Tag Archives: Syria

Syrian troops close in on Aleppo’s Old City, poised for war’s biggest victory

Civil Defence members look for survivors under rubble of damaged buildings after air strikes on the northern neighbourhood of Idlib city, Syria

By Angus McDowall , John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria’s army and allies closed in on areas near Aleppo’s Old City on Tuesday, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five-year civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold.

Rebels said on Tuesday they would never abandon Aleppo, after reports that U.S. and Russian diplomats were preparing to discuss the surrender and evacuation of insurgents from territory they have held for years.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks with the United States on a rebel withdrawal would begin in Geneva as soon as Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. But sources familiar with the plans later told Reuters no talks would take place this week in the Swiss city.

The rebels, who controlled large parts of eastern Aleppo for nearly five years, have lost around two thirds of their territory in the city over the past two weeks.

The government now appears closer to victory in the city than at any point since 2012, the year after rebels took up arms to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it would now accept no truce in Aleppo, should any outside parties try to negotiate one. Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Monday calling for a weeklong ceasefire. Moscow said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce.

Tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in rebel-held districts of Aleppo, reduced to a few kilometers across. The United Nations, whose staff are restricted to government-controlled areas of the city, on Tuesday described “a very disastrous situation in eastern Aleppo”.

“There has been heavy shelling on us, there are massacres (of civilians), there’s no electricity and little internet access,” said Abu Youssef, a resident of one of the areas still held by the fighters.

Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months. Moscow wants negotiations with Washington to facilitate such an evacuation.

But despite Lavrov’s announcement of a meeting in Geneva, a U.S. official said firm plans for talks had never been set, though Washington was still working to reopen negotiations.

“We’re not going to negotiate this publicly,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Rebels have told U.S. officials they will not withdraw, and said there had been no more formal contact with Washington on the topic since last week.

“The Americans asked if we wanted to leave or to stay … we said this is our city, and we will defend it,” Zakaria Malahifji, a Turkey-based official for the Fastaqim rebel group, told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Cold War-era superpowers have backed opposing sides in the war, but Russia has intervened far more openly and decisively, joining Iran as well as Iraqi and Lebanese Shi’ite groups to back Assad.

Some of the groups fighting in eastern Aleppo have received support in a U.S.-backed military aid program to rebels deemed moderate by the West. However, this has been minimal compared to massive Russian air support to aid Assad’s government, which has turned the tide of the war in his favor over the past year.

The army said it had taken over areas to the east of the Old City including al-Shaar, Marja and Karm al-Qaterji, bringing them closer to cutting off another pocket of rebel control.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al-Shaar and some other areas had been taken, but did not immediately confirm the takeover of all the areas announced by the army. A Turkey-based rebel official denied al-Shaar had been taken but said fighting continued in the neighborhood.

Outside of Aleppo, the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts. The Observatory said a heavy Syrian and Russian aerial bombardment in the last three days in the mostly rebel-held Idlib province to the southwest had killed more than 100 people.

WINTER IS COMING

The rebels’ loss of the eastern half of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, would be the biggest victory of the conflict so far for Assad, securing his grip on all Syria’s main cities.

It would also be a success for President Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow’s ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi’ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad.

U.N. official Jens Laerke said: “Winter is approaching, it’s already getting very, very cold so that has come up as a priority need … Food is running out, the little food that is available is being sold at extremely inflated prices.”

While rebels have said they will not leave, one opposition official, who declined to be identified, conceded they may have no alternative for the sake of civilians who have been under siege for five months and faced relentless government assaults.

Insurgents, meanwhile, have fought back ferociously inside Aleppo. Some of the fighting took place on Monday within a kilometer of the ancient citadel, a large fortress built on a mound, and around the historic Old City.

With narrow alleyways, big mansions and covered markets, the ancient city of Aleppo became a UNESCO heritage site in 1986. Many historic buildings have been destroyed in the fighting.

Apart from their support for rebels fighting against Assad, Western countries are also taking part in a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim militant group which broke away from other anti-Assad groups to proclaim a caliphate in territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

Moscow says helping Assad is the best way to defeat Islamic State. Western countries say the group gains strength from the fury unleashed by Assad’s military crackdown on his enemies.

France, a staunch backer of the anti-Assad opposition, will convene foreign ministers of like-minded countries in Paris on Saturday to try to come up with some form of strategy in the wake of the Aleppo onslaught, although few diplomats expect anything concrete to be achieved.

Western countries say that even if government forces take Aleppo, they will still not be able to end the conflict, as long as millions of Syrians see the government as a brutal enemy.

“Aleppo falls, but the war goes on,” said one U.S. official.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, John Irish in Paris, John Davison and in Beirut and Jonathan Landay, Yeganeh Torbati and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; writing by Peter Millership; editing by Peter Graff)

U.N. launches record $22.2 billion humanitarian appeal for 2017

War in Aleppo

By Umberto Bacchi

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The United Nations launched a record humanitarian appeal on Monday, asking for $22.2 billion in 2017 to help almost 93 million people hit by conflicts and natural disasters.

More than half of the money will be used to address the needs of people caught up in crises in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and South Sudan, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

The appeal followed a trend of steady increases that have seen requests for funds grow almost three-fold from $7.9 billion in 2011.

“The scale of humanitarian crises today is greater than at any time since the United Nations was founded,” U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said in a statement.

“Not in living memory have so many people needed our support and solidarity to survive and live in safety and dignity”.

Several countries, including Afghanistan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia have issued emergency appeals almost annually for the past 25 years and some faced worsening crises in 2017, the U.N. said.

In 2016, the U.N. sought $22.1 billion, having initially appealed for $20.1 billion but a shortfall in donations meant the appeal was only 51 percent funded as of Nov. 30.

“Sadly, with persistently escalating humanitarian needs, the gap between what has to be done to save and protect more people today and what humanitarians are financed to do and can access is growing ever wider,” OCHA head O’Brien wrote.

As humanitarian needs continue to rise, aid workers are increasingly at risk of targeted attacks and their efforts are hampered by reduced access, growing disrespect for human rights and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, O’Brien said.

In Syria, humanitarian needs were expected to “grow exponentially” if no political solution was found to the nearly six-year-old conflict, with 13.5 million people requiring aid.

In Afghanistan, where government forces are struggling to contain a Taliban insurgency, 1.8 million people, mostly children, will require treatment for acute malnutrition next year, according to the appeal.

The political crisis in Burundi will see the number of people in need of urgent support triple to about three million.

The U.N. last week doubled its appeal for northeast Nigeria to $1 billion, hoping to reach nearly 7 million people hit by the Islamist militant Boko Haram insurgency, including 75,000 children at risk of starving to death.

“Funding in support of the plans will translate into life-saving food assistance to people on the brink of starvation in the Lake Chad Basin and South Sudan,” said O’Brien.

Long-term conflicts resulted in higher costs partially because falling state revenues required aid agencies to offer healthcare, education and other services traditionally provided by governments, said Paul Knox Clarke, head of research and communications at ALNAP, a humanitarian action learning network.

“You have a situation where the humanitarian funding is basically this sort of welfare service provision,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

(Reporting by Umberto Bacchi @UmbertoBacchi, Editing by Astrid Zweynert and Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Russia says to start talks with U.S. on Aleppo rebel withdrawal

smoke rises after air strike

By Ellen Francis, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Maria Kiselyova

BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian government said on Monday it would start talks with Washington on a rebel withdrawal from Aleppo this week as Russian-backed Syrian forces fought to seize more territory from rebels who are struggling to avoid a major defeat.

The latest army attack, which saw fierce clashes around the Old City, aims to cut off another area of rebel control in eastern Aleppo and tighten the noose on opposition-held districts where tens of thousands of people are trapped.

Advances in recent weeks have brought Damascus, backed militarily by Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, closer to recapturing Syria’s second largest city before the nearly six-year war and a prize long sought by President Bashar al-Assad.

The rebels are now reduced to an area just kilometers across.

While Assad’s allies have in the past year turned the battle in his favor, Western and regional states backing the rebels have been unwilling or unable to prevent a major defeat for groups who have fought for years to topple the Syrian leader.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said talks with the United States on the withdrawal of rebels would begin in Geneva on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. There was no immediate comment from Washington, which has backed some of the rebels.

“Those armed groups who refuse to leave eastern Aleppo will be considered to be terrorists,” Lavrov told a news conference. “We will treat them as such, as terrorists, as extremists and will support a Syrian army operation against those criminal squads.”

While the rebels have said they will not leave, one opposition official, who declined to be identified, conceded they may have no alternative for the sake of civilians who have been under siege for five months and faced relentless government bombardments.

“The people are paying a high price, with no state or organization intervening,” the official said, adding that this was his personal assessment based on reports from the city.

With narrow alleyways, big mansions and covered markets the ancient city of Aleppo became a UNESCO heritage site in 1986. Many historic buildings have been destroyed in the fighting.

BLACK SMOKE RISES NEAR CITADEL

Responding to Russia’s demand for their withdrawal, rebels told U.S. officials on Saturday they would not leave. Reiterating that position on Monday, rebel official Zakaria Malahifji said, “No person in his right mind, who has any sense of responsibility and patriotism, would leave his city.”

“The Russians are trying to do everything they can to make people leave. This is far from reality,” he said, speaking to Reuters from Turkey.

Insurgents, meanwhile, fought back ferociously inside Aleppo. Some of the fighting took place within a kilometre of the ancient citadel, a large fortress built on a mound, and around the historic Old City.

Heavy gunfire could be heard from the Old City and smoke from mortar shell blasts rose from the area, Reuters journalists in a government-held western district said.

Rebels appeared on the verge of being driven from the al-Shaar neighborhood after new advances by Syrian government forces on Sunday. But rebels said they had mounted a counter-attack on Monday, and were recovering ground in some areas.

Clashes raged in the Old City itself, which has long been split between government- and rebel-held areas, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

A Syrian army officer told Reuters intense fighting was taking place around the Old City.

State television broadcast a report from inside a hospital complex seized from rebels on Sunday. The hospital is strategically important because it overlooks surrounding areas held by insurgents.

A government takeover of the eye hospital complex and areas stretching west from there to the citadel would cut the remaining rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo in two, further isolating embattled rebel groups. Rebels said they were fighting back in that area too on Monday.

REBELS LAUNCH COUNTER-ATTACKS

“They (rebels) are trying to take back all the areas the regime took yesterday (including) the eye hospital, al-Myassar,” Malahifji said.

Moscow said a rebel attack on a mobile military hospital killed one Russian medic and wounded two others.

The United Nations says more than 200,000 people might still be trapped in rebel-held areas, affected by severe food and aid shortages. “We need to reach them,” U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien said in Geneva on Monday.

“People have been eking what they can, prices have skyrocketed so there is a real and severe shortage of foodstuffs.”

Russia is expected to veto a U.N. resolution on Monday which calls for a seven-day ceasefire, with Lavrov saying a truce was counter-productive because it would allow rebels to regroup.

State TV said rebel shelling killed seven people in government-held areas of Aleppo on Monday.

More than 300 people have been killed in government bombardments of rebel-held areas since mid-November, and 70 have died in rebel shellings, the Syrian Observatory says.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Firas Makdesi in Aleppo, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Jack Stubbs in Moscow; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Millership)

Russia says will treat as terrorists rebels who refuse to leave Aleppo

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday he was confident Moscow and Washington can reach a deal in talks this week on the withdrawal of all rebels from the eastern part of the Syrian city of Aleppo.

He told a news conference once the deal was reached, rebels who stay in the besieged eastern part of the city will be treated as terrorists and Russia will support the operation of the Syrian army against them.

“Those armed groups who refuse to leave eastern Aleppo will be considered to be terrorists,” Lavrov said. “We will treat them as such, as terrorists, as extremists and will support a Syrian army operation against those criminal squads.”

Russia and the United States will start talks on the withdrawal in Geneva on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has sent his proposals on routes and timing of the withdrawal, Lavrov said.

“We believe that when the Americans proposed their initiative for militants to leave eastern Aleppo, they realized what steps they and their allies, who have an influence on militants stuck in eastern Aleppo, would have to take.”

He added that a United Nations resolution on a ceasefire would be counterproductive because a ceasefire would allow rebels to regroup.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova,; writing by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Christian Lowe)

Air strikes kill 73 in rebel-held Idlib province: war monitor

excavator removing rubble after air strikes

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Air strikes killed at least 73 people in rebel-held Idlib province, including 38 in the city of Maarat al-Numan, on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group monitoring the war, reported.

Russian war planes and Syrian military jets and helicopters have been conducting heavy strikes for months against rebels in Idlib, southwest of Aleppo. Insurgents had previously tried to get help and supplies to fellow rebels in the city from Idlib.

The Observatory said the death toll in Maarat al-Numan included five children and six members of a single family.

The bombardment included barrel bombs, improvised ordnance made from oil drums filled with explosives and dropped from helicopters, the monitor said. The Syrian military and Russia both deny using barrel bombs, whose use has been criticized by the United Nations.

Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011, pits President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi’ite Muslim militias against mostly Sunni rebels including groups supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf kingdoms.

Jihadist militants are also fighting alongside the insurgents, including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which has a large presence in Idlib province and was known as the Nusra Front until July when it broke its formal allegiance to al Qaeda.

Russia says its air campaign, which began in September 2015, is aimed at preventing jihadists, including both Fateh al-Sham and the Islamic State group, from gaining more territory in Syria that could be used to mount attacks overseas.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Mosul residents fear cold and hunger of winter siege

Iraqi people collect water in Mosul, Iraq,

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – No food or fuel has reached Mosul in nearly a week and the onset of rain and cold weather threatens a tough winter for more than a million people still in Islamic State-held areas of the city, residents said on Saturday.

Iraqi troops waging a six-week-old offensive against the militants controlling Mosul have advanced into eastern city districts, while other forces have sealed Mosul’s southern and northern approaches and 10 days ago blocked the road west.

But their advance has been hampered by waves of counter-attacks from the ultra-hardline Islamists who have controlled the city since mid-2014 and built a network of tunnels in preparation for their defense of north Iraq’s largest city.

The slow progress means the campaign is likely to drag on throughout the winter, and has prompted warnings from aid groups that civilians face a near complete siege in the coming months.

A trader in Mosul, speaking by telephone, said no new food or fuel supplies had reached the city since Sunday.

Despite attempts by the militants to keep prices stable, and the arrest last week of dozens of shopkeepers accused of hiking prices, the trader said food had become more expensive and fuel prices had tripled.

“We’ve been living under a real state of siege for a week,” said one resident of west Mosul, several miles (km) from the frontline neighborhoods on the east bank of the Tigris river.

“Two days ago the electricity generator supplying the neighborhood stopped working because of lack of fuel. Water is cut and food prices have risen and it’s terribly cold. We fear the days ahead will be much worse”.

A pipeline supplying water to around 650,000 people in Mosul was hit during fighting this week between the army and Islamic State. A local official said it could not be fixed because the damage was in an area still being fought over.

Winter conditions will also hit the nearly 80,000 people registered by the United Nations as displaced since the start of the Mosul campaign. That number excludes many thousands more who were forcibly moved by Islamic State, or fled from the fighting deeper into territory under its control.

MILITANTS COUNTER ATTACK

Islamic State authorities, trying to portray a sense of normality, released pictures which they said showed a Mosul market on Friday. It showed a crowd of people and a stall selling vegetable oil and canned food but no fresh produce.

They also said they carried out several counter attacks in the last 24 hours against Iraqi troops in eastern Mosul and the mainly Shi’ite Popular Mobilisation forces who have taken territory to the west of the city.

Amaq news agency, which is close to Islamic State, said they retook half of the Shaimaa district in southeast of the city on Friday, destroyed four army bases in the eastern al-Qadisiya al-Thaniya neighborhood and seized ammunition from fleeing soldiers in al-Bakr district, also in the east.

A source in the Counter Terrorism Services, which are spearheading the army offensive, said Islamic State exploited the bad weather and cloud cover, which prevented air support from a U.S.-led international coalition.

He said the militants had taken back some ground, but predicted their gains would be short-lived.

“This is not the first time it happens. We withdraw to avoid civilian losses and then regain control. They can’t hold territory for long,” the source said.

Amaq also said Islamic State fighters waged attacks on Saturday against the Popular Mobilisation paramilitary units near the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, showing footage of two damaged vehicles, one with interior ministry markings on it.

A spokesman for the militias said those attacks had been repelled. “Daesh attacked at dawn to try to control the village Tal Zalat,” said Karim Nouri. “Clashes continued for two hours, until Daesh withdrew, leaving bodies (of dead fighters) behind.”

In Baghdad, a car bomb blew up in a crowded market in the center of the city on Saturday, killing seven people and wounding 15, police and medical sources said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Islamic State fighters have stepped up attacks in the Iraqi capital and other cities since the start of the Mosul operations.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi launched the Mosul offensive on Oct. 17, aiming to crush Islamic State in the largest city it controls in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

The campaign pits a 100,000-strong U.S.-backed coalition of army troops, special forces, federal police, Kurdish fighters and the Popular Mobilisation forces against a few thousand militants in the city.

Defeat would deal a heavy blow to Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria, announced by its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from a Mosul mosque two years ago.

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Clelia Oziel)

Europol warns of IS attacks, says dozens of militants may be in Europe

An Islamic State flag is seen in this picture

THE HAGUE, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Islamic State is likely to launch more attacks in Europe, the EU police agency Europol warned on Friday, with several dozen militants already in place and more possibly arriving as IS faces setbacks in Syria and Iraq.

In a report on the threat the Islamist group poses to the 28-nation bloc, Europol said the most probable forms of attack would be those used in recent years, from the mass shootings and suicide bombings seen in Paris and Brussels to stabbings and other assaults by radicals acting alone.

Car bombs and kidnappings, common in Syria, could emerge as tactics in Europe, it said, while protected sites such as power grids and nuclear power stations were not seen as top targets.

Essentially the entire European Union is under threat as almost all its governments back the U.S.-led coalition in Syria, the agency said, warning that IS was likely to infiltrate Syrian refugee communities in Europe in an effort to inflame hostility to immigrants that has shaken many EU governments.

“If IS is defeated or severely weakened in Syria/Iraq by the coalition forces, there may be an increased rate in the return of foreign fighters and their families from the region to the EU or to other conflict areas,” Europol said in a statement.

It said Islamic State was also likely to start planning attacks and sending militants to Europe from Libya and that other groups, including al Qaeda and its affiliates, also continue to pose a threat to the continent.

Europol Director Rob Wainwright said EU states had stepped up their security cooperation in the wake of IS attacks in the last couple of years, allowing more plots to be thwarted.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “Today’s report shows that the threat is still high and includes diverse components which can be only tackled by even better collaboration.”

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Editing by Janet
Lawrence)

Turkey, Russia see need for Aleppo truce but divisions remain

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shakes hands with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Alanya, Turkey,

By Tulay Karadeniz

ALANYA, Turkey (Reuters) – Turkey and Russia, two of the main backers of opposing sides in Syria’s civil war, said on Thursday they agreed on the need for a halt to fighting and the provision of aid in Aleppo but deep divisions remain between them over the conflict.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he and his visiting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov agreed on the need for a ceasefire in Aleppo, but added that Turkey’s stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was unchanged.

Russia is a main backer of Assad, while Turkey supports the rebels fighting to oust him. The rebels have come under siege in eastern Aleppo after rapid advances by Syrian government forces in recent days, bringing them to the brink of a major defeat.

“A ceasefire must be achieved in all of Syria, notably in Aleppo,” Cavusoglu told a joint news conference in the Mediterranean town of Alanya, adding Turkey was in agreement with Russia in broad terms on the need for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid and political transition.

Lavrov said the bloodshed must stop in Syria and the region, that Moscow was ready to talk to all parties in the war, and that it would continue cooperating with Turkey. But he also vowed Russia would continue its operations in eastern Aleppo and would rescue the city from what he described as terrorists.

Syrian rebels on Wednesday vowed to fight on in east Aleppo in the face of sudden government advances that have cut the city’s opposition sector by a third.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed the situation in Aleppo with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin by phone for the third time in a week on Wednesday and agreed on the need for a ceasefire, sources in Erdogan’s office said.

While remaining divided on Assad’s future, Ankara and Moscow have been trying to find common ground on Syria since a rapprochement in August.

(Writing by Nick Tattersall and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Daren Butler and Andrew Heavens)

Sunni tribesmen battling Islamic State demand federalism in Iraq

Members of the Lions of the Tigris, a group of Sunni Arab fighters and part of the Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Comimittee) take part during a military operation against Islamic State militants in Shayyalah al-Imam, Iraq

SHAYYALAH AL-IMAM, Iraq (Reuters) – As mortar bombs landed ever closer, Sunni tribal fighters preparing to attack Islamic State seemed more preoccupied by the failures of Iraq’s political class than the militants trying to kill them.

The men – and one woman – from the Lions of the Tigris unit gathered on Wednesday in Shayyalah al-Imam, a village near Mosul, with some of their leaders expressing deep distrust of the politicians and saying Iraq’s governance must change once Islamic State is defeated.

“Iraq needs serious reforms,” said Sheikh Mohammed al-Jibouri, the top commander of the tribesmen. “Only serious reforms will lead to the unity of Iraq.”

The unit is part of the Popular Mobilisation Committee, or Hashid Shaabi, which was formed to take on Islamic State after the hardline Sunni group swept through northern Iraq in 2014, facing little resistance from the army.

Hashid Shaabi is mostly comprised of Shi’ites but there are also Sunnis, such as the 655-strong Lions of the Tigris unit.

Their efforts along with government soldiers to capture several villages are part of an offensive to oust Islamic State from its stronghold of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

On the surface, their participation lends credibility to the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad, accused by Sunnis of marginalising their minority community. It denies the accusation.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has been struggling to persuade Sunni tribesmen who helped U.S. forces defeat Al Qaeda during the 2003-11 occupation to join the battle against Islamic State. He has declared a war on corruption in government and army but faces resistance.

The show of force in Shayyalah al-Imam points to progress, with soldiers and tribesmen standing side-by-side.

But some of the men doubted the politicians have the resolve or desire to unify Iraq, gripped by sectarian bloodshed since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.

Another tribal commander, Abdel Rahman Ali, even saw Islamic State as part of an elaborate plot to weaken Sunnis, underlining the pervasive mistrust in Iraq.

“Everyone knows Islamic State will be defeated. The conspiracy was designed to hurt Iraq, especially Sunnis, after we liberate Mosul,” he told Reuters. “Our own politicians are behind it.”

UNITY OR PARTITION

Officials have said the Mosul offensive, the biggest ground operation since 2003, could make or break Iraq. If it inflames sectarian tensions in the predominantly Sunni city, the fighting could lead to Iraq’s partition, they warn.

But if the campaign goes smoothly and a new administration in Mosul is seen as non-sectarian, that could help the country to unite.

Ali said federalism modelled on the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq is the best option, even though that has created friction with Baghdad over oil resources.

Like many Sunnis, the minority who dominated under Saddam and then watched the majority Shi’ites rise to power, he is disillusioned with a governing system that allocates posts according to sects. Sunnis themselves are divided and lack a strong leadership, adding to Iraq’s fragmentation.

As the men spoke, Islamic State militants fired more mortar bombs towards their unit. One day earlier, suicide bombers attacked the area, a collection of bland cement houses choked by dust, overlooking the desert.

A few hundred metres away, soldiers stood on a rooftop, focused on two suspected car bombs in the distance.

Nashwan Sahn, a Sunni tribesmen who has been fighting Islamist militants in Iraq for 11 years, taking on al Qaeda and then Islamic State, kept warm at a small campfire where freshly-slaughtered chickens had been barbecued. A few raw livers lay scattered on a tray. Beside him was a Shi’ite soldier.

Both said they support Iraqi unity but neither had any faith in the politicians to manage the sectarian tensions which provoked a civil war in 2006-2007.

“Federalism would be good but only if we have good leaders,” said Sahn, who criticised all politicians including fellow Sunnis. “We liberate these villages where Sunnis live. Yet Sunni politicians who have constituents here have never visited us at the frontline.”

Miaad Madaad, the only female member of the Lions of the Tigris, clutched an AK-47 assault rifle and vowed to defeat Islamic State. “The last time they came to my house and threatened me I threw rocks at them and called them dogs,” she said proudly.

Islamic State militants beheaded her father-in-law and brother-in-law. But her story illustrates the sectarian and ethnic complexities and mistrust facing Iraq.

When she and her husband fled to the relatively stable Kurdish region earlier this year, he was arrested by Kurdish fighters who suspected him of being an Islamic State fighter.

(editing by David Stamp)

Mosul edges towards full siege, families struggle to find food

An Iraqi soldier searches a house during clashes with Islamic State fighters in Al-Qasar, southeast of Mosul.

By Maher Chmaytelli and Ulf Laessing

BAGHDAD/MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – A full siege is developing in Mosul as poor families struggle to feed themselves after prices rose sharply following the U.S.-backed offensive on the Islamic State-held city in northern Iraq, humanitarian workers said on Tuesday.

Some of the poorest families are finding it hard to feed themselves while others are hoarding and hiding food as they expect prices to rise further as the battle that started six weeks ago takes hold of the city.

A Kurdish Iraqi woman inspects her destroyed kitchen after returning to her house in the town of Bashiqa which was retaken by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters following a battle with Islamic State militants,

A Kurdish Iraqi woman inspects her destroyed kitchen after returning to her house in the town of Bashiqa which was retaken by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters following a battle with Islamic State militants, north of Mosul, Iraq November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

“Key informants are telling us that poor families are struggling to put sufficient food on their tables,” U.N Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, told Reuters. “This is very worrying.”

Iraqi government and Kurdish forces surround the city from the north, east and south, while Popular Mobilisation forces – a coalition of Iranian-backed Shi’ite groups – are trying to close in from the west.

Retail prices rose sharply last week, after Popular Mobilisation fighters cut the supply route to Mosul from the Syrian half of the self-styled caliphate, declared by Islamic State two years ago over Sunni-populated parts of Iraq and Syria.

More than a million people are still believed to live in parts of Mosul under the control of the Islamic State fighters, who seized the largest city in northern Iraq as part of a lightning advance across a third of the country in 2014.

With the last supply route cut off, basic commodity prices in Mosul could double “in the short term”, said a humanitarian worker, who declined to be identified.

Some 100,000 Iraqi government troops, Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi’ite militiamen are participating in the assault on Mosul that began on Oct. 17, with air and ground support from a U.S.-led international military coalition.

The capture of Mosul, Islamic State’s last major urban stronghold in Iraq, is seen as crucial towards dismantling the caliphate.

“ACUTE NEED”

Iraqi forces moving from the east have captured about a quarter of Mosul, trying to advance to the Tigris river that runs through its center, in the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

“In a worst case, we envision that families who are already in trouble in Mosul will find themselves in even more acute need.” Grande said. “The longer it takes to liberate Mosul, the harder conditions become for families.”

Islamic State arrested on Sunday about 30 shop owners accused of raising food prices in the city, to try to suppress discontent, witnesses said on Monday.

The group is relentlessly cracking down on people who could help the offensive in Iraq. Most of the people executed previously in Mosul were former police and army officers, suspected of disloyalty or plotting rebellions against the militants’ harsh rule.

The Iraqi military estimates there are 5,000-6,000 insurgents in Mosul, dug in amid civilians to hamper air strikes, resisting the advancing troops with suicide car bombs and sniper and mortar fire that also kill civilians.

An air strike targeting Islamic State fighters hit a clinic south of Mosul on October 18, killing at least eight civilians, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

NO RETREAT

Iraqi and coalition forces did not confirm the report, which said two militants and the Sunni hardline group’s transport minister were also killed in the strike.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to be somewhere near the Syrian border, has told his fighters there can be no retreat from the city.

Some 74,000 civilians have fled Mosul so far, and the United Nations is preparing for a worst-case scenario which foresees more than a million people made homeless as winter descends and food shortages set in.

A Reuters correspondent in eastern Mosul saw civilians fleeing the fighting in Aden, a district supposed to be under Iraqi government control, in an indication of the difficulty the troops are encountering in holding terrain.

“Daesh is still there,” said Ehab, a high school student, referring to Islamic State by one of its Arab acronyms. “They drive around in cars; the situation is very, very difficult there. I am glad I made it out alive.”

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Dominic Evans and Peter Millership)