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Dozens of U.S. Diplomats urge military strikes against Assad

Syria's president Bashar al-Assad speaks to Parliament members in Damascus

By John Walcott and Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo critical of U.S. policy in Syria, calling for military strikes against President Bashar al-Assad’s government to stop its persistent violations of a civil war ceasefire.

The “dissent channel cable” was signed by 51 mid- to high-level State Department officers advising on Syria policy.

It calls for “targeted military strikes” against the Syrian government in light of the near-collapse of the ceasefire brokered earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing copies of the cable it had seen.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting Copenhagen, told Reuters on Friday: “It’s an important statement and I respect the process, very, very much. I will … have a chance to meet with people when I get back (to Washington).”

He said he had not seen the memo.

Military strikes against the Assad government would represent a major change in the Obama administration’s policy of not intervening directly in the Syrian civil war, while calling for a political transition that would see Assad leave power.

Such strikes would put the United States on a collision course with Russia, which is backing Assad with air strikes, equipment, training and military advice.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had only seen media reports about the memo, but said: “Calls for the violent overthrow of authorities in another country are unlikely to be accepted in Moscow.

“The liquidation of this or some other regime is hardly what is needed to aid the successful continuation of the battle against terrorism. Such a move is capable of plunging the region into complete chaos.”

One U.S. official, who did not sign the cable but has read it, told Reuters the White House remained opposed to deeper American military involvement in Syria.

The official said the cable was unlikely to alter that, or shift Obama’s focus from the battle against the threat posed by the Islamic State militant group.

PRESSURE ON ASSAD

A second source who had read the cable said it reflected the views of U.S. officials who have worked on Syria, some for years, and who believe the current policy is ineffective.

“In a nutshell, the group would like to see a military option put forward to put some pressure … on the regime,” said the second source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While dissent cables are not unusual, the number of signatures on the document is large.

“That is an astonishingly high number,” said Robert Ford, who resigned in 2014 as U.S. Ambassador to Syria over policy disagreements and is now at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

“For the last four years, the working level at the State Department has been urging that there be more pressure on Bashar al-Assad’s government to move to a negotiated solution,” to the civil war, he said.

Ford said this was not the first time the State Department has argued for a more activist Syria policy. In 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed arming and training anti-Assad rebels. The plan, which had backing from other Cabinet officials, was rejected by President Barack Obama and his White House aides.

The dissenting cable discussed the possibility of air strikes but made no mention of adding U.S. ground troops to Syria. The United States has about 300 special operations forces in Syria carrying out a counter-terrorism mission against Islamic State militants but not targeting the Assad government.

“We are aware of a dissent channel cable written by a group of State Department employees regarding the situation in Syria,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

“We are reviewing the cable now, which came up very recently, and I am not going to comment on the contents.”

Kirby said the “dissent channel” was an official forum that allows State Department employees to express alternative views.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan told a congressional hearing on Thursday that Assad was in a stronger position than he was a year ago, bolstered by Russian air strikes against the moderate opposition.

Brennan said Islamic State’s “terrorism capacity and global reach” had not been reduced.

The names on the memo are almost all mid-level officials, many of them career diplomats, who have been involved in Syria policy over the past five years, at home or abroad, the New York Times said.

(Additional reporting by Warren Strobel, Lesley Wroughton in Copenhagen and Dmitry Solovyov and Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Writing by Eric Beech and Teis Jensen; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Air strikes shatter Russian attempt at Syria Aleppo truce

By Lisa Barrington and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Air strikes hit rebel-held parts of Syria’s Aleppo city on Thursday just hours into a 48-hour ceasefire announced by Russia to try to curb weeks of intense fighting as government forces battle for control of the whole city.

Russia, an ally of President Bashar al-Assad, announced the brief truce in the northern Syrian city on Thursday but did not say which parties had agreed to it. There has been no public comment from Assad’s government or factions fighting his forces on the truce announcement.

However the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said aerial strikes hit neighbourhoods in the opposition-held sector and that there were reports of one death and some injuries.

Rebels had also fired rockets into government-held territory in Aleppo, the Observatory said, and fighting and air strikes continued in the surrounding countryside.

Bebars Mishal, a civil defence chief working in rebel-held Aleppo told Reuters that strikes on residential areas had caused fires and damage. “The truce was supposed to have come into effect at 12 midnight, but now there is no truce,” he said.

The international focus in Syria in recent weeks has partly shifted to the conflict with Islamic State, as government forces and their enemies have made gains at the expense of the ultra-hardline Islamist militants on several fronts.

But the separate hope of foreign powers – that the wider civil war could also be resolved – has broken down.

Hundreds of people have been killed in Aleppo since peace talks broke off, as Assad seeks to regain control of the city which was Syria’s largest before the conflict erupted in 2011 and is now split between rebel and government sectors.

Russian-backed Syrian forces have sought for months to control all supply routes into the city. An escalation in air and artillery strikes in the past two weeks on the last supply route, the Castello road, has put hundreds of thousands of people under effective siege.

Mercy Corps, which runs the largest non-governmental aid operation inside Syria, said the increased bombardment had effectively cut aid to rebel-held areas of Aleppo for the longest period since the war began, driving up food prices and choking efforts to ease the plight of residents.

AIR STRIKE SHUTS HOSPITAL

The Observatory said fierce fighting between government forces and rebels took place overnight near the road, with heavy government shelling of the area. A witness said jets and helicopters were seen continuously in the skies above the Castello road since dawn.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said an air strike had put one of Aleppo’s biggest hospitals out of service. It was not immediately clear if strikes had hit the 64-bed MSF-supported Omar Bin Abdulaziz hospital directly or nearby, and the extent of damage was not known.

Despite the ongoing violence, U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland described the announcement of the Aleppo truce as a “first step” in addressing humanitarian needs.

He said recent progress in getting aid to besieged towns elsewhere in Syria gave some hope for improvement, and said several countries including Russia felt a “psychological barrier has been broken” with recent aid breakthroughs.

But he said the opening for aid “could end tomorrow” and that not one siege had yet been lifted.

Fighting has flared across the country since the demise of a U.S.- and Russian-brokered February ceasefire that underpinned the peace talks.

Syrian state media said rebels in Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, had used “poisonous substances” on government troops, causing respiratory problems, on Wednesday, without specifying the type of chemical used.

The spokesman for Jaish al Islam, a dominant rebel faction in the area, said the government was lying. He said the government was the party using chemical weapons, saying it was responsible for a chemical weapons attack in the same area in 2013.

The government describes all factions fighting against it as terrorists, although only two groups — Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front — are proscribed by the United Nations.

John Brennan, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, said Russia and Syria had been fighting both groups, but “a large proportion of their strikes are directed against what we consider to be the legitimate Syrian opposition that are trying to save their country from Bashar al-Assad”.

Speaking at a rare public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Brennan said Islamic State had tens of thousands of fighters around the world, far more than al Qaeda at its height, but he expected the group to rely increasingly on “guerrilla tactics” to make up for battlefield losses and constrained finances.

Islamic State militants have committed genocide against the Yazidi minority in Syria and Iraq, an independent U.N. Commission of Inquiry said.

Such a designation, rare under international law, would mark the first recognised genocide carried out by non-state actors, rather than a state or paramilitaries acting on its behalf.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Patricia Zengerle and Jonathan Landay in Washington DC, and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Writing by Tom Miles; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Islamic State committing genocide against Yazidis: U.N.

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Islamic State is committing genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq to destroy the religious community of 400,000 people through killings, sexual slavery and other crimes, United Nations investigators said on Thursday.

Their report, based on interviews with dozens of survivors, said that the Islamist militants had been systematically rounding up Yazidis in Iraq and Syria since August 2014, seeking to “erase their identity” in a campaign that met the definition of the crime as defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

“The genocide of the Yazidis is ongoing,” it said.

The 40-page report, entitled “They Came to Destroy: ISIS Crimes against the Yazidis”, sets out a legal analysis of Islamic State intent and conduct aimed at wiping out the Kurdish-speaking group, whom the Sunni Muslim Arab militants view as infidels and “devil-worshippers”.

The Yazidis are a religious sect whose beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions.

“The finding of genocide must trigger much more assertive action at the political level, including at the (U.N.) Security Council,” Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the commission of inquiry, told a news briefing.

Commission member Vitit Muntarbhorn said it had “detailed information on places, violations and names of the perpetrators”, and had begun sharing information with some national authorities seeking to prosecute foreign fighters.

The four independent commissioners urged major powers to rescue at least 3,200 women and children still held by Islamic State (IS or ISIS) and to refer the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution.

“ROAD MAP FOR PROSECUTION”

“ISIS made no secret of its intent to destroy the Yazidis of Sinjar, and that is one of the elements that allowed us to conclude their actions amount to genocide,” said another investigator, Carla del Ponte.

“Of course, we regard that as a road map for prosecution, for future prosecution. I hope that the Security Council will do it because it is time now to start to obtain justice for the victims,” added del Ponte, a former U.N. war crimes prosecutor.

Islamic State, which has proclaimed a theocratic caliphate – based on a radical interpretation of Sunni Islam – in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control, systematically killed, captured or enslaved thousands of Yazidis when it overran the town of Sinjar in northern Iraq in August 2014.

At least 30 mass graves have been uncovered, the report said, calling for further investigations.

Islamic State has tried to erase the Yazidis’ identity by forcing men to choose between conversion to Islam and death, raping girls as young as nine, selling women at slave markets, and drafting boys to fight, the U.N. report said.

Yazidi women are treated as “chattel” at slave markets in Raqqa, Homs and other locations, and some are sold back to their families for $10,000 to $40,000 after captivity and multiple rapes, according to the report.

Militants have begun holding “online slave auctions”, using the encrypted application Telegraph to circulate photos of captured Yazidi women and girls, “with details of their age, marital status, current location and price”,” it said.

“No other religious group present in ISIS-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq has been subjected to the destruction that the Yazidis have suffered,” the report added.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Islamophobia on the rise in Germany

Chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany Mazyek gives a statement in Berlin

BERLIN (Reuters) – Islamophobia has risen markedly in Germany, a study published on Wednesday showed, underscoring the tensions simmering in German society after more than one million migrants, mostly Muslims, arrived last year.

Every second respondent in the study of 2,420 people said they sometimes felt like a foreigner in their own country due to the many Muslims here, up from 43 percent in 2014 and 30.2 percent in 2009.

The number of people who believe Muslims should be forbidden from coming to Germany has also risen, the study showed, and now stands at just above 40 percent, up from about a fifth in 2009.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Leipzig in co-operation with the Heinrich Boell Foundation, the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation and the Otto-Brenner foundation.

The influx of migrants has fueled support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party that wants to ban minarets and the burqa and has described Islam as incompatible with the German constitution.

The number of attacks on refugee shelters has also risen.

Supporters of the AfD were most likely to favor stopping Muslims from coming to Germany while Green voters were most likely to disagree with the statement that Muslims made them feel like foreigners, the survey found.

On Monday German President Joachim Gauck warned against demonizing Muslims and against polarization along religious and ethnic lines in German society when he joined a Ramadan dinner in Berlin.

Germany is home to nearly four million Muslims, about five percent of the total population. Many of the longer established Muslim community in Germany came from Turkey to find work, but those who have arrived over the past year have mostly been fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The study also examined extreme right-wing views towards other groups in Germany.

“While general prejudice against migrants fell slightly, the focus of resentment towards asylums seekers, Muslims as well as Sinti and Roma, increased,” the study’s authors said.

The number of those surveyed that believed Sinti and Roma peoples tended towards criminality rose to nearly 60 percent, while slightly more than 80 percent of respondents wanted the state not to be too generous when examining asylum applications.

Almost 40 percent of those surveyed in east Germany agreed with the statement that foreigners only came to Germany to take advantage of its social welfare benefits, compared to about 30 percent of those in the west of the country.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Gareth Jones)

U.S. backed forces appeal for aid for hundreds fleeing IS

Fighters of the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) carry their weapons as they walk in the western rural area of Manbij, in Aleppo

By Rodi Said and Lisa Barrington

NEAR MANBIJ, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – – U.S.-backed forces waging an offensive against the Islamic State-held city of Manbij in northern Syria appealed for international assistance for those fleeing the fighting on Tuesday as the forces tightened their encirclement of the city.

The SDF push comes at the same time as other enemies of Islamic State, including the governments of Syria and Iraq, also launched major offensives on other fronts, in what amounts to the most sustained pressure on the militants since they proclaimed their caliphate in 2014.

The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance launched the advance two weeks ago to seize Islamic State’s last territory on the Syria-Turkey border and cut the self-declared caliphate off from the world.

“In the areas we control we have tried to take care of the needs of the internally displaced persons. But we are not able to cover their needs,” Sharfan Darwish of the SDF-allied Manbij Military Council told Reuters in Beirut by telephone.

“The international community must turn their attention to the people which have been liberated from Daesh (Islamic State),” he said, adding that there were no international humanitarian organizations working in the area.

Darwish said the Manbij civil council was bringing supplies from the northern, Syrian YPG militia-controlled city of Kobani to displaced persons, but this was not enough.

The SDF is a U.S.-backed group formed last year which includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia and Arab fighters.

They are one of a number of sides fighting in Syria’s complex civil war now in its sixth year. The conflict pits rebels against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Syrian government forces and some rebel groups are also fighting separate battles against Islamic State. The SDF has largely avoided fighting against government forces and focuses on fighting Islamic State.

BRAVING SNIPER FIRE

Around 1,100 people have already fled Islamic State-held Manbij this week into SDF-held territory, braving Islamic State sniper fire on the city’s edges, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Many who had fled the city told Reuters that Islamic State fighters were trying to prevent people leaving. One person told Reuters Islamic State was arresting people suspected of collaborating with the SDF.

Having seized control of the last route into Manbij on Friday, the SDF has yet to enter the town.

“We are closing in on Manbij,” Darwish said, adding that fighting continues on the city’s outskirts.

The Observatory said the SDF has taken about 105 villages and farms around Manbij since the start of the operation.

Since the start of the offensive on May 31, 49 civilians have died as a result of the U.S.-led coalition air strikes in and around Manbij and 19 civilians had been killed by Islamic State, the Observatory said.

It also said at least 246 Islamic State fighters and 29 SDF fighters have been killed.

Syrian government and allied forces are trying to advance against the Islamic State south-west of their de facto capital in Syria, Raqqa. Fighting on Monday between Ithriya and al Tabqa killed 11 government and 17 Islamic State, the Observatory said.

Syrian state media broadcast pictures of bloodied bodies lying in the desert sand which it said showed 16 Islamic State fighters killed by government and allied forces in the fighting.

Syrian government and allied forces have been supported by Russian air power since September last year, an intervention which helped turn the tide of the war in Assad’s favor.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Rodi Said near Manbij, Syria, editing by Peter Millership)

Bosnian Children in Syria and Iraq a “Time bomb”

Children play inside a devastated house struck by rocket fire from Syria in Turkey's southeastern border town of Kilis

By Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – More than 80 Bosnian children are in Islamic State-held territory in Syria and Iraq and represent a “time bomb” that could pose a major security risk when they return, a study said on Monday.

Bosnian Muslims are the largest group from the Western Balkans fighting for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, alongside fighters from countries such as Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

The study by the non-profit Sarajevo-based Atlantic Initiative, which made an advance copy available to Reuters, found that the number of adult male fighters, estimated at 188 in the three-year period to end-2015, had dropped to 91, after 47 returned to Bosnia and 50 had been killed.

As of April, less than half of Bosnians in Syria were men of military age, while there were also 52 women and 80 children. Some children, who went to the region with their families, have joined Islamic State combat units, the study said.

According to witnesses and social media, boys of 13 or 14 undergo military training before being sent to join fighting formations. At least one minor from Bosnia had been killed as a combatant, the study said, urging Bosnian authorities to prevent children from being taken to conflict zones.

“We are seeing a completely new generation of children who were raised on the battlefield or near the battlefield,” said Vlado Azinovic, a co-author of the study. “They are like a time bomb for any country they may end up in.”

Departures from Bosnia and returns from Syria had almost completely stopped by early 2016 because Bosnian authorities were prosecuting more aspiring fighters as well as those who returned, the study said.

Bosnia’s Muslims are generally moderate but some have adopted radical Salafi Islam from foreign fighters who came to the country during its 1992-95 war to fight alongside Muslims against Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats.

Some of them have formed illegal communities which the moderate national Islamic organization wants to shut down. [L8N1644OR] The study said Islamic community officials or property may become a target of possible retaliatory attacks.

(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Giles Elgood and Richard Balmforth)

U.N. convoys bring food to besieged Syrian towns of Daraya, Douma

By Stephanie Nebehay and John Davison

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – International aid convoys have reached two Syrian rebel-held towns near Damascus, marking the first delivery of food supplies to Daraya since 2012, after the government granted permission for the trips, the United Nations said on Friday.

Trucks from the United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent brought a month’s supply of food for 2,400 people to Daraya, Jens Laerke, spokesman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

A separate inter-agency convoy entered Douma in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta near Damascus later on Friday, he said.

Any sense of relief inside Daraya was short-lived, however, because the food supplies would not last a month and the U.N. had underestimated the number of people living there at present, the local council and a monitoring group reported.

“They managed to get through all the checkpoints to get in there, deliver overnight, stock what needed to be stocked and provide food for the first time in years to people inside Daraya,” Laerke told a news briefing.

Malnutrition has been reported in Daraya, which is only 12 km (7 miles) from Damascus, where a first convoy with non-food supplies was allowed to enter on June 1.

U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura, speaking to reporters on Thursday, said President Bashar al-Assad’s government had approved U.N. land convoys to 15 of 17 government-besieged areas in June. Air drops remain an option if the convoys did not move, he said.

Hussam Aala, Syria’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told Reuters on Friday: “Discussions are still going on about one pending location. The rest were all approved.”

Access to al Waer in Homs province was still under discussion, he said.

Health and hygiene items for Daraya’s estimated population of 4,000 were also delivered overnight and will be distributed by Red Crescent workers, Laerke said.

“However of course we call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained access to all people in need,” he said, noting that 4.6 million people are trapped in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

Some 1.9 tonnes of medicines for chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes as well as antibiotics, from the World Health Organization were on that convoy, spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

‘SUPPLIES INSUFFICIENT’

However, the government did not approve delivery of three burns kits that would have been enough to treat about 30 people with dressings and pain killers, rejecting them from the approved list, Jasarevic said.

There was also anger and frustration at the insufficient amount of food aid delivered, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. The British-based group tracks the war using sources on the ground.

It cited the Daraya local council as saying the supplies brought in would not last two weeks. The council says the population of Daraya is over 8,000, – more than double the U.N. estimates.

Council spokesman Hossam Ayyash said it was unclear how the aid, which would cater for only a quarter of the besieged population, would be distributed.

“Of course we are grateful to the team that brought in the supplies, but unfortunately they are not sufficient. We don’t know what decision will be taken (on how to distribute the aid), but it won’t be able to be shared out among everyone who’s here,” Ayyash said.

On Friday government helicopters stepped up their barrel bombing of Daraya, the Observatory and local council said.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Hugh Lawson)

U.S. Convoy brings food to besieged Syrian town

A man rides a bicycle past a damaged building in Daraya, near Damascus

By Stephanie Nebehay and John Davison

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – An international aid convoy reached the Syrian rebel-held town of Daraya overnight to deliver food supplies for the first time since 2012, when the town came under siege by government forces, the United Nations said on Friday.

Trucks from the United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent brought a month’s supply of food for 2,400 people, Jens Laerke, spokesman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

The operation began late on Thursday and lasted several hours, Laerke said.

Malnutrition has been reported in the rebel-held town, which is only 12 km (7 miles) from Damascus, where a first convoy with non-food supplies was allowed to enter on June 1.

As well as wheat flour and other foodstuffs, health and hygiene items for Daraya’s estimated population of 4,000 were delivered overnight and will be distributed by Red Crescent workers, Laerke said.

“However of course we call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained access to all people in need, wherever they are, but in particular besieged and hard-to-reach areas where we have still about 4.6 million people living under these conditions in Syria,” he added.

Some 1.9 tonnes of medicines for chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes as well as antibiotics and vitamins, from the World Health Organization were on the convoy, spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

‘SUPPLIES INSUFFICIENT’

It cited the Daraya local council as saying the supplies brought in would not last two weeks. The council says the population of Daraya is over 8,000, – more than double the U.N. estimates.

Council spokesman Hossam Ayyash said it was unclear how the aid, which would cater for only a quarter of the besieged population, would be distributed.

On Friday government helicopters stepped up their barrel bombing of Daraya, the Observatory and local council said. Daraya was reported to have been shelled last month after an aid convoy was turned away despite an agreement for it to enter.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

U.S. allies tighten grip around Islamic State stronghold in Syria

Syrian Democratic Forces manning anti-aircraft weapon

By John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed

BEIRUT/BAGHDAD – (Reuters) – U.S.-backed militia drew within firing distance of the last road into an Islamic State stronghold in northern Syria on Thursday, part of a wave of new offensives putting unprecedented pressure on the self-declared caliphate.

The effective encirclement of Manbij by a militia called the Syria Democratic Forces is part of an assault launched last week, backed by U.S. air power and American special forces, to seal off the last stretch of Syrian-Turkish frontier.

It marks the most ambitious advance by a group allied to Washington in Syria since the United States launched its military campaign against Islamic State two years ago.

Simultaneously, Russia is backing a separate advance by forces of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against Islamic State in another part of the country.

And in Iraq, at the opposite end of Islamic State territory, the Baghdad government has sent forces to try to storm the Islamic State bastion of Falluja, an hour’s drive from Baghdad.

Islamic State has also lost territory in recent weeks to Kurds in northern Iraq and anti-Assad rebels in Syria as its disparate enemies attack on a number of fronts.

But it demonstrated on Thursday it can still mount deadly attacks deep inside the territory of its foes. It claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings that killed at least 24 people in Baghdad, and was presumed to be behind a suicide bombing that killed a Western-backed rebel leader in southern Syria.

A five-year-old multi-sided civil war in Syria and a weak government in Iraq have made it impossible to wage a single coordinated campaign against the militants. But Washington and other powers hope this year will see the tide turn against Islamic State, which has ruled over millions of people in Iraq and Syria since declaring its caliphate in 2014.

SDF SEIZES ALL ROADS INTO MANBIJ

In Syria, Washington has long lacked capable proxies on the ground, but has found its first strong allies in the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), formed last year by recruiting Arabs to join forces with a powerful Kurdish militia.

The SDF launched its new offensive last week against the city of Manbij, Islamic State’s main bastion near the Syria-Turkish border west of the Euphrates River.

The overall aim is to shut the Turkish-Syrian frontier, which has served for years as Islamic State’s only major route to the outside world for manpower and material, and more recently for followers returning to Europe to carry out attacks.

An SDF spokesman said on Thursday his group had reached the last road into Manbij from the west, having previously cut off supply routes from north, south and east.

“We have reached the road that links Manbij and Aleppo, from the west,” Sharfan Darwish, spokesman for the Syria Democratic Forces-allied Manbij Military Council, told Reuters.

A monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed that the SDF had advanced to within firing distance of the western road, positioned within a kilometer of it, and were now in effective control of all routes into the city. Civilians in the city and surrounding countryside were fleeing.

Darwish would not comment on whether the SDF was planning an assault on the city itself. He told Reuters on Wednesday forces was poised to enter, but were being cautious due to the civilian presence there.

In southern Syria, where a range of anti-Assad rebel groups include Western-backed nationalists, one of the founders of a rebel alliance called the Free Syrian Army’s Southern Front was killed by a suicide bomber suspected to belong to Islamic State.

Saleem Bakour, a colonel in the Syrian army who defected to the rebels, had led rebels in battle against Islamic State fighters who pushed south after being driven out of the city of Palmyra by Russian-backed government forces in March.

“The martyr was one of the toughest leaders who fought Daesh (Islamic State). We are committed to fighting them to the end,” Southern Front spokesman Issam el-Rayyes said.

BAGHDAD BOMBINGS

In Iraq, Islamic State claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings that killed at least 24 people in Baghdad on Thursday. Such bombings have become frequent again in the capital in recent weeks, after months in which security there had improved despite Islamic State’s control of swathes of territory in the provinces.

The deteriorating security in the capital prompted Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to order an assault on Falluja, Islamic State’s closest bastion to the capital, two weeks ago. It began in earnest last week with troops sweeping into southern rural districts, and they entered the built-up areas of the city for the first time this week.

The Iraq assault on Falluja has the support of U.S. air power, but veers from Washington’s battle plan, which called for the government to focus its forces on Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto Iraqi capital further north.

Falluja, where U.S. forces fought the heaviest battles of their own 2003-2011 occupation of Iraq, has long been a stronghold of Sunni Muslim insurgents opposed to the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad.

Washington fears a sustained campaign in Falluja could bog down the army in hostile territory and delay the recapture of Mosul.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; writing by Peter Graff; editing by Andrew Roche)

Islamic State withdraws from northwest Syria frontlines

Rebel fighters take positions at the frontline during what they said were clashes with Islamic State militants in the town of Marea in Aleppo's countryside

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters withdrew from frontlines with Syrian rebel forces north of Aleppo on Wednesday as they mounted a counter attack against the jihadist group near the Turkish border, an opposition source and monitoring group said.

The sudden withdrawal from villages around the rebel-held town of Marea points to the pressure Islamic State is feeling from offensives being waged by other enemies further east, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Islamic State had managed to besiege the rebel-held town of Marea in a significant advance late last month, stranding thousands of civilians there and prompting a U.S.-led coalition to air drop weapons to rebels, rebel sources said.

Rebel fighters in Marea broke the siege on Wednesday when they captured the village of Kafr Kalbin on the road linking Marea with Azaz, 20 km (12 miles) to the northwest at the border with Turkey. The advance was preceded by a rebel statement saying they were uniting their ranks.

“It seems they (IS) can’t keep several fronts open at the same time. It is a strategic area, they were on the verge of entering Azaz,” Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said. The opposition source said Islamic State had withdrawn from the area quickly, and Free Syrian Army factions had filled the void.

FSA rebels fighting Islamic State north of Aleppo have received military assistance from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

Their battle with Islamic State is separate to one being waged further east by a U.S.-backed group, the Syria Democratic Forces, which includes the Kurdish YPG militia. The Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes, has also advanced against Islamic State since last week.

The FSA rebels are fighting separate conflicts with both the SDF and Assad, their main enemy.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Peter Graff)

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