turkey regards them as terrorists indistinguishable from militants from the outlawed PKK which is carrying out an insurgency in southeast Turkey.

Turkey’s army said YPG machine-gun fire on Tuesday evening targeted Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army elements in the Maranaz area south of the town of Azaz in northern Syria.

“Fire support vehicles in the region were used to retaliate in kind against the harassing fire and the identified targets were destroyed/neutralised,” the military statement said.

The boom of artillery fire could be heard overnight from the Turkish border town of Kilis, broadcaster Haberturk said. It was not clear whether there were casualties in the exchange of fire.

Ankara was angered by a U.S. decision in June to arm the YPG in the battle for Islamic State’s Raqqa stronghold. President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that nations which promised to get back weapons from the YPG once Islamic State were defeated were trying to trick Turkey.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday left open the possibility of longer-term assistance to the YPG, saying the U.S. may need to supply them weapons and equipment even after the capture of Raqqa.

Ankara considers the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is deemed a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The PKK has carried out an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and more than 40,000 people, most of them Kurds, have died in the fighting.

Turkish warplanes on Wednesday morning destroyed PKK shelters and gun positions during air strikes in the Avasin-Basyan area of northern Iraq, killing seven militants planning an attack on Turkish border outposts, an army statement said.

Faced with turmoil across its southern border, Turkey last year sent troops into Syria to support Free Syrian Army rebels fighting both Islamic State and Kurdish forces who control a large part of Syria’s northern border region.

Erdogan has said Turkey would not flinch from taking tougher action against the YPG in Syria if Turkey believed it needed to.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun, Tulay Karadeniz and Omer Berberoglu, Writing by Daren Butler and David Dolan,; Editing by Ed Osmond and Richard Balmforth)

Syrian Observatory says 30 killed in east Syria air strike

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an air strike early on Wednesday killed at least 30 civilians and injured dozens more in a village held by Islamic State in eastern Syria.

The strike, in al-Dablan, about 20 km (13 miles) southeast of al-Mayadeen on the west bank of the Euphrates, is the second in 48 hours that the Observatory says has killed dozens of people.

The identity of the jets that carried out the air strike was not known, the Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor, said.

Both a U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, and the Syrian military backed by Russia, have targeted the jihadist group in cities and towns along the Euphrates valley.

On Monday a coalition airstrike in al-Mayadeen hit a building used by Islamic State as a prison, killing 57 people, the Observatory said on Tuesday.

The coalition did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether its jets carried out Wednesday’s strike in al-Dablan. On Tuesday it said it had hit targets in al-Mayadeen the previous day in a mission “meticulously planned” to avoid harming civilians.

It says it takes great pains to avoid harming or killing civilians and investigates all reports that it has done so. The Syrian government and Russia also deny targeting civilians.

The coalition is supporting an offensive by Kurdish and Arab militias against Islamic State’s besieged Syrian capital of Raqqa, 200 km (150 miles) northwest of al-Dablan up the Euphrates.

Syria’s army and its allies are pushing through the desert to relieve their own besieged Euphrates enclave in Deir al-Zor, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of al-Dablan. U.S. intelligence officials have said Islamic State has relocated its leadership to al-Mayadeen.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Philippines says bodies of beheaded civilians found in rebel-held town

An explosion is seen after Philippines army airstrike as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group in Marawi City, Philippines June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

By Kanupriya Kapoor

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – The decapitated bodies of five civilians have been found in a Philippine city occupied by Islamist rebels, the military said on Wednesday, warning the number of residents killed by rebel “atrocities” could rise sharply as troops retake more ground.

The discovery of the five victims among 17 other bodies retrieved would be the first evidence that civilians trapped in besieged Marawi City have been decapitated during the five-week stand by militants loyal to the Islamic State group, as some who escaped the city have previously reported.

Lieutenant Colonel Emmanuel Garcia of the Western Mindanao Command said in a text message to reporters the five decapitated were found with the other 17 civilians killed by militants.

Garcia did not respond immediately to repeated requests for more details.

It was not clear when the bodies were found. A civilian rescue worker, Abdul Azis Lomondot, told Reuters earlier there were body parts found on Wednesday, but there was “no proof of beheading”.

The battle for Marawi entered its 36th day on Wednesday, with intense gunfights and bombing in the heart of the town and black-clad fighters seen from afar running between buildings as explosions rang out. Marawi is on southern Mindanao island.

The rebels’ hold on Marawi, while incurring the full force of a military for years trained by its U.S. counterparts, has much of the region on edge, concerned that Islamic State’s influence may run deeper than thought.

Those fears are also being felt in Malaysia and Indonesia, whose nationals are among the Maute group of rebels fighting in Marawi, suggesting the group may have built a cross-border network that has gone largely undetected.

Military spokesman Restituto Padilla said it was likely that many civilians had been killed and the death toll – already at 27 before the latest 17 were announced – was only what the authorities could confirm independently. He said a “significant number” of dead had been seen by those who had escaped fighting.

“(It) may increase significantly once we are able to validate all this information,” Padilla told reporters.

“There have been a significant number that have been seen but again, we cannot include many of these,” he said.

Padilla said the cause of those deaths would be “atrocities committed by the terrorists”.

Among those atrocities, the army says, have been residents being forced to loot homes, take up arms, or become sex slaves.

Philippines army soldiers return from an operation to retrieve bodies of casualties from the fighting zone in Marawi City, Philippines June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

Philippines army soldiers return from an operation to retrieve bodies of casualties from the fighting zone in Marawi City, Philippines June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

SEVERE IMPACT

Videos have appeared this month on the website of Islamic State’s Amaq news agency and its social media channels of hostages in Marawi pleading for their lives, saying they would be beheaded if air strikes were not stopped. Clips have also appeared of people on their knees, shot in the head from behind.

Reuters was unable to confirm the authenticity of the reports.

The military has so far been reluctant to discuss the possibility that the real impact of the fighting on civilians could be far more severe than has been reported.

It has played down the impact of daily air strikes and mortar assaults aimed at rebel sniper positions, which have reduced areas of the lakeside town to rubble and alarmed people stuck there, some of whom have said the shelling was a bigger threat than the militants.

Disaster officials are keen to start dangerous missions to recover what they believe are large numbers of bodies in the streets near the conflict zone.

President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday he was prepared from the outset for a long fight against a well-armed Maute motivated only by murder and destruction.

“It seems to be limitless supply. They were able to stockpile their arms,” he said.

“Some of those who traveled to the Middle East got contaminated, brought the ideology back home and promised to declare war against humanity.”

Military spokesman Padilla called for patience and said troops needed more time to flush out the gunmen and secure the city.

“Our combat environment is sensitive. First, there are trapped civilians that we have to protect. They also have hostages and third, there are many traps so we have to clear buildings slowly,” he said.

Some 71 security forces and 299 militants have been killed and 246,000 people displaced in the conflict, which erupted after a failed attempt on May 23 to arrest a Filipino militant commander backed by Islamic State’s leadership.

For graphic on battle of Marawi, click: http://tmsnrt.rs/2sqmHDf

(Additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales in MANILA; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel and Paul Tait)

Hostages in Philippines siege forced to fight, loot, become sex slaves: army

An explosion is seen after a Philippines army aircraft released a bomb during an airstrike as government troops continue their assault against insurgents from the Maute group in Marawi city June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

By Kanupriya Kapoor

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Civilians held hostage by Islamist militants occupying a southern Philippine city have been forced by their captors to loot homes, take up arms against government troops and serve as sex slaves for rebel fighters, the army said on Tuesday.Citing accounts of seven residents of Marawi City who either escaped or were rescued, the military said some hostages were forced to convert to Islam, carry wounded fighters to mosques, and marry militants of the Maute group loyal to Islamic State.

“So they are being forced to be sex slaves, forced to destroy the dignity of these women,” military spokesman Jo-Ar Herrera told a news conference.

“So this is what is happening inside, this is very evident … these are evil personalities.”

Their accounts, which could not be immediately verified, are the latest harrowing stories to come out of a conflict zone that the military has been unable to penetrate for five weeks, as well-armed and organized rebels fight off soldiers with sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Some escapees say bodies of residents have been left in the streets, some for weeks, and civilians are distressed by government air strikes and artillery bombardments that have reduced parts of Marawi to rubble.

The protracted seizure has worried the region about the extent the Islamic State’s agenda may have gained traction in the southern Philippines, which is more used to banditry, piracy and separatism than radical Islam.

The rebels’ combat capability, access to heavy weapons and use of foreign fighters has raised fears in the mainly Catholic country that the Marawi battle could just be the start of a wider campaign, and be presented by Maute as a triumph to aid their recruitment efforts.

Heavy clashes broke out on Tuesday as the battle entered its sixth week, with intense bombings by planes on a shrinking rebel zone.

NO NEGOTIATIONS

The government ruled out negotiations after reports that Abdullah Maute, one of two brothers who formed the militant group carrying their name, wanted to trade a Catholic priest hostage for his parents arrested earlier this month.

The military said on Saturday Abdullah Maute had fled.

Taking advantage of a short truce to mark the Eid al-Fitr Islamic holiday, eight Muslim leaders met briefly on Sunday with Maute. The Philippine Daily Inquirer said he had asked for his father, Cayamora Maute, and influential businesswoman mother, Farhana Maute, to be freed, in a swap for Father Teresito “Chito” Soganub.

But presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said deals with militants were against government policy, and anyone trying to bargain had no authority to do so.

“The local religious leader-led talks with terrorists last Sunday was one not sanctioned,” Abella told reporters.

“Any demands made inside, therefore, hold no basis. Let us remind the public, the gravity of the terrorists and their supporters’ offences is immense.”

The military’s public relations machine has been insisting that the rebel leadership was crumbling, saying top commanders had escaped or were killed in action, and the group was fraught with infighting, even executing their own men for wanting to surrender.

Military officers, however, accept they lack solid proof of such developments and were working to verify intelligence reports.

The army said there were reported sightings of the departure from the battle of Isnilon Hapilon, Islamic State’s anointed Southeast Asian “emir”, which Abella said showed he was not committed to his cause.

“It would be a clear sign of his cowardice,” Abella said of Hapilon.

“It may only be a matter of time before they disintegrate.”

Fighting has raged in the town since an operation to arrest Hapilon went wrong on May 23, leading to the government losing not just Hapilon, but control of Marawi.

Official figures show 70 servicemen, 27 civilians and 290 militants have since been killed and 246,000 people displaced.

(Additional reporting by Martin Petty and Karen Lema in MANILA; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S. threatens Syria, says Assad is planning chemical weapons attack

FILE PHOTO: 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

By Jeff Mason and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday that he and his military would “pay a heavy price” if it conducted a chemical weapons attack and said the United States had reason to believe such preparations were underway.

The White House said in a statement released late on Monday the preparations by Syria were similar to those undertaken before an April 4 chemical attack that killed dozens of civilians and prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to order a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base.

“The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

“If … Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price,” he said.

White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on potential U.S. plans or the intelligence that prompted the statement about Syria’s preparations for an attack.

Trump, who took to Twitter not long after the statement went out, focused his attention on a Fox News report related to former President Barack Obama and the 2016 election rather than developments in Syria.

Trump ordered the strike on the Shayrat airfield in Syria in April in reaction to what Washington said was a poison gas attack by Assad’s government that killed 87 people in rebel-held territory. Syria denied it carried out the attack.

Assad said in an interview with the AFP news agency earlier this year that the alleged April attack was “100 percent fabrication” used to justify a U.S. air strike.

The strike was the toughest direct U.S. action yet in Syria’s six-year-old civil war, raising the risk of confrontation with Russia and Iran, Assad’s two main military backers.

‘ABNORMAL ACTIVITY’

U.S. and allied intelligence officers had for some time identified several sites where they suspected the Assad government may have been hiding newly made chemical weapons from inspectors, said one U.S. official familiar with the intelligence.

The assessment was based in part on the locations, security surrounding the suspect sites and other information which the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to describe.

The White House warning, the official said, was based on new reports of what was described as abnormal activity that might be associated with preparations for a chemical attack.

Although the intelligence was not considered conclusive, the administration quickly decided to issue the public warning to the Assad regime about the consequences of another chemical attack on civilians in an attempt to deter such a strike, said the official, who declined to discuss the issue further.

At the time of the April strike, U.S. officials called the intervention a “one-off” intended to deter future chemical weapons attacks and not an expansion of the U.S. role in the Syrian war.

The United States has taken a series of actions over the past three months demonstrating its willingness to carry out strikes, mostly in self-defense, against Syrian government forces and their backers, including Iran.

The United States ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Twitter: “Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people.”

Washington has repeatedly struck Iranian-backed militia and even shot down a drone threatening U.S.-led coalition forces since the April military strike. The U.S. military also shot down a Syrian jet earlier this month.

Trump has also ordered stepped-up military operations against the Islamic State militant group and delegated more authority to his generals.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and John Walcott; Additional reporting by Eric Beech, Patricia Zengerle, and Michelle Nichols; Writing by Yara Bayoumy and Jeff Mason; Editing by Paul Tait)

Iraqi forces free hundreds of civilians in Mosul Old City battles as death toll mounts

Displaced civilians from Mosul's Old City, the last district in the hands of Islamic State militants, flee during fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq June 24, 2017. REUTERS/Marius Bosch

By Marius Bosch

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces opened exit routes for hundreds of civilians to flee the Old City of Mosul on Saturday as they battled to retake the ancient quarter from Islamic State militants mounting a last stand in what was the de facto capital of their “caliphate”.

U.S.-trained urban warfare units were channeling their onslaught along two perpendicular streets that converge in the heart of the Old City, aiming to isolate the jihadist insurgents in four pockets.

The United Nations voiced alarm on Saturday at the rising death toll among civilians in the heavily populated Old City, saying as many as 12 were killed and hundreds injured on Friday.

“Fighting is very intense in the Old City and civilians are at extreme, almost unimaginable risk. There are reports that thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of people are being held as human shields (by Islamic State),” Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement. “Hundreds of civilians, including children, are being shot.”

Iraqi authorities are hoping to declare victory in the northern Iraqi city in the Muslim Eid holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, during the next few days.

Helicopter gunships were assisting the ground thrust, firing at insurgent emplacements in the Old City, a Reuters correspondent reported from a location near the front lines.

The government advance was carving out escape corridors for civilians marooned behind Islamic State lines.

There was a steady trickle of fleeing families on Saturday, some with injured and malnourished children. “My baby only had bread and water for the past eight days,” one mother said.

At least 100 civilians reached the safety of a government-held area west of the Old City in one 20-minute period, tired, scared and hungry. Soldiers gave them food and water.

More than 100,000 civilians, of whom half are believed to be children, remain trapped in the crumbling old houses of the Old City, with little food, water or medical treatment.

The urban-warfare forces were leading the campaign to clear the Sunni Islamist militants from the maze of Old City alleyways, moving on foot house-to-house in locations too cramped for the use of armored combat vehicles.

Aid organizations and Iraqi authorities say Islamic State was trying to prevent civilians from leaving so as to use them as human shields. Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old City have been killed in the past three weeks.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing ground and air support in the eight-month-old campaign to seize Mosul, the largest city the militants came to control in a shock offensive in Iraq and neighboring Syria three years ago.

U.S.-supported Iraqi government offensives have wrested back several important urban centers in the country’s west and north from Islamic State over the past 18 months.

HISTORIC MOSQUE BLOWN UP BY MILITANTS

Military analysts said Baghdad’s campaign to recover Mosul gathered pace after Islamic State blew up the 850-year-old al-Nuri mosque with its famous leaning minaret on Wednesday.

The mosque’s destruction, while condemned by Iraqi and U.N. authorities as another cultural crime by the jihadists, gave troops more freedom to press their onslaught as they no longer had to worry about damaging the ancient site.

It was from the mosque that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced himself to the world for the first time as the “caliph”, or ruler of all Muslims, on July 4, 2014. Mosul’s population at the time was more than 2 million.

Baghdadi fled into the desert expanse extending across Iraq and Syria in the early phase of the Mosul offensive, leaving the fighting there to local IS commanders, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. Recent Russian reports that he was killed have not been confirmed by the coalition or Iraqi authorities.

The Iraqi government once hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign dragged on as IS reinforced positions in inner-city neighborhoods of the city’s western half, carried out suicide car and motorbike bomb attacks, laid booby traps and kept up barrages of sniper and mortar fire.

By this weekend, the area still under IS control was less than 2 square km (0.77 sq miles) in extent, skirting the western bank of the Tigris River that bisects Mosul.

Islamic State retaliated for government advances on Friday evening with a triple bombing in a neighborhood in eastern Mosul, which Baghdad’s forces recaptured in January.

The attack was carried out by three people who detonated explosive belts, killing five, including three policemen, and wounding 19, according to a military statement on Saturday.

The fall of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi half of Islamic State’s “caliphate” as a quasi-state structure, but IS would still hold sizeable, mainly rural and small-town tracts of both Iraq and Syria.

In eastern Syria, Islamic State’s so-called capital, Raqqa, is now nearly encircled by a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led coalition.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Anger in Mosul as Islamic State destroys historic mosque

A still image taken from video shows the destroyed Grand al-Nuri Mosque of Mosul in Iraq, June 21, 2017. Iraqi Military Handout/via Reuters TV

By Kawa Omar and Ahmed Rasheed

MOSUL/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) – The leaning al-Hadba minaret that towered over Mosul for 850 years lay in ruins on Thursday, demolished by retreating Islamic State militants, but Iraq’s prime minister said the act marked their final defeat in the city.

“In the early morning, I climbed up to the roof of my house and was stunned to see the Hadba minaret had gone,” Nashwan, a day-laborer who lives near the mosque, said by phone. “I felt I had lost a son of mine.”

His words echoed the shock and anger of many over the destruction of the Grand al-Nuri Mosque along with its famous minaret, known affectionately as “the hunchback” by Iraqis.

The demolition came on Wednesday night as Iraqi forces closed in on the mosque, which carried enormous symbolic importance for Islamic State (IS).

It was there that its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” as militants seized swathes of Syria and Iraq. He proclaimed himself the caliph, ruler of all Muslims, from the mosque’s pulpit.

His black flag had been flying on the 150-foot (45-metre) minaret since June 2014, after Islamic State fighters surged across Iraq.

Russia said on Thursday there was a high degree of certainty Baghdadi was dead, according to RIA news agency. Moscow said last week its forces might have killed him, but Western and Iraqi officials are skeptical.

Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is believed to be hiding in the border area between Iraq and Syria.

LIBERATION “IN DAYS”

Some analysts said the destruction of the mosque could in fact speed the advance of government forces, which had been slowed by fear of damaging it.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi went further. “Blowing up the al-Hadba minaret and the al-Nuri mosque amounts to an official acknowledgement of defeat,” he said on his website.

“It’s a matter of a few days and we will announce the total liberation of Mosul,” he later told reporters in Baghdad, pledging to rebuild the mosque and other historical sites destroyed by the insurgents.

The jihadists appear to have chosen to blow up the mosque rather than see their flag torn down by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces battling through the maze of narrow alleys and streets of the Old City, the last district of Mosul still under the control of Islamic State.

In the dawn light, all that remained was the base projecting from shattered masonry. A video on social media showed the minaret collapsing vertically, throwing up a pall of sand and dust.

Defense analysts said the decision to destroy the mosque could indicate the militants were on the verge of collapse.

“They had said they would fight until their last breath defending the mosque,” Baghdad-based security expert Safaa al-A’sam told Reuters. “The fact is that they are no longer capable of standing in the face of Iraqi government forces.”

The minaret had seven bands of decorative brickwork in a type of complex geometric pattern also found in Persia and Central Asia. Its tilt and the lack of maintenance made it particularly vulnerable to blasts.

U.S. Army Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led international coalition assisting the Iraqi effort to defeat Islamic State, said Iraqi security forces were continuing to push into remaining IS-held territory.

“There are two square kilometers left in West Mosul before the entire city is liberated,” he told Reuters by phone.

The fall of Mosul would mark the effective end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate”, though Islamic State would still hold some territory west and south of the city. U.S.-backed militias are also closing on Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold, Raqqa.

“SYMBOL OF IDENTITY”

The United Nations’ education organization UNESCO said the Mosul minaret and mosque “stood as a symbol of identity, resilience and belonging” and it deplored their destruction.

The mosque was named after Nuruddin al-Zanki, a noble who fought the early crusaders from a fiefdom that covered territory in modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

The mosque’s military and religious history embodied the spirit of Mosul, a city which supplied Iraq’s armed forces with officers for much of the 20th century.

With the fall of Saddam Hussein in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the Sunni city balked at its loss of influence and some local people joined the insurgency against the new Shi’ite rulers of the country.

When Islamic State swept into Mosul in June 2014, they were welcomed by those who saw the takeover as promising an end to harsh treatment by Shi’ite-led security forces.

The mosque’s destruction comes in the holiest period of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, its final 10 days. The night of Laylat al-Qadr falls during this period, when Muslims believe the Koran was revealed to the prophet Mohammed.

Islamic State fighters have destroyed many Muslim religious sites and Christian churches and shrines, as well as ancient Assyrian and Roman-era sites in Iraq and in Syria.

“Many different enemies controlled Mosul over the past 900 years but none of them dared to destroy the Hadba,” said Ziad, an art student in Mosul.

“By bombing the minaret, they proved they are the worst of all barbarian groups in history.”

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Ralph Boulton and Andrew Roche)