Tag Archives: Middle East

Turkey removes two dozen elected mayors in Kurdish militant crackdown

Turkey protest

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkey appointed new administrators in two dozen Kurdish-run municipalities on Sunday after removing their elected mayors over suspected links to militants, triggering pockets of protest in its volatile southeastern region bordering Syria and Iraq.

Police fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse demonstrators outside local government buildings in Suruc on the Syrian border as new administrators took over, security sources said. There were smaller protests elsewhere in the town.

There were also disturbances in the main regional city of Diyarbarkir and in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, where police entered the municipality building and unfurled a large red Turkish flag, taking down the white local government flags that had previously flown.

President Tayyip Erdogan said this week the campaign against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, who have waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, was now Turkey’s largest ever. The removal of civil servants linked to them was a key part of the fight.

The 24 municipalities had been run by the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest in parliament, which denies direct links to the militants. It decried the move as an “administrative coup”.

“No democratic state can or will allow mayors and MPs to use municipality resources to finance terrorist organisations,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Twitter. “Being an elected official isn’t a licence to commit crimes.”

Turkey’s battle against the PKK resumed with a new intensity after a ceasefire collapsed last year and with attempts by Kurdish groups in Syria’s war to carve out an autonomous Kurdish enclave on Turkey’s border.

In a message to mark the Muslim Eid al Adha holiday, Erdogan said the PKK had been trying to step up attacks since a failed military coup in July and that they aimed to disrupt Turkish military operations in Syria.

The U.S. embassy said it was concerned by reports of clashes in the southeast and that while it supported Turkey’s right to combat terrorism, it was important to respect the right to peaceful protest.

“We hope that any appointment of trustees will be temporary and that local citizens will soon be permitted to choose new local officials in accordance with Turkish law,” it said.

WESTERN CONCERN

The crackdown comes as Ankara also pushes ahead with a purge of tens of thousands of supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Turkey of orchestrating the attempted coup in July. Gulen denies any involvement.

The mayors of four other municipalities, three from the ruling AK Party and one from the nationalist MHP opposition, were also replaced over alleged links to what the authorities call the “Gulen Terror Organisation”, or FETO.

The interior ministry said the 28 mayors, 12 of whom are formally under arrest, were under investigation for providing “assistance and support” to the PKK and to Gulen’s organization.

Turkey has sacked or suspended more than 100,000 people since the failed coup. At least 40,000 people have been detained on suspicion of links to Gulen’s network.

The crackdown has raised concern from rights groups and Western allies who fear Erdogan is using the failed coup as pretext to curtail all dissent, and intensify his actions against suspected Kurdish militant sympathizers.

Turkish officials say the moves are justified by the extent of the threat to the state.

The HDP, which says it promotes a negotiated end to the PKK insurgency, said it did not recognize the legitimacy of the mayors’ removal.

“This illegal and arbitrary stance will result in the deepening of current problems in Kurdish cities, and the Kurdish issue becoming unresolvable,” it said in a statement.

Tensions in the southeast had already been heightened since Turkey launched a military incursion into Syria two and half weeks ago dubbed “Operation Euphrates Shield”.

The operation aims to push Islamic State fighters back from the border and prevent Kurdish militia fighters seizing ground in their wake. Turkey views the Kurdish militia as an extension of the PKK and fears that Kurdish gains there will fuel separatist sentiment on its own soil.

(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Daren Butler in Istanbul, Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Writing by Nick Tattersall)

Russia, spurning U.S. censure, launches second day of Syria strikes from Iran

Russian plane

By Alexander Winning and Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia launched a second day of air strikes against Syrian militants from an Iranian air base, rejecting U.S. suggestions its co-operation with Tehran might violate a U.N. resolution as illogical and factually incorrect.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Tuesday called the Iranian deployment “unfortunate,” saying the United States was looking into whether the move violated U.N. Security Council resolution 2231, which prohibits the supply, sale and transfer of combat aircraft to Iran.

Russia bristled at those comments on Wednesday after announcing that Russian SU-34 fighter bombers flying from Iran’s Hamadan air base had for a second day struck Islamic State targets in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province, destroying two command posts and killing more than 150 militants.

“It’s not our practice to give advice to the leadership of the U.S. State Department,” Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

“But it’s hard to refrain from recommending individual State Department representatives check their own logic and knowledge of basic documents covering international law.”

Moscow first used Iran as a base from which to launch air strikes in Syria on Tuesday, deepening its involvement in the five-year-old Syrian civil war and angering the United States.

Russia’s use of the Iranian air base comes amid intense fighting for the Syrian city of Aleppo, where rebels are battling Syrian government forces backed by the Russian military, and as Moscow and Washington are working toward a deal on Syria that could see them cooperate more closely.

Russia backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the United States believes the Syrian leader must step down and is supporting rebel groups that are fighting to unseat him.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday any U.S. dismay over Moscow’s military co-operation with Iran should not distract from efforts to realize the U.S.-Russia deal on coordinating action in Syria and securing a ceasefire.

Lavrov said there were no grounds to suggest Russia’s actions had violated the U.N. resolution, saying Moscow was not supplying Iran with military aircraft for its own internal use, something the document prohibits.

“These aircraft are being used by Russia’s air force with Iran’s agreement as a part of an anti-terrorist operation at the request of Syria’s leadership,” Lavrov told a Moscow news conference, after holding talks with Murray McCully, New Zealand’s foreign minister.

A graphic illustrating which targets Russia has so far struck from Iran can be seen here: http://tmsnrt.rs/2b458P3

(Additional reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

U.S. seeks Latin American help amid rise in Asian, African migrants

Detainees sleep and watch television in a holding cell where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection

By Julia Edwards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Washington is seeking closer coordination with several Latin American countries to tackle a jump in migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who it believes are trying to reach the United States from the south on an arduous route by plane, boat and through jungle on foot.

U.S. agents deployed to an immigration facility on Mexico’s southern border have vetted the more than 640 migrants from countries outside the Americas who have been detained at the center since October 2015, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents reviewed by Reuters.

The migrants often fly to Brazil, obtain fake passports there, and are smuggled to Panama before heading through Central America to Mexico’s porous southern border, according to transcripts of 14 interviews conducted at the center and other internal briefing documents seen by Reuters.

The U.S. agents’ findings come as Mexican immigration data show 6,342 Asian, African and Middle Eastern migrants were apprehended trying to enter Mexico in the first six months of this year. That was up from 4,261 in all of 2015, and 1,831 in 2014.

U.S. border apprehensions point to the same trend. Between October 2015 and May 2016, U.S. agents apprehended 5,350 African and Asian migrants at the U.S. Southwest border. That’s up from 6,126 in all of fiscal year 2015 and 4,172 in all of fiscal year 2014.

U.S. concerns about potential security risks from migrants using the unusual and circuitous southern route have been growing in recent years, following a string of Islamic State-inspired attacks in the West and the surge in Syrian refugees fleeing that country’s civil war.

Five Syrian nationals detained in Honduras last November were part of a wider group of seven Syrians who acquired forged passports in Brazil and then went by land to Argentina on their way north, a U.S. government source familiar with that case said. There was no evidence to suggest the men were militants.

“The reality is that the vast majority of the people that Mexico encounters that are extra-continental will eventually end up on our border,” a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official said.

At the detention camp in Tapachula, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents have been training their Mexican counterparts on interview techniques, and using U.S. criminal databases to investigate detainees, according to internal documents seen by Reuters.

Two to three U.S. agents have been stationed there since at least October, according to the documents and U.S. officials. Mexican officials have previously acknowledged the presence of U.S. agents at Mexico’s southern border, but few details of the cooperation have been reported.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol began a pilot program for a similar operation in Panama earlier this fiscal year, according to an internal memo sent in May that has not previously been reported. Homeland Security officials told Reuters that Panama requested U.S. training. A spokesman for Panama’s National Migration Service said Panama accepted an offer from the U.S. embassy for training on subjects like “defense techniques” and “management of persons.”

U.S. proponents of the program have pushed for a greater U.S. footprint to build a “comprehensive intelligence picture” of migration patterns across the Colombia-Panama border, according to the memo sent in May.

Panama is leading the effort in Central America to detain illegal migrants, DHS assistant secretary for international affairs Alan Bersin told a House committee in March, but it stymied by lack of detention space and the difficulty of deporting migrants to countries with whom they have no diplomatic ties. As a result, most are released after 30 days.

Bersin acknowledged the rise in migrants from outside the Americas and the potential security threat they pose.

“While many citizens of these countries migrate for economic reasons or because they are fleeing persecution in their home countries, this group may include migrants who are affiliated with foreign terrorist organizations, intelligence agencies, and organized criminal syndicates,” Bersin told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

DHS has deployed additional “mentor” teams throughout South and Central America to professionalize immigration authorities and gain intelligence about potentially threatening migrants, said DHS officials, who declined to specify which countries host U.S. agents.

Another DHS official said the agency is asking Brazil through diplomatic channels to put a stop to fake passport manufacturing. Brazilian officials did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, a unit of DHS, is “actively working to enhance regional collaboration with border and customs authorities from Mexico all the way down to Argentina,” a DHS official said.

ON FOOT IN THE JUNGLE

The apprehension documents from the Tapachula center show how migrants are willing and able to pay thousands of dollars to obtain flights and fake passports and then make grueling journeys on buses, boats and on foot.

It was not clear how many of those apprehended at the center were deported, claimed asylum or simply released.

Several of the 14 migrants — in testimony given from May 18-23 this year — said they paid more than $10,000 to smugglers, walked for days through jungles, and were temporarily detained by various countries before being stopped in Tapachula.

Six of the men — who included Pakistanis, Syrians and Afghans– had obtained fake passports, claiming to be from Israel, Morocco, Belgium or Britain.

In Panama, several of the men said they were kept in a migration detention camp for about a month. From Panama, the migrants described traveling in larger groups, sometimes as many as 50 men.

One Pakistani national — whose identity U.S. officials asked not to be revealed because he is still under investigation — told U.S. and Mexican officials that he paid a smuggler in Pakistan $9,000 to be smuggled to Brazil where he received a fake Belgian passport.

In Brazil, he paid $4,000 to a woman to be taken on bus, boat and on foot through across Colombia and into Panama.

He said he was detained in Panama but then released. From there, a smuggler from Lebanon took the man and 35 other migrants of different nationalities to Honduras, where he said he was robbed of all of his belongings.

His family wired him more money from Pakistan and the man was able to pay $40 to be smuggled into Guatemala. He paid $5 to be taken by raft into Mexico. There he got a taxi, which was halted by authorities who took him to the Tapachula center.

SENSITIVE TOPIC FOR MEXICO

Accepting U.S. help on immigration issues is politically sensitive for Mexico, said Adam Isacson, a security and border policy analyst at The Washington Office on Latin America, a non-profit human rights advocacy group.

“But the Mexicans have quietly been open to the equipment and training they have received,” he said.

A CBP spokesman said the agency deployed to Tapachula at the Mexican government’s request. Mexico’s immigration agency is the Instituto Nacional de Migracion (INM).

“CBP personnel train INM officers in the collection of biometric information, and review and share biometric information on people of interest,” the spokesman said.

INM declined Reuters’ request for comment and access to the Tapachula facility.

In testimony before the Mexican Senate on Aug. 3, Mexico’s chief immigration officer Ardelio Vargas Fosado said his agency was aware of the influx of migrants from outside the Americas. But the lack of diplomatic relationships between Mexico and many African countries has made it difficult to deport those apprehended, he said.

Under law, U.S. agents cannot arrest or deport migrants from other countries, but as foreign-based trainers, they can gather intelligence on who may be headed for the U.S. border.

Isacson said most of the migrants taking the Latin American path northward are seeking economic opportunity in the United States. But DHS is focused on security risks.

“The Tapachula area is along a permeable border. DHS views it as one of the areas where a terrorist group that wants to do harm on U.S. soil would be most likely to come in,” he said.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards, Additional reporting by Richard Cowan in Washington, Frank Jack Daniel, Enrique Andres Pretel and Joanna Bernstein in Mexico; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Stuart Grudgings)

Rescuers say toxic gas dropped on Syrian town where Russian helicopter shot down

Video of people affected by chemical attack

By Lisa Barrington

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Syrian rescue service operating in rebel-held territory said on Tuesday a helicopter dropped containers of toxic gas overnight on a town close to where a Russian military helicopter had been shot down hours earlier.

The opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) accused President Bashar al-Assad of being behind the attack. Assad has denied previous accusations of using chemical weapons.

A spokesman for the Syria Civil Defence said 33 people, mostly women and children, were affected by the gas, which they suspect was chlorine, in Saraqeb, in rebel-held Idlib province.

The group, which describes itself as a neutral band of search and rescue volunteers, posted a video on YouTube apparently showing a number of men struggling to breathe and being given oxygen masks by people in civil defense uniforms.

“Medium-sized barrels fell containing toxic gases. The Syrian Civil Defence was not able to determine the type of the gas,” said the spokesman.

The Syrian government and its Russian allies were not immediately available for comment.

Later, state news agency SANA said rebels had fired rockets armed with toxic gas on the government-held old quarter of Aleppo city, killing five people and causing eight breathing difficulties. It gave no further details. Rebels have denied previous accusations of using chemical weapons.

The SNC said of the reported use of poison gas in Saraqeb: “After shelling, besieging and killing civilians and perpetrating war crimes on them, the Assad regime has resorted once again, and in breach of UN resolutions 2118 and 2235, to using chemical substances and toxic gases.

“The daily reality confirms that all the international agreements and previous security council decisions, be they about chemical weapons or otherwise, are meaningless for the Assad regime.”

The Civil Defence spokesman said it was the second time Saraqeb had been hit by toxic gas. The group was aware of around nine suspected chlorine gas incidents across Idlib province since the conflict began, he said.

The U.S. State Department said it was looking into the reported use of chemical weapons in Saraqeb.

“I’m not in a position to confirm the veracity of (the reports),” said spokesman John Kirby. “Certainly, if it’s true, it would be extremely serious.”

Monitors at the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence on all sides in the civil war, said barrel bombs fell on Saraqeb late on Monday, wounding a large number of citizens.

Russia’s defense ministry said a Russian helicopter was shot down near Saraqeb during the day on Monday, killing all five people on board, in the biggest officially acknowledged loss of life for Russian forces since they started operations in Syria.

DENIALS

The helicopter came down roughly mid-way between Aleppo and Russia’s main air base at Hmeimim in the western province of Latakia, near the Mediterranean coast.

Russian air power began supporting Syrian President Bashar al Assad late last year, an intervention which tipped the balance of the war in Assad’s favor, eroding gains the rebels had made that year.

No group has claimed responsibility for downing the Mi-8 military transport helicopter.

Government and opposition forces have both denied using chemical weapons during the five-year-old civil war. Western powers say the government has been responsible for chlorine and other chemical attacks. The government and Russia have accused rebels of using poison gas.

U.N. investigators established that sarin gas was used in Eastern Ghouta in 2013. The United States accused Damascus of that attack, which it estimates killed 1,429 people, including at least 426 children. Damascus denied responsibility, and blamed rebels.

Later that year the United Nations and the Syrian government agreed to destroy the state’s declared stockpile of chemical weapons, a process completed in January 2016.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed in late 2015 that sulfur mustard, commonly known as mustard gas, had been used for the first time in the conflict, without saying which party in the many sided conflict it thought had used it.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Robin Pomeroy)

U.S., Israel narrow differences for new talks on defense aid

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

By Patricia Zengerle and Dan Williams

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The United States and Israel have narrowed their differences over what could be decisive negotiations this week to seal a multibillion-dollar military aid package for Washington’s top Middle East ally, officials said on Monday.

Raising hopes for removal of a key sticking point, Israel has signaled it may accept the Obama administration’s demand that U.S. military funds, until now spent partly on Israeli arms, will eventually be spent entirely on U.S.-made weapons, according to congressional sources.

It would mark a major concession by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after months of tense negotiations over the 10-year aid pact.

But Netanyahu, who has had a fraught relationship with President Barack Obama, has apparently decided it would be best to forge a deal with him rather than hoping for better terms from the next U.S. president, according to officials on both sides. Obama leaves office in January.

Differences on the package have underscored continuing friction over last year’s U.S.-led nuclear deal with Iran, Israel’s regional archfoe. The United States and Israel have also been at odds over the Palestinians. The State Department last week criticized Israel for planned Jewish settlement expansion on occupied land.

Netanyahu sent Jacob Nagel, acting head of Israel’s national security council, to Washington on Monday to lead three days of talks. A person briefed by Netanyahu said the prime minister expressed hope that Nagel would be able to “finalize” negotiations on a new memorandum of understanding and that it would mean increased funding.

A senior U.S. official reiterated the Obama administration’s pledge to sign a new MOU that would “constitute the largest single pledge of military assistance to any country in U.S. history.”

The current pact, signed in 2007 and due to expire in 2018, gave Israel around $30 billion in so-called foreign military financing.

U.S. negotiators are believed to have stuck to a previous offer of $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion annually for Israel under the new MOU, substantially less than the $4 billion a year Netanyahu has sought but still a substantial increase.

EASING OF DISAGREEMENT

A key disagreement has been over Washington’s insistence on ending a special arrangement that has allowed Israel to spend 26.3 percent of its U.S. defense aid on its own military industries rather than on American products.

Israeli officials argue that the provision, which is given to no other country receiving U.S. military assistance, was needed to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military edge” against sometimes hostile neighbors such as Iran, and that its removal would mean the loss of thousands of Israeli defense jobs.

But a congressional source briefed by the Obama administration said Israel had signaled its willingness to phase out the provision. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said the White House was prepared to let Israel keep the arrangement for the first five years of the new MOU but it would be gradually phased out in the second five years, except for joint U.S.-Israeli military projects.

Another sticking point has been Washington’s desire to end a provision allowing Israel to spend around $400 million annually from the package on military fuels.

The congressional source said Nagel was expected to try to work out final details but not actually sign an agreement.

U.S. officials said progress was likely, but were reluctant to predict a breakthrough.

The Obama administration wants a new deal before the president leaves office. Republican critics accuse him of not being attentive enough to Israel’s security, which the White House strongly denies.

Netanyahu angered the White House in February when he suggested the agreement could wait for the next president.

But officials on both sides believe he prefers to get the deal before Obama leaves office. They see Netanyahu seeking to avoid uncertainties surrounding the policies of the next president, whether Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump, and wanting to give Israel’s defense establishment the ability to plan ahead.

(Additional reporting and writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Attempt at U.S.-Russia cooperation in Syria suffers major setbacks

john kerry and sergei lavrov

By Tom Miles and John Walcott

GENEVA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to elicit Russian military cooperation in the fight against Islamic State in Syria suffered two potentially crippling blows on Thursday.

First, the Syrian army said it had cut off all supply routes into the eastern part of the city of Aleppo – Syria’s most important opposition stronghold – and President Bashar al-Assad’s government asked residents to leave the city.

That move, U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity said on Thursday, appeared to be an effort to pre-empt a U.S. demand that Russia and Syria reopen a major road into the divided northern city before talks could begin on creating a joint intelligence center to coordinate air attacks against Islamic State.

Then al Qaeda’s Syrian branch announced on Thursday it was terminating its relationship with the global network created by Osama bin Laden and changing its name to remove what it called a pretext by the United States and other countries to attack Syrians.

Although one U.S. official called it “a change in name only,” the move complicates the American proposal to limit the Russians and Syrians to targeting only Nusra and IS, not other rebel groups supported by Washington and its allies in the coalition against Islamic State.

“By disavowing its ties to al Qaeda – which, incidentally, it did with al Qaeda’s blessing – Nusra has made it harder to isolate it from more moderate groups, some of whose members may join it now because it’s more powerful than some of the groups they belong to now,” said the official.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Washington has been clear about its concerns over the announcement of the humanitarian corridor and that its view of the Nusra Front had not changed despite its name change.

“But we also remain committed to the proposals reached by the United States and Russia to better enforce the cessation of hostilities in Syria and provide the space needed for a resumption of political talks. If fully implemented in good faith, they can achieve a measure of success that has eluded us thus far,” Kirby told Reuters.

“As the secretary made clear, however, we are pragmatic about these efforts, and we will look to Russia to meet its commitments as we will meet ours. That will be the primary, determining factor of success here,” he added.

FALTERING PROPOSAL

The twin U.S. goals in Syria have been ending the violence that already has claimed some 400,000 lives, according to United Nations estimates, and seeking a political process to replace Assad, whom President Barack Obama has said “must go.”

But while Washington and Moscow have both expressed hope they can find a way to cooperate against IS, Kerry’s proposal was already in trouble due to the competing objectives of the Cold War-era foes as well as resistance from U.S. military and intelligence officials.

U.S. officials questioned Russian and Syrian claims that their aim in evacuating civilians from Aleppo was to clear the way for humanitarian assistance to reach the besieged city, where 200,000-300,000 civilians remain with only two to three weeks of food on hand.

“Why would you evacuate a city that you wanted to send humanitarian aid to?” asked one official. “At first glance, that would appear to be a unilateral effort by Moscow and Assad to pre-empt Kerry’s demand for ending the siege of Aleppo before starting negotiations on the larger issues. If the proposal isn’t dead, it seems to be pretty badly wounded.”

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura wants a deal as soon as possible so he can restart peace talks within a month and aid flows can resume.

(Reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva and John Walcott in Washington, additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed; editing by G Crosse)

Turkey rebuffs EU on death penalty, as Erdogan calls for ‘new blood’ in army

Turkish President

By Ece Toksabay, Samia Nakhoul and Nick Tattersall

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey rebuffed the European Union on Friday over the death penalty, while President Tayyip Erdogan vowed to restructure the military and give it “fresh blood”, signaling the scope of a shake-up yet to come under a state of emergency.

There is growing worry in the West about Turkey’s widening crackdown against thousands of members of the security forces, judiciary, civil service and academia after last week’s failed military coup. On Wednesday Erdogan announced a state of emergency, a move he said would allow the government to take swift action against coup plotters.

The possibility of Turkey bringing back capital punishment for the plotters of the attempted coup that killed more than 246 people and wounded more than 2,100 has put further strain on Ankara’s relationship with the EU, which it seeks to join.

Turkey outlawed capital punishment in 2004 as part of its bid to join the bloc and European officials have said backtracking on the death penalty would effectively put an end to the EU accession process. Erdogan says the death penalty may need to be brought back, citing the calls for it from crowds of supporters at rallies.

“People demand the death penalty and that demand will surely be assessed. We have to assess that demand from the standpoint on law, and not according to what the EU says,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told broadcaster CNN Turk.

His comments are likely to spark further unease in the West, where there is growing worry about instability and human rights in the country of 80 million, which plays an important part in the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State and in the European Union’s efforts to stem the flow of refugees from Syria.

Erdogan accuses Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic U.S.-based cleric, of masterminding the plot against him, which crumbled early on Saturday. In a crackdown on Gulen’s suspected followers, more than 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended, detained or placed under investigation.

Bozdag said that armed Gulen supporters had infiltrated the judiciary, universities and the media, as well as the armed forces.

Erdogan told Reuters late on Thursday he would restructure the military and give it “fresh blood”, citing the threat of the Gulen movement, which he likened to a cancer.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States for years, has denied any role in the attempted putsch, and accused Erdogan of orchestrating the coup himself. Turkey wants the U.S. to extradite the cleric. Washington says Turkey must give clear evidence first.

SUPREME COUNCIL

Erdogan said the government’s Supreme Military Council, which is chaired by the prime minister, and includes the defense minister and the chief of staff, would oversee the restructuring of the armed forces.

“They are all working together as to what might be done, and … within a very short amount of time a new structure will be emerging. With this new structure, I believe the armed forces will get fresh blood,” Erdogan said.

Speaking at his palace in Ankara, which was targeted during the coup attempt, he said a new putsch was possible but would not be easy because authorities were now more vigilant.

“It is very clear that there were significant gaps and deficiencies in our intelligence, there is no point trying to hide it or deny it,” Erdogan told Reuters.

Erdogan also said there was no obstacle to extending the state of emergency beyond the initial three months – a comment likely to spark concern among critics already fearful about the pace of his crackdown. Emergency powers allow the government to take swift measures against supporters of the coup, in which more than 246 people were killed and over 2,000 wounded.

Emergency rule will also permit the president and cabinet to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms as they deem necessary.

Germany called for the measure to end as quickly as possible. An international lawyers’ group warned Turkey against using it to subvert the rule of law and human rights, pointing to allegations of torture and ill-treatment of people held in the mass roundup.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the reaction to the coup must not undermine fundamental rights.

“What we’re seeing especially in the fields of universities, media, the judiciary, is unacceptable,” she said of detentions and dismissals of judges, academics and journalists.

For some Turks, the state of emergency raised fears of a return to the days of martial law after a 1980 military coup, or the height of a Kurdish insurgency in the 1990s when much of the largely Kurdish southeast was under a state of emergency.

Opposition parties which stood with the authorities against the coup expressed concern that the state of emergency could concentrate too much power in the hands of Erdogan, whose rivals have long accused him of suppressing free speech.

Erdogan, an Islamist, has led Turkey as prime minister or president since 2003.

“We will continue the fight … wherever they might be. These people have infiltrated the state organization in this country and they rebelled against the state,” he said, calling the actions of Friday night “inhuman” and “immoral”.

Around a third of Turkey’s roughly 360 serving generals have been detained since the coup attempt, a senior official said, with 99 charged pending trial and 14 more being held.

The Defence Ministry is investigating all military judges and prosecutors, and has suspended 262 of them, broadcaster NTV reported, while 900 police officers in the capital, Ankara, were also suspended on Wednesday. The purge also extended to civil servants in the environment and sports ministries.

The state of emergency went into effect after parliament formally approved the measure on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Humeyra Pamuk, Seda Sezer and Gareth Jones; Writing by David Dolan)

Israel’s Netanyahu aims to head off criticism with diplomatic blitz

Benjamin Netanyahu Israel Prime Minister in meeting

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Rome on Sunday to try to fend off pressure from the United States and Europe over his settlements policy and opposition to a French-led effort to forge peace with the Palestinians.

Beginning three days of intense diplomacy, the right-wing premier will meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, in the Italian capital, followed by talks with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem.

One of Netanyahu’s immediate concerns is a forthcoming report from the Middle East Quartet, a mediation group made up of the United States, EU, United Nations and Russia, that is expected to use unusually tough language in criticising Israel’s expansion of settlements on occupied land that the Palestinians seek for an independent state.

Diplomats confirmed that the current language in the report is strong, on the one hand condemning Israel’s unchecked building of settlement homes, which is considered illegal under international law, and on the other persistent Palestinian incitement against Israel during a recent wave of violence.

What is unclear is whether the wording may be softened before the report is issued, probably next week, although its publication has already been delayed several times.

“As it stands, the language is strong and Israel isn’t going to like it,” said one diplomat briefed on the content. “But it’s also not saying that much that hasn’t been said before – that settlements are a serious obstacle to peace.”

Netanyahu spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week as part of his efforts to keep the Kremlin closely updated on developments in the region. The leaders have met face-to-face four times in the past year, with one Israeli official saying the two had developed a good understanding.

As well as a desire to defang the Quartet report, there are a series of issues Netanyahu needs to broach with Kerry, including how to conclude drawn-out negotiations with Washington on a new, 10-year defence agreement.

There is also the looming issue of a peace conference organised by the French that is supposed to convene in the autumn, although it may no longer take place in Paris.

Israeli officials oppose the initiative, seeing it as side-stepping the need for Israel and the Palestinians to sit down and negotiate directly. They argue that it provides the Palestinians a chance to internationalise the conflict, rather than dealing with the nitty-gritty on the ground.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who addressed the European Parliament on Wednesday, said Israel was feeling impatience with Europe and now was not the right time to push for peace.

“Currently, the practical conditions, the political and regional circumstances, which would enable us to reach a permanent agreement between us — the Israelis and the Palestinians — are failing to materialise,” he said.

Many diplomats also question whether the French initiative can inject life into an all-but-defunct peace process, which last broke down in 2014, but they are willing to try.

A nagging concern for Israel is that the conference will end up fixing a time frame for an agreement on ending Israel’s 49-year-old occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and reaching a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

If that doesn’t emerge from the French plan, it remains possible that a resolution along similar lines could be presented to the United Nations Security Council before the end of the year. That is another reason why Netanyahu will be eager to sit down with Ban for talks on Tuesday.

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Two California men convicted of plotting to support Islamic State

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Two men from Anaheim, California, were found guilty on Tuesday of conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State militants, one of them going so far as to attempt to travel to the Middle East to join the extremist group, federal prosecutors said.

A U.S. District Court jury in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, returned the guilty verdicts against Nader Elhuzayel and Muhanad Badawi, both 25, after deliberating for just over an hour, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The decision caps a two-week trial.

In addition to convictions on charges of plotting to provide material support to a terrorist organization, Elhuzayel was found guilty of actually attempting to provide such support and Badawi was found guilty of aiding and abetting those attempts.

Those counts stem from aborted arrangements the two men made for Elhuzayel to travel to Syria, where he intended to enlist as a fighter for Islamic State, prosecutors said.

Moreover, the jury convicted Elhuzayel on 26 counts of bank fraud, and Badawi on a single count of financial aid fraud in connection with their conspiracy, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office statement.

Both men were arrested on May 21, 2015, when Elhuzayel tried to board a Turkish Airlines plane at Los Angeles International Airport for a flight to Turkey, from which point he planned to make his way to the Syrian border, prosecutors said.

Elhuzayel’s one-way plane ticket, for a flight to Israel that included a layover stop in Istanbul, had been purchased by Badawi, authorities said.

Weeks before, according to prosecutors, Elhuzayel had tweeted his support for two gunmen who had attacked an exhibit of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in Garland, Texas, and were shot to death by police.

According to court documents, Elhuzayel previously appeared in a video swearing allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and pledging to join the militant group as a fighter.

Prosecutors said Badawi and Elhuzayel also used social media to express their support for Islamic State. In recorded conversations they “discussed how it would be a blessing to fight for the cause of Allah, and to die in the battlefield,” according to the U.S. attorney statement.

Sentencing was set for September. Elhuzayel faces up to 30 years in prison on each bank fraud count, Badawi up to five years for financial aid fraud. Both men face up to 15 years on each charge related to material support for terrorists.

(Editing by Dan Grebler and Matthew Lewis)

Libyan forces take losses in battle for Sirte against Islamic State

Libyan forces

By Aidan Lewis

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libyan forces fighting Islamic State in its stronghold of Sirte said on Wednesday that 36 of their men had been killed and nearly 150 wounded in the previous day’s clashes, one of the heaviest tolls in their month-long campaign.

Islamic State militants had been fighting hard to defend the shrinking territory they still control in the residential center of Sirte, said Abdalla Binrasali, a spokesman at the forces’ media center in Misrata.

“The resistance was fierce and they were firing with everything they’ve got, mortars, rockets and rifles,” he said. “They fear that if they lose more ground they will be defeated.”

Brigades largely composed of fighters from Misrata launched a campaign to retake Sirte from Islamic State last month. They rapidly recaptured ground west of Sirte at the end of May, but their advance slowed as they closed in on the center of the coastal city.

On Tuesday fighting escalated and the brigades said they had taken control of parts of the “700” neighborhood, the broadcasting and electricity company headquarters and a mosque.

The “700” neighborhood is strategically important because Islamic State snipers have been positioning themselves on the district’s taller buildings.

The brigades based in Misrata are aligned with a U.N.-backed unity government that arrived in Tripoli in March. It is seeking to replace two other rival governments that were set up in Tripoli and the east in 2014, and to unite Libya’s many political and armed factions.

Islamic State took advantage of Libya’s political turmoil to establish a presence in several of the country’s towns and cities from 2014.

It took full control of Sirte, the hometown of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, last year, creating its most significant base outside Syria and Iraq. However, the jihadist group has struggled to retain territory elsewhere in Libya.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)