Tag Archives: Middle East

Hamas picks new deputy chief whom Israel blames for helping spark Gaza war

GAZA (Reuters) – The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas named as its new deputy chief on Thursday a formerly Turkey-based commander whom Israel has accused of orchestrating a lethal triple kidnapping that helped trigger the 2014 Gaza war.

Saleh al-Arouri’s promotion comes as Hamas seeks to close ranks with U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after a decade-old schism, in an entente Israel says will not revive peace talks unless Hamas recognizes its right to exist and disarms.

The Palestinian Information Center, a Hamas-linked news site, said Arouri, who was born in the occupied West Bank and was exiled by Israel in 2010 after long stints in its prisons, had been elected as deputy to the group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh.

“He (Arouri) is now the Hamas movement’s No. 2 man,” the site said. “Twenty-three years of detention and expulsion have not weakened the resolve of the leader Saleh al-Arouri, 51.”

After three Israeli teens were abducted and killed in the West Bank in June 2014, Arouri – then in Istanbul – claimed responsibility in the name of Hamas.

Israel responded with a West Bank security sweep which, along with the revenge killing of a Palestinian youth from Jerusalem by a group of Israelis, spiraled into a 50-day war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas’ fiefdom. Gaza health officials say 2,100 Palestinians were killed in the conflict, while Israel put the number of its dead at 67 soldiers and six civilians.

Israel also pressed Ankara’s Islamist-rooted government to crack down on Arouri, describing him as the mastermind of the kidnappings and other Hamas militant attacks.

Hamas sources said Arouri left Turkey in late 2015 for Qatar and later Lebanon. They declined to give his current location.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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)

Syria fighting worst since Aleppo, civilian casualties mount: ICRC

Smoke rises at the positions of the Islamic State militants after an air strike by the coalition forces near the stadium in Raqqa, Syria, October 4, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

GENEVA (Reuters) – The worst fighting since the battle for eastern Aleppo last year is raging in several regions of Syria, causing hundreds of civilian casualties, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday.

Up to 10 hospitals have been reportedly damaged in the past 10 days, cutting off hundreds of thousands of people from access to health care, the aid agency said in a statement voicing alarm at the situation from Raqqa to Idlib and eastern Ghouta.

“For the past two weeks, we have seen an increasingly worrying spike in military operations that correlates with high levels of civilian casualties,” said Marianne Gasser, head of the ICRC’s delegation in Syria. “My colleagues report harrowing stories, like a family of 13 who fled Deir al-Zor only to lose ten of its members to airstrikes and explosive devices along the way.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay”, editing by Tom Miles)

Khamenei says Iran, Turkey must act against Kurdish secession: TV

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani are seen during a joint news conference in Tehran, Iran, October 4, 2017. Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Parisa Hafezi and Tulay Karadeniz

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran and Turkey should prevent Iraq’s Kurdistan region from declaring independence, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday after meeting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran, state TV reported.

Relations have generally been cool between Shi’ite Iran and mainly Sunni Turkey, a NATO member. But both have been alarmed by the Iraqi Kurds’ vote for independence last month, fearing it will stoke separatism among their own Kurdish populations.

“Turkey and Iran must take necessary measures against the vote … and Baghdad should make serious decisions … serious and rapid decisions must be taken,” Khamenei was quoted as saying.

“The Iraqi Kurdish secession vote is an act of betrayal toward the entire region and a threat to its future.”

Iran and Turkey have already threatened to join Baghdad in imposing economic sanctions on Iraqi Kurdistan and have launched joint military exercises with Iraqi troops on their borders with the separatist region.

Erdogan, who was on a one-day trip to Tehran, said earlier that Ankara was considering taking further measures against Iraqi Kurdistan.

“We have already said we don’t recognize the referendum in northern Iraq… We have taken some measures already with Iran and the Iraqi central government, but stronger steps will be taken,” he said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Erdogan vowed to work closely together to prevent the disintegration of Iraq and Syria and to oppose the Iraqi Kurds’ drive for independence.

“We want security and stability in the Middle East … The referendum in Iraq’s Kurdistan is a sectarian plot by foreign countries and is rejected by Tehran and Ankara,” Rouhani said, according to state TV.

“We will not accept a change of borders under any circumstances.”

KHAMENEI BLAMES ISRAEL, U.S.

Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region said on Tuesday it was calling presidential and parliamentary elections for Nov. 1. Baghdad responded by announcing further punitive measures.

The central government, its neighbors and Western powers fear the vote in favor of secession could spark another, wider conflict in the Middle East region to add to the war in Syria. They fear it could derail the fight against Islamic State.

The Kurds are the region’s fourth-largest ethnic group, spread across Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq, all of which oppose any moves toward a Kurdish state.

Khamenei accused Iran’s arch foe the United States of planning to create a new Israel in the Middle East by supporting the Kurdish vote in Iraq.

“America and Israel benefit from the vote … America and foreign powers are unreliable and seek to create a new Israel in the region,” he said.

The United States opposed the referendum as a destabilizing move at a time when all sides in the region are still fighting Islamic State.

Erdogan, whose security forces have been embroiled in a decades-long battle with Kurdish separatists in southeast Turkey, repeated his accusation that Israel was behind the Iraqi Kurds’ referendum.

“There is no country other than Israel that recognizes it. A referendum which was conducted by sitting side by side with Mossad has no legitimacy,” he said, referring to the Israeli intelligence agency.

Israel has denied Turkey’s previous claims of involvement in the vote, but has welcomed the Kurds’ vote for independence.

Rouhani also said that Tehran and Ankara planned to expand economic ties. “Turkey will import more gas from Iran… Meetings will be held to discuss the details,” he said.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu, Dirimcan Barut, Daren Butler; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Islamic State’s last stronghold in northern Iraq falls

Islamic State's last stronghold in northern Iraq falls

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces have captured Islamic State’s last stronghold in northern Iraq, the military said on Thursday, leaving the militant group holed up in pockets of land by the Syrian border, across which its self-proclaimed “caliphate” once stretched.

The town of Hawija and the surrounding areas were captured in an offensive carried out by U.S.-backed Iraqi government troops and Iranian-trained and armed Shi’ite paramilitary groups known as Popular Mobilisation.

Some fighting continued to the north and east of the town where the militants were surrounded.

With the fall of Hawija, which lies near the Kurdish-held oil city of Kirkuk, the only area that remains under control of Islamic State in Iraq is a stretch alongside the western border with Syria, where the militant group is also in retreat.

“The army’s 9th armored division, the Federal Police, the Emergency Response division and (..) Popular Mobilisation liberated Hawija,” said a statement from the joint operations commander, Lieutenant-General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah.

State TV showed footage of Iraqi forces putting flags in one of the town’s main squares while Humvees patrolled empty streets littered with car wrecks, houses riddled with bullets and shattered storefronts.

Thick black smoke continued to rise from areas surrounding Hawija, from oil wells torched by the militants to prevent air detection.

The capture of Hawija brings Iraqi forces into direct contact with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who control Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic region claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Kirkuk shaped up as a flashpoint last month when the KRG included the city in a referendum on Kurdish independence in northern Iraq.

“We don’t want any aggression or confrontations but the federal authority must be imposed in the disputed areas,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told a news conference in Paris, held with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Abadi renewed an offer to jointly administrate Kirkuk with the Peshmerga, but under the authority of the central government. The Kurds took control of Kirkuk in 2014, when the Iraqi army fled in the face of Islamic State’s advance.

Arab and Turkmen communities live alongside a large Kurdish population in Kirkuk, a city claimed by the Kurds for over a century as the “heart of Kurdistan”.

Iraq launched its offensive on Sept. 21 to dislodge Islamic State from the Hawija area, where up to 78,000 people were estimated to be trapped, according to the United Nations.

The militants continue to control the border town of al-Qaim and the region surrounding it.

They also hold parts of the Syrian side of the border, but the area under their control is shrinking as they retreat in the face of two different 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 grueling battle which lasted nine months.

The militants’ leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared the caliphate from Mosul in mid-2014, released an audio recording last week that indicated he was alive, after several reports he had been killed.

He called on his followers to keep up the fight despite the setbacks.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Iraqi forces in final assault to take Hawija from Islamic State

Iraqi forces in final assault to take Hawija from Islamic State

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces launched a final assault on Wednesday to capture the town of Hawija, one of two pockets of territory in Iraq still under Islamic State control, the country’s military said in a statement.

Iraqi state TV broadcast live footage showing the area covered by thick black smoke, rising from oil wells torched by the militants as a tactic to prevent air detection. Hawija is located near the oil city of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq.

The offensive on Hawija is being carried out by U.S.-backed Iraqi government troops and Iranian-trained and armed Shi’ite paramilitary groups known as Popular Mobilisation.They began moving on the town of Hawija two days after capturing the Rashad air base, 30 km (20 miles) to the south and used by the militants as a training and logistics site.

Iraq launched an offensive on Sept. 21 to dislodge Islamic State from Hawija and surrounding areas where up to 78,000 people could be trapped, according to the United Nations.

Iraqi security officials say the militants are preventing some residents from leaving, while others are afraid of escaping towards government forces because of explosives that might have been laid by Islamic State around the town.

The other area of the country still under the control of the militant group is a stretch of land along the Syrian border, in western Iraq, including the border town of al-Qaim.

The militants also hold the Syrian side of the border at al-Qaim, but the area under their control is shrinking as they retreat in the face of two different 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 grueling battle which lasted nine months.

The militants’ leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared the caliphate from Mosul in mid-2014, released an audio recording last week that indicated he was still alive. He called on his followers to keep up the fight despite the setbacks.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Catherine Evans)

U.N. says 78,000 civilians could be trapped in Iraq’s Hawija

U.N. says 78,000 civilians could be trapped in Iraq's Hawija

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Up to 78,000 people could be trapped in Islamic State-held Hawija in northern Iraq, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as security forces push to recapture the town.

Iraq started an offensive on Sept. 21 to seize Hawija, which fell to the hands of militants after the Iraqi army collapsed in 2014 in the face of the Islamic State offensive and remains the last militant-held town in the country’s north.

U.N. humanitarian spokesman Jens Laerke said the number of people who have fled the fighting has increased from 7,000 people during the first week of the operation to some 12,500 people now. But up to 78,000 remain trapped, he said.

Iraqi security officials say the militants prevent some residents from leaving, while others are afraid of escaping toward government forces because of the explosives that might have been laid by Islamic State around the town.

“We remain concerned for the lives and well-being of these vulnerable civilians and remind those doing the fighting that civilians must be protected at all times and allowed to safely leave Hawija,” Laerke said.

Laerke said more people were expected to flee the fighting in areas around Hawija in the next 24 to 48 hours as security forces push into more densely populated areas.

Hawija, north of Baghdad, and a stretch of land along the Syrian border, west of the Iraqi capital, are the last stretches of territory in Iraq still in the hands of Islamic State.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Alison Williams)

Afghan Shi’ites fear further attacks on Ashura celebrations

File Photo - Afghan security forces inspect at the site of a suicide attack near a large Shi'ite mosque, Kabul, Afghanistan. September 29, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

KABUL (Reuters) – The Afghan capital Kabul braced on Saturday for further possible attacks ahead of Ashura, the holiest day on the Shi’ite Muslim calendar, a day after an attack claimed by Islamic State that killed at least five people near a large Shi’ite mosque.

Ahead of the celebration on Sunday, signs of increased security were in evidence across Kabul, with extra police checkpoints and roadblocks in many areas, while security was also increased in other cities.

Afghanistan, a majority Sunni Muslim country, has traditionally not suffered the sectarian violence that has devastated countries like Iraq, but a series of attacks over recent years have targeted the Shi’ite community.

“We are concerned about this. We had internal fighting in the past but never religious fighting,” said Arif Rahmani, a member of parliament and a member of the mainly Shi’ite Hazara community that has been particularly targeted.

The government has provided some basic training and weapons for a few hundred volunteer guards near mosques and other meeting places but many fear that the protection, which covers only some of the city’s more than 400 Shi’ite mosques, is insufficient.

In 2011, more than 80 people were killed in Ashura attacks in Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and there have been a string of others since, with 20 people killed in a suicide attack on a mosque in Kabul a month ago.

Friday’s attack, by suicide bombers posing as shepherds walking their sheep along a road outside the Hussainya mosque in the Qala-e-Fatehullah area of the city, did not reach the mosque itself but wounded 20 people in addition to the five killed.

No up-to-date census data exists for Afghanistan but different estimates put the size of the Shi’ite community at between 10-20 percent of the population, mostly Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazaras.

Ashura, on the 10th day of the month of Muharram, celebrates the martyrdom of Hussein, one of the grandsons of the Prophet Mohammad, and is marked by large public commemorations by Shi’ite Muslims.

President Ashraf Ghani condemned Friday’s attack and said it would not break the unity between religions in Afghanistan.

But at a time when rivalry between the patchwork of different ethnic groups in the country has increasingly come into the open, Rahmani said the evident objective of the attacks was to ratchet up the tensions to create instability.

“In the past, there were warnings that there were groups that wanted to stir ethnic and religious conflict among Afghans but now it is reality,” Rahmani said. “There are people who want to create disunity among ethnic and religious groups,” he said.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni and James Mackenzie; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Turkey’s Erdogan says Iraqi Kurdish authorities “will pay price” for vote

Turkey's Erdogan says Iraqi Kurdish authorities "will pay price" for vote

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday Iraqi Kurdish authorities would pay the price for an independence referendum which was widely opposed by foreign powers.

Iraq’s Kurds overwhelmingly backed independence in Monday’s referendum, defying neighboring countries which fear the vote could fuel Kurdish separatism within their own borders and lead to fresh conflict.

“They are not forming an independent state, they are opening a wound in the region to twist the knife in,” Erdogan told members of his ruling AK Party in the eastern Turkish city of Erzurum.

Erdogan has built strong commercial ties with Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq, which pump hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil daily through Turkey for export to world markets.

“We don’t regret what we did in the past. But since the conditions are changed and the Kurdish Regional Government, to which we provided all support, took steps against us, it would pay the price,” he said.

Turkey has repeatedly threatened to impose economic sanction, effectively cutting their main access to international markets, and has held joint military exercises with Iraqi troops on the border.

However, after Erdogan said that Iraqi Kurds would go hungry if Ankara halted the cross-border flow of trucks and oil, it has said that any measures it took would not target civilians and instead focus on those who organized the referendum.

Iraq’s Defense Ministry said on Friday it plans to take control of the borders of the autonomous Kurdistan region in coordination with Iran and Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Bin Yildirim, speaking on Saturday, did not refer specifically to those plans, but said Ankara would no longer deal with Kurdish authorities in Erbil.

“From now on, our relationships with the region will be conducted with the central government, Baghdad,” he said. “As Iran, Iraq and Turkey, we work to ensure the games being played in the region will fail.”

(Reporting by Dirimcan Barut; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Syrian army battles IS attack in Deir al-Zor

Smoke rises as Syrian army soldiers stand near a checkpoint in Deir al-Zor, Syria September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army and its allies fought on Friday to recover ground lost during an Islamic State counterattack in eastern Syria that targeted positions on the road to Deir al-Zor, a commander in the pro-Damascus alliance said.

The assault that began on Thursday marks the first major counterattack against the Syrian army and its allies since they broke through a swathe of Islamic State-held territory to reach the city of Deir al-Zor earlier this month.

“They took a number of positions. We absorbed the attack and work is under way to recover the positions,” the commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. Areas lost to Islamic State included the town of al-Shoula, which sits on the road connecting Deir al-Zor to western Syria.

The commander said the road linking Deir al-Zor city to the city of Palmyra was only being used in cases of absolute necessity. A media unit run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is fighting in support of Damascus, said the road was secure.

Helped by the Russian military and Iran-backed militias, the Syrian army’s advance to Deir al-Zor lifted a three-year-long siege imposed by Islamic State on a government-held enclave in the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Islamic State attacks had killed more than 58 fighters from the Syrian army and allied forces since Thursday.

Islamic State said on Thursday it had killed around 100 government fighters south of the town of al-Sukhna, which is also located on the road to Deir al-Zor, and announced it had taken a hill overlooking the town.

A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian militias, the Syrian Democratic Forces, is waging a separate offensive against Islamic State in Deir al-Zor to the east of the Euphrates River, which bisects the province.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi pressed his followers to “stand fast” and keep fighting in an undated recorded statement released on Thursday.

(Reporting by Sarah Dadouch and Laila Bassam; Editing by Tom Perry and Toby Chopra)