Tag Archives: Syria

Suspected U.S. Coalition strikes kill 56 civilians in IS held city

Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) ride vehicles along a road near Manbij, in Aleppo Governorate, Syria,

BEIRUT (Reuters) – At least 56 civilians were killed on Tuesday in air strikes north of the besieged Islamic State-held city of Manbij in northern Syria, and residents said they believed the attack was carried out by U.S.-led warplanes, a monitoring group said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included 11 children, and that dozens more people were wounded.

The U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, launched an offensive at the end of May to seize the last territory held by Islamic State (IS) insurgents on Syria’s frontier with Turkey.

Supported by U.S. coalition air strikes, the SDF has surrounded and fought their way into parts of the city, but Islamic State attacks still occur in some areas of the surrounding countryside.

On Monday, 21 people were killed in raids also believed to have been conducted by U.S.-led coalition aircraft on Manbij’s northern Hazawneh quarter.

In a statement, rights watchdog Amnesty International said the U.S.-led coalition must do more to prevent civilian deaths.

“Anyone responsible for violations of international humanitarian law must be brought to justice and victims and their families should receive full reparation,” Amnesty’s interim Middle East director Magdalena Mughrabi said.

Progress into Manbij city has been slow. The militants have deployed snipers, planted mines and prevented civilians from leaving, hampering efforts to bomb the city without causing heavy casualties, according to Kurdish sources.

The Observatory said at least 104 civilians have died from air strikes since the start of the Manbij offensive in late May.

Colonel Chris Garver, a spokesman for the U.S. coalition against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, said it was looking into reports of civilian deaths but was being “extraordinarily careful to make sure” air strikes were killing IS fighters.

“Around Manbij, the Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC – Arab groups within the SDF), which is leading that fight, is being very slow and deliberate in that fight to protect civilians which we know are inside.”

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights recently voiced concern for the roughly 70,000 civilians believed to be trapped between warring parties in Manbij.

“Civilians have…reportedly been killed if they leave their homes or attempt to flee. Families are unable to access local cemeteries to bury their relatives who have died or been killed, and are burying them in their gardens or keeping the corpses in bunkers,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said.

“The town has no electricity or water at present, and no medical facilities are known to be operating. As the SDF closes in on the city, (Islamic State) has not permitted civilians to leave the area.”

The coalition said it has conducted more than 450 strikes in the vicinity of Manbij. It routinely investigates civilian deaths and publishes the results of confirmed incidents.

Between Sept. 10, 2015 and Feb. 2, 2016, coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria probably killed 20 civilians and injured 11 others, the U.S. Central Command said in April.

On Tuesday, the coalition said the SAC captured an IS command center in western Manbij on Sunday that was concealed in a hospital and was also being used as a logistics hub.

The SAC had also taken a significant area of the city during the operation, giving civilians an opportunity to flee, a statement from the Combined Joint Task Force said.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut. Additional reporting by John Davison and Stephen Kalin in Baghdad; editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.S. proposes military cooperation with Russia on Syria

People queue for bread in the rebel held al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo

PARIS (Reuters) – The United States will propose increasing military cooperation and sharing intelligence with Russia to identify and target Islamic State and al Qaeda headquarters, training camps and supply routes in Syria, the Washington Post reported.

The extent of coordination set out in the document would represent a major shift after years of rivalry between Washington and Moscow, who support opposing sides in Syria’s five-year-old civil war.

The proposal, set out in a document published by the newspaper, will be presented by Secretary of State John Kerry during a visit to Moscow on Thursday, it said.

Kerry declined to comment when asked about the report. “I’ll have comments, going to Moscow, meeting with President Putin tonight; we’ll have plenty of time to talk about it and I’ll give you all a sense of where we are,” he told reporters in Paris.

A senior State Department official told Reuters that Kerry would discuss how to deal with Islamic State and al Qaeda in Syria, as well as efforts to reduce the violence, allow humanitarian access and move towards political transition.

“At present we are not conducting or coordinating military operations with Russia, nor is it clear we will reach an agreement to do so,” the official said.

The document published by The Washington Post called for intelligence sharing to identify leadership targets, training camps, supply lines and headquarters of the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. Strikes against those targets could be carried out by U.S. or Russian jets.

It said that expanded coordination between the United States and Russia would be channeled through a Joint Implementation Group, based in the vicinity of the Jordanian capital Amman.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom in Paris,; Writing by Dominic Evans, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Aleppo Rebels brace for long Syrian government siege

People walk on the rubble of a site hit by a barrel bomb in the rebel held area of Old Aleppo, Syria July 11, 2016.

By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – Rebel areas of Aleppo have stockpiled enough basic supplies to survive months of siege by Syrian pro-government forces that cut off their half of the city last week, even though some goods are running out, an opposition official said.

Government forces backed by allies including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Russian air force advanced last week to within a few hundred meters (yards) of the only road into the rebel-held part of Aleppo, making it impassable for the several hundred thousand people living there.

The advance has brought Damascus closer to achieving its long-held aim of encircling rebel districts of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and a potent symbol of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad now in its sixth year.

Rebel forces are fighting back in an attempt to reopen the Castello road. The opposition does not expect the Syrian army and its allies to storm the populous, rebel-controlled sector of Aleppo, and is preparing for the possibility of a long siege.

Russian officials said Moscow was there to help Damascus in its fight because the road had been used to supply armed groups, but the United States urged Russia to put pressure on the Syrian government to cease its onslaught.

With prices rocketing in Aleppo, opposition authorities were seeking to ration consumption to prevent hoarding and prevent traders from overcharging, said Brita Hagi Hassan, president of the city council for opposition-held Aleppo.

He said opposition authorities were also moving towards opening “alternative ways” into the rebel-held part of the city.

“We have the capability to open new ways because the situation is still under control,” Hassan told Reuters. The plans were secret, he added, speaking from a rural area west of Aleppo after twice failing to enter the city last week.

Prices of non-perishable staple foods have tripled and fresh produce has gone up by even more, if it can be found at all. A kilo (2.2 pounds) of tomatoes, which are now in season, costs at least five times more than they did before the blockade.

AIR STRIKES

The city council has stockpiled flour, wheat, fuel, sugar and rice, and residents were being urged to adapt to the new situation, Hassan said. “I reassured people on this matter … we can remain for several months without a problem.

“There are posters, pamphlets and there will be a press conference about this matter, so that the people are aware of the new situation, because the situation is very bad.”

Operators of generators had been told to cut back their use to two hours a day, and the council had set aside fuel for essential uses such as bakeries.

As part of their counter-attack, rebels bombarded government-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, where the population is estimated at slightly over 1 million people. Air strikes have also targeted rebel areas of the city.

“The streets are abnormally quiet after several barrel bombs hit our neighborhood. People are waiting,” said Malek Idrees, a father of five who lives in a rebel district.

“I could not find fresh produce for the last two days … but there are no severe shortages … most goods (are) still in the markets. I could not find bread yesterday,” he said.

The United Nations said it was worried about increased fighting in and around Aleppo and called for humanitarian aid access and the safe and rapid evacuation of civilians.

U.N. spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci said that intensified hostilities had cut off 300,000 people. Hassan estimated the population in the rebel zone to be 400,000.

Assad is backed by Moscow, which launched air strikes in September, as well as by Iranian and Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah has said it regards Aleppo – Syria’s pre-war commercial hub – as the most important battleground in the country, equating it with the defense of the capital Damascus.

“The fact is that the (Castello) road has been very actively and heavily used to supply various terrorist groups,” Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said on Tuesday. “Clearly in that kind of a situation, the government has to fight back and we’re there to help them in this regard.”

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told a U.N. Security Council meeting Assad’s bid to encircle eastern Aleppo would have “potentially devastating consequences.

“Russia, as a co-sponsor of the cessation of hostilities, should use its influence on the regime to help stop these attacks,” Power said, referring to a truce agreed in February that subsequently unraveled.

Assad’s allies say they are battling the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in Aleppo. But Western-backed nationalist insurgents loosely grouped under the banner of the Free Syrian Army say they control the rebel-held part of the city.

Nusra Front said it and the Nour al-Din al-Zinki insurgent group had fought back and advanced in an area near the Castello road late on Tuesday. There was no immediate Zinki comment.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

South African twins planned attacks on U.S. Embassy, Jewish buildings

U.S. Embassy in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African twins arrested over the weekend were planning attacks on the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Pretoria, as well as on buildings owned by Jewish people, police said on Monday.

Four South Africans, including the twins, Brandon-Lee and Tony-Lee Thulsie, faced charges in court ranging from conspiracy to firearms offences, the spokesman for the elite police unit Hawks, Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi, said.

The four, arrested in Johannesburg on Sunday, will be detained in custody until July 19, when their case will be heard, Mulaudzi said.

Quoting the charge sheet, the News24 news organization said the twins had been attempting to fly to Syria. Security officials say there are no known militant groups operating in South Africa, but Britain and the United States warned in June of a high threat of attacks against foreigners in the country’s shopping malls.

Mulaudzi named the other two siblings as Fatima and Ibrahim Mohammed Patel.

“The indictment does talk to issues of terror plots that they were planning against the U.S. Embassy as well as Jewish Buildings in the country,” he said, referring to the twins.

“The twins have been charged with conspiracy,” Mulaudzi added. “The Patel siblings have been charged with the violation of the Firearms Control Act for now.”

The twins’ preliminary charge sheet states that their conspiracy occurred between October 2015 and July 8 this year, local newspaper the Times said on its online service.

In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said at a daily news briefing that the United States applauded Hawks for making the arrests and had “full confidence in the South African judicial system to handle this case according to internationally accepted best practices”.

(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla, additional reporting by Mohammad Zargham in Washington, writing by James Macharia; editing by Ralph Boulton and Cynthia Osterman)

Mass killings, forced evictions threaten indigenous, minority groups to point of “eradication”: rights group

By Lin Taylor

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Mass killings, forced evictions and conflicts over land put indigenous and minority groups at risk of being eradicated from their ancestral lands, a human rights group said on Tuesday.

From Ethiopia, China and Iraq, the combination of armed conflicts and land dispossession has led to the persecution of minority groups and the erosion of cultural heritage, according to a report by the Minority Rights Group (MRG).

Carl Soderbergh, MRG director of policy and communications, said while discrimination against ethnic or religious minorities is not new, the level of targeted abuse is getting worse.

“The conflict that’s happening in Syria and Iraq right now is leading to the massive displacement of smaller and very ancient religious minorities like the Yazidis and the Sabean Mandeans,” said Soderbergh, lead author of the ‘State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2016’ report.

“They are essentially at risk of being totally eradicated in their traditional areas of origin.”

Civil conflicts and sectarian tensions have engulfed Iraq since 2003 when a U.S.-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein. In 2014, Islamic State militants declared a caliphate after capturing swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Minorities including the Yazidi, Turkmen, Shabak, Christians and Kaka’i have been disproportionately affected by the recent violence in Iraq.

According to U.N. officials, Islamic State, also referred to as ISIS, has shown particular cruelty to the Yazidis, whom they regard as devil-worshippers, killing, capturing and enslaving thousands.

The persecution of Yazidis was recognized as genocide by the United Nations in June.

“It is getting worse. Whether it’s armed groups like ISIS or (Nigerian Islamist group) Boko Haram or it’s governments, there’s this targeting of heritage that we’re seeing, which is extremely worrisome,” Soderbergh said.

He said many minorities and indigenous peoples also face forced resettlement or evictions from their ancestral lands to make way for large-scale infrastructure or agricultural businesses, which further threatens their cultural heritage and identity.

For example, in parts of East Africa, governments are pushing for pastoralist communities to switch to settled farming with supporters saying such a move will create better food security, curb conflict between herders and farmers and free up land.

But Maasai herdsmen say the privatization and subdivision of their ancestral lands threatens ancient pastoralist practices, endangering livestock on which they depend and eroding communal rights to land and natural resources.

“Once a community is removed from the land, they really struggle to  maintain their cultures and convey their cultures to the next generation,” Soderbergh said.

By 2115, it is estimated that at least half of the approximately 7,000 indigenous languages worldwide will die out, the report said.

Although some governments see these groups as a threat to the state, Soderbergh said minorities and indigenous peoples must be included in decisions that affect their communities.

(Reporting by Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian issues, conflicts, global land and property rights, modern slavery and human trafficking, women’s rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)

U.S. to send more troops to Iraq ahead of Mosul offensive

Kurdish Peshmerga forces gather in a village east of Mosul, Iraq,

By Yeganeh Torbati and Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The United States is stepping up its military campaign against Islamic State (IS) by sending hundreds more troops to assist Iraqi forces in an expected push on Mosul, the militants’ largest stronghold, later this year.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter made the announcement on Monday during a visit to Baghdad where he met U.S. commanders as well as Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi.

Most of the 560 troop reinforcements will work out of Qayara air base, which Iraqi forces recaptured from Islamic State and plan to use as a staging ground for an offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city.

Government forces said on Saturday they had recovered the air base, about 60 km (40 miles) from the northern city, with air support from the U.S.-led military coalition.

“With these additional U.S. forces I’m describing today, we’ll bring unique capability to the campaign and provide critical support to the Iraqi forces at a key moment in the fight,” Carter told a gathering of U.S. troops in Baghdad.

The latest force increase came less than three months after Washington announced it would dispatch about 200 more soldiers to accompany Iraqi troops advancing toward Mosul.

Carter told reporters ahead of Monday’s trip that the United States would now help turn Qayara into a logistics hub.

The airfield is “one of the hubs from which … Iraqi security forces, accompanied and advised by us as needed, will complete the southernmost envelopment of Mosul,” he said.

The recapture of Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto Iraqi capital from which its leader declared a modern-day caliphate in 2014, would be a major boost for Abadi and U.S. plans to weaken IS, which has staged attacks in the West and inspired others.

Two years since Islamic State seized wide swathes of Iraq and neighboring Syria in a lightning offensive, the tide has begun to turn as an array of forces lined up against the jihadists have made inroads into their once sprawling territory.

IS has increasingly resorted to ad hoc attacks including a bombing in the Iraqi capital last week that left nearly 300 people dead – the most lethal bombing of its kind since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have touted such bombings as proof that battlefield setbacks are weakening Islamic State, but critics say a global uptick in suicide attacks attributed to the group suggests the opposite.

“In fact, it demonstrates (Islamic State’s) strength and long-term survival skills,” terrorism expert Hassan Hassan wrote in a recent article. “The threat is not going away.”

REPAIRS NEEDED

A senior U.S. defense official said Qayara air base would be “an important location for our advisers, for our fire support, working closely with the Iraqis and being closer to the fight.”

Carter compared its strategic importance to that of a base near Makhmour, a hub for Iraqi forces on the opposite side of the Tigris river that is also used by U.S. troops. A U.S. Marine was killed in Makhmour in March when it was shelled by IS.

U.S. forces had already visited Qayara to check on its condition and advisers can offer specialized engineering support in Mosul, where Islamic State has blown up bridges across the Tigris, U.S. officials said.

Iraqi forces were already improving the base’s perimeter in case of a counterattack from the nearby town of Qayara which IS still holds, another U.S. official in Baghdad said.

Islamic State has suffered a number of territorial losses in recent months including the Syrian town of al-Shadadi, taken by U.S.-backed Syrian forces in February, and the Iraqi recapture of Ramadi in December and Falluja last month.

Abadi has pledged to retake Mosul by the end of the year.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Syrian military declares 72 hour truce across country

Children walk past the rubble of damaged buildings on Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in the rebel held Douma neighbourhood of

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian military has declared a 72-hour “regime of calm” covering all of Syria from 1 a.m. on Wednesday (1800 EDT Tuesday), a military source told Reuters, although fighting and air attacks have been reported since then.

The military high command said in a statement that “a regime of calm will be implemented across all territory of the Syrian Arab Republic for a period of 72 hours from 1 a.m. on July 6 until 2400 on July 8, 2016”.

The Syrian government uses the term “regime of calm” to denote a temporary ceasefire.

The truce covers the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrated by Muslims to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. There was no indication that it had been agreed with any of the myriad groups opposing the government.

Syrian rebel group Jaish al Islam said in a statement that, despite the announced truce, government and allied forces had attacked the town of Maydaa, in the Eastern Ghouta area east of Damascus. Maydaa had been held by Jaish al Islam, which is part of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) representing the opposition at international peace talks.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that government and allied forces had taken almost complete control of Maydaa and that fighting continued. Syrian state media said the army and its allies had taken ground from “terrorists” in the area. The Syrian government describes all groups fighting against it as terrorists.

The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the Syrian conflict, also said there had been rebel and government shelling in areas around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, and air strikes had hit towns in the northern Aleppo countryside on Wednesday.

Syrian state media also reported army operations against Islamic State militants across the country on Wednesday.

A ceasefire brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year civil war has mostly unraveled in areas where it took effect in the west of the country.

That truce was agreed with many opposition militias, but did not include the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front or Islamic State.

Since then, the Syrian army and the Russian military, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have announced a number of temporary local truces in areas of intense fighting, for example in the city of Aleppo or near the capital Damascus.

But air strikes and fighting have often continued in spite of the declarations.

(This version of the story recasts the headline)

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Hugh Lawson)

Turkey proposes cooperation with Russia in fighting Islamic State

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during an iftar event in Ankara, Turkey, June 27, 2016

By Ece Toksabay and Dmitry Solovyov

ANKARA/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Turkey said on Monday it wanted to cooperate with Moscow in combating Islamic State in Syria but denied having suggested it might allow Russia to use its Incirlik Air Base, near the Syrian frontier.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan last week expressed regret over last year’s shooting down of a Russian warplane, with the loss of the pilot. Moscow, which had broken off virtually all economic ties and banned tourists from visiting Turkish resorts, pledged in return to help rebuild relations.

In an interview with Turkish state television on Sunday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had appeared to suggest Ankara could open up Incirlik to Russia, a move that could raise concern among Turkey’s NATO partners already using the base, including the United States.

But Cavusoglu, in comments broadcast live on television on Monday, denied such an interpretation of his words.

“We said that we could cooperate with Russia in the period ahead in the fight against Daesh (Islamic State)…I did not make any comment referring to Russian planes coming to the Incirlik Air Base.”

Incirlik hosts aircraft from the United States, Germany, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar involved in the U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, which has controlled extensive territories along Syria’s border with Turkey.

“We will cooperate with everyone who fights Daesh,” he told TRT Haber in Sunday’s remarks. “We have been doing this for quite a while, and we opened Incirlik Air Base for those who want to join the active fight against Daesh.

“Why not cooperate with Russia as well on these terms? Daesh is our common enemy, and we need to fight this enemy.”

The Kremlin described the notion that Turkey could open up Incirlik as a “serious statement” although it said it had not had any contact with Ankara on the matter.

REVIVAL

Russia said it was looking to “revive” the sharing of information with Turkey in the fight against Islamic State.

“Channels to exchange information with Turkey have not been working lately. We now have to revive and relaunch them,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Last week’s bomb attack on the main airport Istanbul – which left 45 people dead and hundreds wounded – showed the importance of working together to counter terrorism, he said.

Russian nationals have been identified as two of the three suspected Islamic States suicide bombers behind the airport attack, which is thought to have been masterminded by a Chechen, Turkish media said on Friday.

The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper has said the organiser of the attack, the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in NATO-member Turkey this year, was suspected to be a Chechen double-amputee called Akhmed Chatayev.

Chatayev is identified on a United Nations sanctions list as a leader in Islamic State responsible for training Russian-speaking militants.

In many cases these fighters have been influenced by Islamist insurgencies at home, pushed out of their own countries by security crackdowns, and won advancement in Islamic State through their military skills and ruthlessness.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Tunisian prisoners tell of life with Islamic State in Libya

Olfa, 39, mother of Rahma who is the wife of Nurdine Chouchan, who was killed during a U.S. air strike in Libya, reacts during an interview with Reuters in Tunisia

By Aidan Lewis and Ahmed Elumami

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – When a U.S. air strike hit Sabratha in western Libya on Feb. 19, it reduced a building on the southern fringes of the city to rubble, killing dozens of militants and exposing a network of Islamic State cells operating just near the Tunisian border.

It also upended the lives of three young Tunisian women who were married to militants killed in the strike or its aftermath, and are now being held with their children in a Tripoli prison.

The women’s accounts, given in a rare interview, shed light on how Islamic State was able to operate largely undisturbed in Sabratha as the cell’s mainly Tunisian members plotted attacks back in their home country.

It is also an illustration of how the militant group may continue to find space amid Libya’s turmoil even as it risks losing its stronghold of Sirte, another Libyan coastal city further to the east.

“We lived normally in the city, the neighbors knew us. We even went to the market and to the beauty salon,” said Rahma al-Shekhawi, the 17-year–old wife of Noureddine Chouchane, a senior commander who officials say was killed in the February strike.

Some militants stayed in Sabratha as they prepared to move on to Sirte or to Syria, but most were planning operations in Tunisia, she said. “They were buying weapons under the eyes of our neighbors.”

Local officials in Sabratha have long denied or played down Islamic State’s presence in the city and it was not possible to confirm those statements.

But U.S. and Tunisian officials say Chouchane played an important role in preparing two major attacks on tourists last year, first at a museum in Tunis and then on a beach in the resort city of Sousse, after which he became a wanted figure.

But in Sabratha “the authorities never came looking for us even though everyone knew where we lived,” she said. “It only changed after the strike.”

LOOSE STRUCTURE

Islamic State began expanding into Libya in late 2014, as fighters from the Libyan-dominated al-Battar battalion returned to the eastern city of Derna.

Over the following year, the group joined a military campaign in Benghazi, took full control of Sirte and carried out attacks in Tripoli, partly by merging with or recruiting local militants from the al Qaeda-linked group Ansar al Sharia.

Yet Islamic State failed to make the kind of rapid advances it achieved in the Middle East, struggling to raise revenue or win broad support in Libya’s fractured society.

Membership tilted increasingly towards foreign fighters, with Tunisians the most numerous, residents and officials say.

In Sirte, the group set up a proto-state that followed the model established in Iraq and Syria, taxing residents, enforcing strict rules over dress and education and carrying out regular public punishments including executions. It has since lost parts of the city to pro-government forces.

But in Sabratha, where Tunisians were especially dominant, there was a looser structure, the prisoners said.

“There was no leader in Sabratha, everyone did their own thing,” said Rahma al-Shekhawi, though she said the main focus was on expanding into Tunisia.

Rahma’s sister Ghofran, 18, also married to an Islamic State member, said militants in Sabratha were divided into cells that were ready to defy the group’s hierarchical structures.

“Each group had an emir who was working on his own strategy – some were making passports for Syria, some were working on Tunisia and others were working on Libya,” she said.

“They always asked for instructions from the emir in Syria, who told them to obey the emir in Sirte, but they refused and they took decisions by themselves.”

CLASHES

Only after February’s air strike did local Libyan brigades, known as “thuwar” (revolutionaries) because of their role in the 2011 uprising that toppled veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi, take on the Islamic State militants in their midst.

With planes circling over the city, residents began searching for militants partly because they feared further strikes, said Wahida Bin Mukhtar al-Rabhi, the third Tunisian prisoner.

Rabhi and her 2-year-old son, and Ghofran with her 5-month-old daughter, fled south towards the desert with their husbands.

Rabhi said they went without food for a day as they tried to arrange help to get to the nearby town of Zawiya.

“The clashes started, and my son Bara was hit by bullets in his stomach and back. At that point my husband started shouting, ‘there are women and children with us’, but the thuwar didn’t want to stop because they knew we were Islamic State and we might blow ourselves up.”

Rabhi said she was searched and beaten by the local brigades and then handed over to Tripoli’s Special Deterrence Force, who took her to identify her husband’s body.

Her son was given treatment in a local hospital before they were both brought to the prison in the capital where dozens of other Islamic State suspects are also held.

Despite their uncertain future in Libya, the women say they don’t want to return to Tunisia, where they suffered poverty and persecution for their Islamist beliefs.

“I want to be happy with my son, I want to get back to my life,” said Rabhi. “I don’t want my son to grow up in prison.”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

West operating secretly with Assad against militants

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (C) joins Syrian army soldiers for Iftar in the farms of Marj al-Sultan village, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on June 26, 2016.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al Assad said in an interview to be broadcast on Friday that Western countries had sent security officials to help his government covertly in fighting Islamist militants involved in Syria’s war.

Assad, in remarks to Australia’s SBS News channel that were carried by Syrian state media, said Western states – who are strongly opposed to his rule but also face the threat of Islamist attacks at home – were secretly cooperating with his government in counter-terrorism operations.

“They attack us politically and then they send officials to deal with us under the table, especially the security, including your [the Australian] government,” Assad was quoted as saying.

“They don’t want to upset the United States. Actually most of the Western officials, they only repeat what the United States want them to say. This is the reality,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from Western governments.

Western powers have supported rebels fighting to overthrow Assad in a civil war now in its sixth year, and have called for him to step down to ease a future democratic transition. He has refused, vowing to fight on until Damascus regains control of all of Syria. His main allies have been Russia and Iran.

Among Assad’s foes in the conflict are Islamist militant groups with which radicalized European Muslims have trained and taken part in fighting before, in some cases, returning to Europe to carry out attacks.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)