Tag Archives: Middle East

Israel marks 50 years of ‘united Jerusalem’, but city struggles

A crow flies past as Jewish school children gather at a look-out point on the Armon Hanatziv Promenade in Jerusalem May 11, 2017. Picture taken May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

By Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A half-century after Israel captured East Jerusalem, the holy city remains deeply divided by politics, religion and ethnicity – and struggling with grim economic realities.

A treasure fought over for millenia, it is also one of the poorest ‮areas under Israeli control‬. About 45 percent of Jerusalem’s nearly 900,000 people live below the poverty line, compared with 20 percent of Israel’s national population.

The poorer groups in Jerusalem are the fastest-growing: ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Haredim, who make up a fifth of the population and Palestinians, who comprise more than a third.

Many young, secular and educated Jewish residents are opting to leave, alienated by the religious atmosphere and high living costs, said the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research (JIIS) think tank.

After the 1967 Middle East war, Israel annexed the Arab east of the city to the Jewish west to create what it regards as its united, eternal capital. Palestinians in East Jerusalem complain of second-class status and official neglect.

“Jerusalem is a city that faces substantial challenges economically and that is partly because of the population that it houses,” said Naomi Hausman, an economics professor at the Hebrew University.

Israel is this week celebrating the 50th anniversary of the capture of East Jerusalem. Its claim to the whole of the city as its indivisible capital has not won international recognition.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a state they seek to establish in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza.

About 80 percent of Jerusalem’s Palestinians and about half the Haredim live below the poverty line.

Haredi men generally dedicate themselves to religious study and few Palestinian women have jobs.

Only 58 percent of Jerusalem Jews are in employment compared with 64 percent nationally, and just 40 percent of the Palestinian population work, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

Each year, about 8,000 more people leave Jerusalem than move to the city, according to CBS data, with much of the exodus made up of young Jewish people frustrated by the high cost of living and lack of job opportunities.

Ilana Butrimovitz left San Francisco for Jerusalem but spent barely a year there before moving away.

“I feel more free in Tel Aviv, not to mention the night-life and the beach,” said the 30-year-old chef. “The vibe is better and there are more job opportunities for young people.”

Jerusalem’s light rail line threads its way through the city’s contrasting zones – past Haredi neighbourhoods where men in black garb walk the stone alleyways, by downtown cafes and pubs, alongside the walled Old City and to a sprawling new business quarter.

“It’s a city where everyone knows how to live together in equilibrium on a daily basis. There are also, obviously, divisions and surely the east-west division is the biggest,” said Hausman.

“DEAD END”

Palestinian men are often employed on the bottom rungs of the labour market ladder, according to the JIIS.

“It’s a dead end for us,” said Hussam, a 28-year-old Palestinian lawyer in East Jerusalem. “Plain and simple: no, we do not have the same opportunities as Israelis.”

Israeli businesses are often reluctant to employ Arabs, Hussam said, and some jobs are off limits for Jerusalem’s Palestinians, who do not hold full Israeli citizenship, but are designated “permanent resident”.

Some public sector jobs require full citizenship, and some employers want staff who have served in the Israeli military.

“It fills one with despair, with anger, with frustration,” said Hussam, adding that he planned to leave for Europe.

Residential and business taxes in the city are among Israel’s highest, meaning higher-earning residents are propping up the poorer ones.

“Dynamically, doing this local redistribution is extremely problematic for a city, it can cause the city to attract more and more non-working and low-skill types until the city is in a poverty trap,” Hausman said.

Maya Chosen, senior researcher at the JIIS, said Israeli authorities were finally acknowledging they needed to intervene.

Since 2016, Israel has allocated almost a billion shekels (around $250 million) to a five-year plan to improve the business environment and expand tourism. One goal is to boost the city’s high-tech sector and entice more start-ups to move there.

“They are trying to draw stronger populations, engineers, upper-middle class, to balance the weaker populations in Jerusalem,” said Tzah Berki, senior vice president at Dun & Bradstreet Israel.

Between 2012 and 2015, high-tech investment in Jerusalem more than quadrupled to $243 million, according to the JIIS.

The Palestinians of East Jerusalem say they have seen little of the benefits.

“It’s just not on the radar of East Jerusalem’s residents,” said Nisreen Alyan, head of the Jerusalem Programme at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

“There is barely a school that teaches IT in East Jerusalem. In terms of location, the companies are inaccessible and most East Jerusalem residents don’t speak Hebrew.” The drop-out rate among high school seniors is 30 percent.

Only 10 percent of the municipality’s budget goes to East Jerusalem, Alyan said.

Jerusalem’s mayor, former high-tech entrepreneur Nir Barkat, does not dispute there is a gap between the west and east. But he says it is a result of a shortage of funds and bureaucratic red tape going back decades to when the east was under Jordanian rule.

“It’s not politics, it’s poor management and we’re catching up,” he told Reuters.

Youssef Qarain, a 73-year-old barber in East Jerusalem, recalls the day when the 1967 war broke out. Fifty years later, he sees little chance of Palestinian prospects improving.

“Simply, when you are under occupation, what can you hope for?” asked Qarain.

(This story has been refiled to fix paragraph two reference to Israeli areas.)

(Additional reporting by Lee Marzel, Sinan Abu Mayzer and Suheir Sheikh; Editing by Luke Baker, Jeffrey Heller and Andrew Roche)

Syrian force urges Raqqa jihadists to surrender by end-May

FILE PHOTO: A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter inspects a damaged building inside Tabqa military airport after taking control of it from Islamic State fighters, west of Raqqa city, Syria April 9, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian militias promised on Thursday that no harm would come to Islamic State fighters in Raqqa who turned themselves in by the end of the month, calling on them to lay down their arms ahead of an expected assault on the city.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, which groups Kurdish and Arab fighters, has advanced to within a few kilometers (miles) of Raqqa city at the nearest point, in an offensive that got underway in November to encircle and capture the city.

The SDF, which includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, said earlier this month it expects to launch the final assault on Raqqa in early summer. YPG and SDF officials had previously given April start dates for the assault, but these slipped.

The U.S.-led coalition has not declared any time frame for the final assault on Raqqa city, which has served as Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria since the group declared its cross-border “caliphate” in 2014.

In a statement, the SDF said a May 15 appeal for militants to turn themselves in within 10 days had achieved “positive results”, and the deadline would now be extended until May 31 based on “requests from the noble people of Raqqa”.

The SDF said it would guarantee the lives of militants who turn themselves in regardless of their position, “paving the way for the settlement of their situation”. The safety of their families was also guaranteed, it says.

The SDF statement issued by spokeswoman Jihane Sheikh Ahmad said the extension would “allow the greatest number possible of those who were deceived or forced to join to benefit from this opportunity”.

The U.S.-led coalition says some 3,000 to 4,000 Islamic State fighters are thought to be holed up in Raqqa city where they continue to erect defenses against the anticipated assault.

The six-year-long Syrian war has allowed IS to seize swathes of Syria, where the group faces separate campaigns by the U.S.-backed SDF, the Russian-backed Syrian military, and Free Syrian Army rebels backed by the United States.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Toby Chopra)

New bridge reunites Mosul as Iraqi forces gear up for final assault

A new floating bridge installed by Iraqi military engineers that reconnects two halves of Mosul is seen in the Hawi al-Kaneesa area, south of Mosul, Iraq May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi military engineers installed a new floating bridge across the Tigris river on Wednesday, reconnecting the two halves of Mosul to facilitate troop deployments ahead of a final assault to dislodge Islamic State.

All five bridges connecting the two sides of the city bisected by the Tigris were struck by the U.S.-led coalition in order to hinder the militants’ movements in the early stages of the campaign to retake Mosul last year.

Seven months on, Iraqi forces have removed Islamic State from all but a pocket of territory in the western half of Mosul, including the Old City, where the militants are expected to make their last stand.

It is set to be the most complex battleground yet.

“This floating bridge is very important for deploying reinforcements to the west side rapidly to build up adequate forces to sweep the Old City soon,” Colonel Haitham al-Taie told Reuters.

Taie said the bridge in the Hawi al-Kaneesa area would also spare fleeing civilians from making a long journey to the nearest crossing point, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Mosul.

The United Nations said last week up to 200,000 more people may flee as Iraqi forces push to retake the rest of the city.

The militants are effectively holding hundreds of thousands of civilians hostage as human shields to slow their advance.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Syrian army says senior Islamic State militant killed

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army said on Wednesday it had killed Islamic State’s military commander in Syria during operations in the north of the country, where the Russian-backed government forces are seizing more territory back from the jihadist group.

If confirmed, this would represent a major blow against Islamic State (IS) ahead of an attack which the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters – are expected to launch against the jihadists in their stronghold of Raqqa city.

A Syrian military source told Reuters the IS commander, Abu Musab al-Masri, had been the group’s “minister of war” for Syria. Syrian state media had earlier cited a military source as saying he was the organization’s “minister of war”, suggesting he was the overall IS military commander.

He was named among 13 senior Islamic State figures killed in Syrian army operations east of Aleppo, including men identified as Saudi and Iraqi nationals, according to the military source cited by state media.

Al-Masri was killed in the operations that got underway on May 10. The military source did not say where he was killed.

Baghdad-based IS expert Hisham al-Hashimi said the death of Masri, if confirmed, would be a “significant blow to the group ahead of the battle of Raqqa”. He said al-Masri was the fourth most senior figure in the organization.

A previous IS minister of war, Abu Omar al-Shishani, was killed last year. The Pentagon said Shishani was likely to have been killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria. The militant group confirmed his death in July but said he had died fighting in the Iraqi city of Shirqat south of Mosul.

Islamic State faces separate campaigns in northern Syria by the Russian-backed Syrian army, the U.S.-backed SDF, and Turkey-backed rebels fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner.

The six-year-long Syrian war has allowed IS to seize swathes of Syria and to carve out a cross-border “caliphate” in both Syria and neighboring Iraq.

The SDF, which includes the Kurdish YPG militia, has been waging a multi-phased operation to encircle Raqqa with the aim of capturing it from Islamic State.

(Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Trump says concerns about Iran driving Israel, Arab states closer

U.S. President Donald Trump (2nd L) and first lady Melania Trump (3rd L) stand with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2nd R), his wife Sara (R) and Israel's President Reuven Rivlin (L) upon their arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod near Tel Aviv, Israel May 22, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that shared concern about Iran was driving Israel and many Arab states closer and demanded that Tehran immediately cease military and financial backing of “terrorists and militias”.

In stressing threats from Iran, Trump echoed a theme laid out during weekend meetings in Saudi Arabia with Muslim leaders from around the world, many wary of the Islamic Republic’s growing regional influence and financial muscle.

Trump has vowed to do whatever necessary to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, dubbing a peace accord “the ultimate deal”. But ahead of his Holy Land visit, he gave little indication of how he could revive talks that collapsed in 2014.

Trump will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Tuesday and the Palestinian leader said he hoped the meeting could be “useful and fruitful … (and) will bring results”.

But in the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinians rallied against Trump and burned his picture and an effigy of him.

Trump received a warm welcome in Riyadh from Arab leaders, especially over his tough line on Tehran, which many Sunni Muslim Arab states regard as seeking regional control.

In Jerusalem, in public remarks after talks with Israeli leaders on the first day of his two-day visit, he again focused on Iran, pledging he would never let Tehran acquire nuclear arms.

“What’s happened with Iran has brought many of the parts of the Middle East toward Israel,” Trump said at a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin.

In his comments to Netanyahu, Trump mentioned a growing Iranian influence in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, where it either backs Shi’ite fighters or has sent its own forces.

Trump said there were opportunities for cooperation across the Middle East: “That includes advancing prosperity, defeating the evils of terrorism and facing the threat of an Iranian regime that is threatening the region and causing so much violence and suffering.”

He also welcomed what he said was Netanyahu’s commitment to pursuing peace and renewed his pledge to achieve a deal.

Netanyahu, in his remarks, did not mention the word “Palestinians”, but spoke of advancing “peace in our region” with Arab partners helping to deliver it.

Israel shares the antipathy many Arab states have toward Iran, seeing the Islamic Republic as a threat to its existence.

“I want you to know how much we appreciate the change in American policy on Iran which you enunciated so clearly,” Netanyahu, who had an acrimonious relationship with former U.S. President Barack Obama, told Trump at his official residence.

Trump, who is on his maiden foreign trip since taking office in January, urged Iran to cease “its deadly funding, training and equipping of terrorists and militias”.

REGIONAL STABILITY

Iran’s newly re-elected, pragmatist president, Hassan Rouhani, said regional stability could not be achieved without Iranian help, and accused Washington of supporting terrorism with its backing for rebels in Syria.

He said the summit in Saudi Arabia “had no political value, and will bear no results”.

“Who can say the region will experience total stability without Iran? Who fought against the terrorists? It was Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Syria. But who funded the terrorists?”

Rouhani noted the contrast between young Iranians dancing in the streets to mark the re-election of a leader seeking detente with the West, and images of Trump meeting with a galaxy of Arab autocrats, some of whose countries have spawned the Sunni militants hostile to Washington and Tehran alike.

He also said Iran would continue a ballistic missile program that has already triggered U.S. sanctions, saying it was for defensive purposes only.

Trump’s foreign tour comes in the shadow of difficulties at home, where he is struggling to contain a scandal after firing James Comey as FBI director nearly two weeks ago. The trip ends on Saturday after visits to the Vatican, Brussels and Sicily.

In Jerusalem’s walled Old City, Trump toured the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and became the first sitting president to visit the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest place where Israel allows Jews to pray in a city sacred to three religions.

Trump will have visited significant centers of Islam, Judaism and Christianity by the end of his trip, a point that his aides say bolsters his argument that the fight against Islamist militancy is a battle between “good and evil”.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Richard Lough and Alison Williams)

U.N. sees ‘incremental progress’ after Syria talks

United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura attends a news conference during the Intra Syria talks at the United Nations Offices in Geneva, Switzerland, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura ended four days of Syria talks on Friday, saying there had been “incremental progress” and he planned to reconvene negotiations in June.

But the warring sides still showed no sign of wanting to be in the same room, let alone on the same page in terms of negotiating Syria’s political future.

Syrian government negotiator Bashar al-Ja’afari told reporters the talks had not included any discussion of the four main agenda items – reformed governance, new elections, a new constitution and the fight against terrorism.

He suggested the United States had tried to undermine his negotiating position by saying at the start of the round that a crematorium had been built at Sednaya prison north of Damascus to dispose of detainees’ remains. [nL2N1IH0TY]

Ja’afari called the accusation “a big lie” and “a Hollywood show” and said the timing was “no coincidence”.

Syrian opposition delegation leader Nasr al-Hariri said it was not possible to reach a political solution or to fight terrorism as long as Iran and its militias remained in Syria, and reiterated the opposition’s demand to remove President Bashar al-Assad.

The U.N. talks no longer aim to bring an end to the fighting – that objective has been taken up by parallel talks sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran – but they do aim to prepare the way for political reform in Syria, if the six-year-old war ends.

“Any momentum provides some type of hope that we are not just waiting for the golden day but we are actually working for it,” de Mistura told a news conference in Geneva.

“History is not, especially in a conflict environment, written by timelines that we set up artificially. They could be a target, a dream, a wish, a day for us to try to aim at.”

Among the modest goals of this sixth round of talks was a more businesslike format for meetings and less rhetorical grandstanding by the warring sides.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Syrian rebels begin to leave last opposition-held Homs district

FILE PHOTO: A road sign that shows the direction to Homs is seen in Damascus, Syria April 7, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

HOMS, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels started leaving the last opposition-held district of Homs city on Saturday in the final phase of an evacuation deal that will see President Bashar al-Assad’s government take back the area.

Fighters took with them their light weapons, as agreed, and boarded buses along with women and children. Many were headed for insurgent-held Idlib province in Syria’s northwest, or the town of Jarablus on the border with Turkey.

At least four buses had left al-Waer by mid-afternoon, and dozens more were expected to follow, to bring more than 2,500 people out of the district long besieged by government forces and their allies in the country’s civil war.

The evacuation of al-Waer is one of the largest of its kind. It follows a number of similar deals in recent months that have brought many parts of western Syria long held by the opposition and besieged by government and allied forces back under Assad’s control.

Syria’s government calls the evacuation deals, which have also taken place in besieged areas around Damascus, and in Aleppo at the end of last year, reconciliation agreements. It says they allow services and security to be restored.

The opposition has criticized the agreements, however, saying they amount to forced displacement of Assad’s opponents away from Syria’s main urban centers, often after years of siege and bombardment.

The United Nations has criticized both the use of siege tactics which precede such deals and the evacuations themselves as amounting to forcible displacement.

The al-Waer deal, backed by Syria’s ally Russia, began to be implemented in March. Thousands of people have left in a several stages. By the time it is completed, up to 20,000 people will have left the district, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says.

Homs Governor Talal Barazi said the final phase of the evacuation would last some 20 hours, and expected it to be completed late on Saturday or early on Sunday.

“This is the last day. The number of militants expected (to leave) is around 700. With their families the total number could be around 3,000,” he told reporters in al-Waer.

Barazi said at least 20,000 inhabitants remained in al-Waer, and tens of thousands displaced during fighting would begin to return to the neighborhood after the deal was completed.

“Over the next few weeks communications networks will return” as well as electricity and water, he said.

RUSSIAN MILITARY POLICE

As in other evacuation deals, some rebels have decided to stay in al-Waer and hand over their weapons as Syria’s military and its allies move in.

Young men of conscription age will be required to join the armed forces for military service.

A Russian officer helping oversee the deal’s implementation told reporters Russian military police would help with the transition inside al-Waer.

“Russia has a guarantor role in this agreement. Russian military police will stay, and will carry out duties inside the district,” Sergei Druzhin said through an Arabic interpreter.

Assad’s government, backed militarily since 2015 by Russia and since early on in the war by Iranian-backed militias, has negotiated the pacts from a position of strength and brought Syria’s major urban areas in the west back under its control.

Homs, Syria’s third-largest city before the conflict, was an early center of the popular uprising against Assad in 2011 that turned into a civil war which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million.

As the government brings more areas under its control, rebels still hold pockets of territory around Damascus and in the south, as well as almost all of Idlib province.

Islamic State holds swathes of territory in the east of Syria, and is being fought by separate forces, including U.S.-backed fighters and Russian-backed Syrian troops.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Fresh Syria peace talks off to another stumbling start

United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura attends a meeting during Intra Syria talks at the U.N. in Geneva, Switzerland, May 16, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria peace talks hosted by the United Nations in Geneva spawned a new series of meetings on Thursday with no hint of tangible progress toward a deal to end the six-year-old civil war.

U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura had promised a refreshingly brisk pace of business-like meetings over a short four-day round, with new elections, a new constitution, reformed governance and counter-terrorism on the agenda.

He opened proceedings on Thursday by proposing setting up a “consultative mechanism”, which he would head, to avoid a power vacuum in Syria before a new constitution is in place.

That was rejected by the Syrian government and raised a string of questions from the opposition, so de Mistura said he was “moving beyond” those discussions to start a new set of expert meetings with each side.

A U.N. statement referred to “an initial part of a process of expert meetings on legal and constitutional issues of relevance to the intra-Syrian talks”.

In a sign of the chasm between foes who have frustrated repeated international efforts at peacemaking, they are not negotiating face-to-face but only in turn with de Mistura.

Government negotiator Bashar al-Ja’afari told reporters that the expert meetings were an initiative from his delegation and would take place on Thursday and continue Friday if needed.

“We hope that this step … will help in pushing this round forward, and the Geneva process in general toward the seriousness that is hoped for by everyone,” Ja’afari said.

He added that the constitution was “the exclusive right of the Syrian people, and we do not accept any foreign interference in it”.

Opposition spokesman Yahya al-Aridi told Reuters that the Damascus delegation was trying to divert attention from the main objective of the talks – political transition, a phrase used by the opposition to mean Assad’s ouster.

Asked if the three days of talks had made headway, he said: “Not too much. Original expectations were not very high.”

The United States and Russia – who back the rebels and Assad respectively – forged an international consensus in December 2015 mandating de Mistura to push for a political solution.

But the talks have been increasingly marginalized over the past year as Assad’s forces, backed by Russia and Iran, have won back territory from the rebels, while the United States has largely stepped back from a leading role in Syrian diplomacy.

Syria’s war has killed hundreds of thousands and created more than 6 million refugees. About 625,000 people are besieged, mostly by Assad’s forces.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Mark Heinrich)

In Syria, a bus ride shows shifting map of war

Passengers wait in Qamishli city in Syria's Kurdish-held northeast to embark on a bus headed for government-controlled Aleppo, Syria May 7, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said

QAMISHLI, Syria (Reuters) – A new bus service linking Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northeast with the government-held west, unthinkable before Islamic State was driven from the area, is raising hopes of renewed commerce between two long-estranged parts of a fractured country.

Kurdish-led authorities hope the new corridor will end the economic isolation of their region, bordered as it is by hostile parties. For Damascus, the corridor holds out the prospect of sourcing fuel and food from the resource-rich northeast.

The service from Kurdish-controlled Qamishli to Aleppo city goes through territory captured from Islamic State (IS) by Russian-backed Syrian government forces in February. Until then, only an intrepid few would make a journey that entailed crossing through areas held by Islamic State and competing rebel groups.

“Before, there were no passengers, very, very few, because of the security conditions,” said Ahmad Abou Abboud, the head of Qamishli office of the bus company that started the service in late April.

Demand has risen steadily since the first busses – sleek, white, air-conditioned coaches with purple curtains – went into operation. Weekly trips have increased from two to three, Abboud told Reuters in Qamishli.

A Kurdish official said so far the road was being used only for travel, not trade.

The new bus service is the result of one of the most important shifts in the map of the Syrian conflict in recent times, with the areas controlled by government forces and Kurdish-allied militias being linked up near the city of Manbij.

HISTORIC ENMITY

It points to the highly nuanced state of relations between the Damascus government of President Bashar al-Assad and the Kurdish authorities that have established control over wide areas of the north since war began in 2011.

Despite historic enmity, Syria’s Kurds and government have seldom clashed. They have also found themselves fighting the same adversaries in the civil war in areas where their military interests have converged, including Turkey-backed rebel groups.

Its critics say the main Kurdish militia, the YPG, has cooperated with government forces. The YPG denies this.

The newly opened route passes west from Qamishli through a swathe of territory held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of militias dominated by the Kurdish YPG. Much of the SDF-held territory was captured from Islamic State with support from the U.S.-led coalition.

The SDF-held region meets areas held by the Syrian government and its allies to the south of Manbij.

“We heard about this route in the media, after that we knew it was opened,” Abou Abboud said. “We were in contact with the relevant parties, and we have contacts with all parties – the regime and the autonomous administration.

“The two sides facilitated it.”

Abdul Karim Saroukhan, head of the Kurdish-led administration in northeastern Syria, said the bus route was a private initiative, and not sponsored by the government he runs from the city of Amuda 30 km (20 miles) from Qamishli.

Speaking to Reuters, he said the route had yet to be used for commerce. In a Reuters interview in March, Saroukhan expressed hope the route would end the economic “siege” imposed on his region, which is bordered to the north by Turkey and to the east by the Iraqi Kurdish administration – both of which are hostile to the nascent Kurdish government in northern Syria.

Syrian government officials could not be reached for comment. An official in Damascus however said the bus service was a positive thing and suggested it had government approval.

“Any move that helps geographic contact between Syrian regions with the knowledge of the Syrian state is viewed as a helpful, good thing, and helps to restore life to normalcy,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Both sides have recently hinted they could be ready to reach a political accommodation. The Kurdish YPG militia has said it would have “no problem” with the government once Kurdish rights were secured, and the Syrian foreign minister has expressed confidence an “understanding” could be reached.

The YPG has allowed the Syrian government to maintain control over pockets of territory in the northeast, including Qamishli airport from which flights go to Damascus.

The government has meanwhile allowed the YPG to maintain control of a Kurdish neighborhood of Aleppo city.

Suspicion lingers however as the sides promote conflicting visions for Syria’s future. The Kurdish groups and their allies in the north want to preserve their autonomy in any peace deal, and promote a federal model for Syria.

Assad, who controls swathes of western Syria, has repeatedly said he wants to bring all the country back under government rule, and last year dismissed the local governance created in Kurdish areas as “temporary structures”.

(Writing/additional reporting by Angus McDowall and Tom Perry in Beirut; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Islamic State mining Mosul to stop families fleeing as Iraqi forces advance

Displaced Iraqi people gather to be transported to a camp for displaced people during the battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq, May 17, 2017. REUTERS/ Alaa Al-Marjani

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State militants are planting bombs near front doors in Mosul to prevent civilians leaving, a federal police commander and witnesses said on Wednesday, as Iraqi forces make their final push against the jihadists after seven months of fighting.

Trapped in a shrinking area of the city, the militants are increasingly using the several hundred thousand civilians under their control as human shields to avoid being targeted or perhaps tarnish what Iraqi leaders describe as imminent victory.

Backed by a U.S.-led coalition, Iraqi forces have made rapid gains since opening a new front in northwest Mosul this month and have now dislodged Islamic State from all but about 12 square km (5 square miles) of the city.

The militants, however, still control the Old City, where they are expected to make their last stand in the densely populated, narrow streets that are impassible for armored vehicles, forcing Iraqi forces to advance on foot.

The Iraqi government is pushing to declare victory by the holy month of Ramadan – expected to begin on May 27 – even if pockets of resistance remain in the Old City, according to military commanders.

Lieutenant-General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi told state TV his elite Counter Terrorism Services (CTS) were advancing steadily in the Rifaie and Najjar districts, aiming to reach the western bank of Tigris river and complete the Old City’s encirclement.

“God willing the coming hours we will complete our assigned task,” he said on Wednesday.

The militants had deployed 30 suicide car bombs against his troops in Mosul over the past two days, he said.

In the Siha district, Assadi said, Islamic State had chained civilians by the hands and used them as human shields to move around. “We saw them moving with their weapons in the midst of the civilians but we did not strike them,” he said.

The civilians were unchained and released once the militants reached cover, Assadi said.

Hundreds if not more civilians have been killed under bombardment by the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi airforce during the Mosul campaign and the rest are eating weeds and boiled wheat grain to survive as food runs out.

Fearful of triggering bombs if they open the front door, civilians are fleeing through the same holes Islamic State knocked through interior walls to move around the city without being targeted from the sky.

The number of people fleeing Mosul has surged since the re-intensification of hostilities this month.

Nearly 10,000 people were displaced from the city on Tuesday, according to Iraqi government figures, joining an exodus of nearly 700,000 who have left Mosul since the start of the campaign last October.

Two civilians were killed when they returned to the Islah al-Ziraei district days after it was retaken by Iraqi forces when they accidentally triggered a bomb that Islamic State had planted to prevent them leaving their home.

(Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Louise Ireland)