Tag Archives: ISIS

UK parliament attacker British-born, had been investigated over extremism concerns

Police work at Carriage Gate outside the Houses of Parliament. REUTERS/Neil Hall

By Elizabeth Piper and William James

LONDON (Reuters) – The attacker who killed three people near the British parliament before being shot dead was British-born and was once investigated by MI5 intelligence agents over concerns about violent extremism, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Thursday.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued by its Amaq news agency. But it gave no name or other details and it was not clear whether the attacker was directly connected to the group.

Police arrested eight people at six locations in London and Birmingham in the investigation into Wednesday’s lone-wolf attack that May said was inspired by a warped Islamist ideology.

About 40 people were injured and 29 remain in hospital, seven in critical condition, after the incident which resembled Islamic State-inspired attacks in France and Germany where vehicles were driven into crowds.

The assailant sped across Westminster Bridge in a car, ploughing into pedestrians along the way, then ran through the gates of the nearby parliament building and fatally stabbed an unarmed policeman before being shot dead. http://tmsnrt.rs/2napbkD

“What I can confirm is that the man was British-born and that some years ago he was once investigated by MI5 in relation to concerns about violent extremism,” May said in a statement to parliament.

“He was a peripheral figure…He was not part of the current intelligence picture. There was no prior intelligence of his intent or of the plot,” she said, adding that his identity would be revealed when the investigation allowed.

The mayhem in London took came on the first anniversary of attacks that killed 32 people in Brussels. Twelve people were killed in Berlin in December when a truck ploughed into a Christmas market and 84 died in July in a similar attack on Nice waterfront for which Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Islamic State, which is being driven from large areas of Iraq and Syria by local forces supported by a U.S.-led military coalition, said it was responsible for the London attack.

“The perpetrator of the attacks…is an Islamic State soldier and he carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of the coalition,” a statement on its Amaq agency said.

Westminster Bridge and the area just around parliament were still cordoned off on Thursday morning and a line of forensic investigators in light blue overalls were on their hands and knees, examining the scene where the attacker was shot.

The dead were two members of the public, the stabbed policeman and the attacker.

“My thoughts, prayers, and deepest sympathy are with all those who have been affected by yesterday’s awful violence,” Queen Elizabeth said in a message.

Britain’s plan to trigger the formal process of exiting the EU on March 29 will not be delayed due to the attack, May’s spokesman said.

Flowers are left outside New Scotland Yard the morning after an attack in London, Britain, March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

“TOOK OUT HIS RAGE”

It was the worst such attack in Britain since 2005, when 52 people were killed by Islamist suicide bombers on London’s public transport system. Police had given the death toll as five but revised it down to four on Thursday.

The casualties included 12 Britons, three French children, two Romanians, four South Koreans, one German, one Pole, one Chinese, one American and two Greeks, May said.

“We meet here, in the oldest of all parliaments, because we know that democracy and the values it entails will always prevail,” she said.

“A terrorist came to the place where people of all nationalities and cultures gather what it means to be free and he took out his rage indiscriminately against innocent men, women and children,” said May.

A minute’s silence was held in parliament and in front of police headquarters at New Scotland Yard at 0933 GMT, in honor of the victims — 933 was the shoulder number on the uniform of Keith Palmer, the policeman who was stabbed to death.

May was in parliament on Wednesday, a short distance away from the spot where the attacker was shot. She was swiftly whisked away as the chaos erupted, according to lawmaker Andrew Bridgen, who was nearby at the time.

A government minister was widely praised for trying to resuscitate Palmer, walking away from the scene with blood on his hands and face.

A crowdfunding page hastily set up to raise money for Palmer’s family attracted close to 20,000 pounds ($25,000)within three hours.

Some have been shocked that the attacker was able to cause such mayhem in the heart of the capital equipped with nothing more sophisticated than a hired car and a knife.

“The police and agencies that we rely on for our security have forestalled a large number of these attacks in recent years, over a dozen last year,” said defense minister Michael Fallon.

“This kind of attack, this lone-wolf attack, using things from daily life, a vehicle, a knife, are much more difficult to forestall,” he told the BBC.

Police officers salute during a minute's silence outside New Scotland Yard. REUTERS/Neil Hall

Police officers salute during a minute’s silence outside New Scotland Yard. REUTERS/Neil Hall

SOLIDARITY

Three French high-school students aged 15 or 16, who were on a school trip to London with fellow students from Brittany, were among the injured.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who traveled to London to bring a message of solidarity, met some of the other students who were on the school trip and their families at a hotel near the hospital where the injured were being treated.

He told reporters the lives of the three youngsters were not in danger. Ayrault later attended the session in parliament where May spoke. France has been hit by repeated deadly Islamist attacks over the past two years.

A vigil was planned in London’s Trafalgar Square at 6 P.M.

Anti-immigration groups were quick to make links between immigration and the attack, though it was subsequently revealed the attacker was British-born.

Leave.EU, a group that has campaigned for immigration to be severely restrained as part of Britain’s exit from the European Union, accused mainstream politicians of facilitating acts of terror by failing to secure borders.

In France, far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen also drew a link, saying that events in London highlighted the importance of protecting national borders and stepping up security measures.

(Additional reporting by Costas Pitas, Kate Holton, Estelle Shirbon and Elisabeth O’Leary, writing by Estelle Shirbon, editing by Ralph Boulton)

Security tightened at UK sites in New York after London attack

A New York City Police (NYPD) Counter Terrorism officer patrols in Times Square in New York City, U.S., March 22, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Laila Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York police ramped up security at British sites across the city on Wednesday after an assailant fatally stabbed a policeman outside Britain’s parliament and was then shot and killed by police.

Heavily armed officers and explosives-detecting dogs were deployed to locations including the British Consulate and the British Mission to the United Nations in Manhattan, senior New York Police Department officials told a news conference.

“You’ll see a larger presence of the dogs at these locations, as well as (officers) armed with the long guns,” said James Waters, the police department’s counterterrorism chief.

Police Commissioner James O’Neill said that while authorities were concerned about copycat attacks, there was no specific threat to New York City on Wednesday.

Outside the British Consulate, officers stood guard wearing helmets and tactical vests and carrying semi-automatic rifles. Several police cars were parked nearby, their lights flashing.

Police long-gun teams were also deployed to New York’s City Hall and Grand Central Station, the department said.

Four people died and at least 20 were injured in London after a car plowed into pedestrians and an attacker stabbed a policeman close to parliament in what police called a “marauding terrorist attack.”

New York police previously boosted security at prominent sites around the city after large-scale attacks in Paris, Brussels and San Bernardino, California, out of an abundance of caution.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it would lend support to Britain’s investigation of the attack but that the U.S. security posture was unchanged.

“We are in close contact with our British counterparts to monitor the tragic events and to support the ongoing investigation,” the department said in a statement.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Additional reporting by Timothy Ahmann in Washington; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Peter Cooney)

Scorched earth: If Islamic State can’t have it, no one can

FILE PHOTO: Graffiti sprayed by Islamic State militants which reads "We remain" is seen on a stone at the Temple of Bel in the historic city of Palmyra, in Homs Governorate, Syria April 1, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sanadik/File Photo

By Ali Abdelaty

CAIRO (Reuters) – As Islamic State loses ground in Iraq and Syria, the Sunni militant group which once held territory amounting to a third of those countries is turning to sabotage to ensure its enemies cannot benefit from its losses.

As the Syrian army and allied militias advanced under heavy Russian air cover on the ancient city of Palmyra three weeks ago, Islamic State leaders ordered fighters to destroy oil and gas fields.

“It is the duty of mujahideen today to expand operations targeting economic assets of the infidel regimes in order to deprive crusader and apostate governments of resources,” an article in the group’s online weekly magazine al-Nabaa said.

The strategy poses a double challenge to Baghdad and Damascus, depriving their governments of income and making it harder to provide services and gain popular support in devastated areas recaptured from the militants.

The March 2 article said operations by Islamic State in the area around Palmyra “prove the massive effect that strikes aimed at the infidels’ economy have, confusing them and drawing them … into battles they are not ready for.”

It’s not just oil wells the group has targeted. Twice in the last two years it has taken over Palmyra, about 200 km (130 miles) northeast of Damascus, and both times destroyed priceless antiquities before being driven out.

A Syrian antiquities official said earlier this month that he had seen serious damage to the Tetrapylon, a square stone platform with matching structures of four columns positioned at each corner. Only four of the 16 columns were still standing.

In their earlier occupation of the city, the militants ruined an 1,800-year-old monumental arch and the nearly 2,000-year-old Temple of Baalshamin.

However, the article in al-Nabaa suggested Islamic State sees the destruction of tangible economic assets as a greater weapon against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who is from Syria’s Alawite minority.

“In the first days of the second conquest of Palmyra, where fighters secured the city and other vast areas to the west that include the Alawite regime’s last petrol resources … the Alawite regime and its allies rushed to the depth of the desert to reclaim them,” Islamic State wrote.

“But the caliphate’s soldiers had beaten them to the punch and destroyed the wells and refineries completely so that their enemies could not gain from them and so that their economic crisis goes on for the longest time possible.”

‘MASS DESTRUCTION POLICY’

Islamic State, which declared a caliphate across large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, has lost much territory and many fighters as it comes under attack from a U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive in Iraq and three separate ground forces in Syria.

Iraqi troops have recaptured most of Mosul, the largest city to be taken by the group and the base from which its leader proclaimed the caliphate. In Syria, the group has lost Palmyra and its main stronghold, Raqqa, is surrounded.

As well as destroying resources before they pull out, the militants have stepped up insurgent attacks in areas beyond their control, especially in Iraq.

“Any harm to the economic interests of these two governments will weaken them, be it an electricity tower in Diyala, an oil well in Kirkuk, a telecommunications network in Baghdad, or a tourist area in Erbil,” the article in al-Nabaa said.

It said those attacks would further stretch the group’s enemies by forcing them to defend economic interests, weakening their readiness for the battles to come.

Islamic State has caused about $30 billion in damage to Iraqi infrastructure since 2014, an adviser to the Iraqi government on infrastructure told Reuters.

“Daesh has used a mass destruction policy on factories and buildings with the aim of causing as much economic harm to Iraq as possible,” said Jaafar al-Ibrahimi, using an Arabic acronym for the group.

“Over 90 percent of infrastructure that has come under their hands was destroyed. Daesh burned all oil wells in the Qayyarah field south of Mosul.”

They also destroyed sugar and cement factories and transported the equipment to Syria, he said.

In Syria, the militants destroyed over 65 percent of the Hayan gas plant, the country’s oil minister told the state news agency. The Hayan field, in Homs province where Palmyra is located, produced 3 million cubic meters of natural gas per day.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Dominic Evans and Mark Trevelyan)

Year on from bombings, Brussels remains on alert

People take part in a rally called "The march against the fear, Tous Ensemble, Samen Een, All Together" in memory for the victims of bomb attacks in Brussels metro and Brussels international airport of Zaventem, in Brussels, Belgium, April 17, 2016. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

By Robert-Jan Bartunek and Alastair Macdonald

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A year after Islamic State suicide bombers killed 32 people in Brussels, Belgian authorities say much remains unclear about who ordered the attacks, even if those who staged them are either dead or in jail.

The March 22 bloodshed in Brussels hit Zaventem airport and a metro train, coming four months after bombings and shootings in Paris that killed 130 people. Both sets of attacks were carried out by related cells of young Muslims, some of whom had returned from fighting in Syria.

Since then, Belgium has remained on high alert as it tries to curtail threats both at home and from militants who may return from the Middle East.

“We will only have certainty when the situation in Syria and Iraq is resolved,” one senior official said of the inquiries into the Brussels attacks. Those two countries have attracted over 400 Belgians to join the ranks of Islamist militants, according to a study by the Hague-based International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.

That figure makes Belgium one of the biggest contributors to foreign jihadists in the Middle East in proportion to its population.

As the Belgian capital prepares to mark Wednesday’s anniversary with ceremonies timed to the moment the bombers struck, authorities are still unsure just who in the IS group organized and ordered the attacks, even though 59 people are in custody and 60 on bail.

The most recent arrest was in January, of a man suspected of providing forged identity papers to Khalid El Bakraoui, the 27-year-old suicide bomber who killed 16 people on a train at the downtown Maelbeek metro station.

With soldiers still a permanent presence around Brussels’ transportation hubs, security officials told reporters in briefings ahead of the anniversary that there was still a risk that armed militants were still at large.

For Belgian security services, some communities can remain hard to penetrate, such as the tight-knit Muslim neighborhood of Molenbeek where the prime suspect of the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, hid near his family home for four months. His arrest triggered his associates to strike Brussels four days later.

Despite efforts to detect and discourage the influence of violent Islamist ideas, young men who engaged in petty crime remain vulnerable to it, officials said. But surveillance over potential jihadists has intensified in the past year, they added

Only five Belgians were detected trying to leave for Syria last year, with only one succeeding, officials said, marking a contrast from the previous years.

That, however, has raised concerns, a senior security official told reporters, since Islamic State appeared to be issuing instructions to followers to “attack infidels at home”.

Some 160 Belgian citizens remain in Syria, officials estimate, but some 80 children have been born to them there, creating fears of a new risk.

“These children could be tomorrow’s danger,” the official said. “They’ve seen atrocities, they’ve been brainwashed. Some of them already received military training. We really have to work with them on their return.”

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Robert-Jan Bartunek; Edited by Vin Shahrestani; @macdonaldrtr)

Iraqi forces try to bring civilians out of east Mosul, U.S. pledges more support

A wounded displaced Iraqi girl and her family who had fled their homes wait to enter Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq March 21, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Patrick Markey

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces attempted to evacuate civilians from Mosul’s Islamic State-held Old City on Tuesday so that troops could clear the area, but militant snipers hampered the effort, Iraqi officers said.

They said the insurgents were also using civilians as human shields as government units edged toward the al-Nuri Mosque, the focus of recent fighting in the five-month-long campaign to crush Islamic State in the city that was once the de facto capital of their self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate.

As many as 600,000 civilians remain in the western sector of Mosul, complicating a battle being fought with artillery and air strikes as well as ground combat. Thousands have escaped in recent days.

“Our forces control around 60 percent of the west now,” Defence Ministry spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told a news conference in eastern Mosul. “It’s the Old City now with small streets and it’s a hard fight with civilians inside. We are trying to evacuate them.

“We are a few hundred meters from the mosque now, we are advancing on al-Nuri. We know it means a lot to Daesh,” he said, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.

The capture of the mosque would be a huge symbolic prize as well as strategic gain for the government as it was there where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al—Baghdadi declared the caliphate in July 2014 after the militants had captured large areas of Iraq and Syria.

Government forces backed by a U.S.-led international coalition retook several cities last year, liberated eastern Mosul in December, and are now closing in on the west, but the militants are putting up fierce resistance from the close-packed houses and narrow streets.

Baghdadi and other leaders have fled the city for the hinterlands, where Islamic State remnants may regroup and wage a new phase of insurgency. At the same time, IS forces in the Syrian city of Raqqa are under attack in a parallel conflict.

Brigadier General Saad Maan said soldiers had killed nine IS snipers on Tuesday and destroyed a bomb factory.

“There are lots of snipers on top of the buildings in the Old City around the al-Nuri Mosque. We need to evacuate the families from inside as they using them as a shield when we are advancing on the mosque,” he told the news conference.

No precise toll of civilian casualties has been given but a prominent Iraqi politician said last week that the number could be as high as 3,500 dead since the attack on western Mosul started in mid-February.

An emergency field hospital set up by the U.S. medical charity Samaritan’s Purse says it has treated more than 1,000 patients, many of them women and children, since January. They suffered wounds from gunfire, land mines, mortar rounds, car bombings and booby-traps.

Reporters at the frontline on Tuesday said clashes took place around the railway station in some areas troops had held a few days earlier. Troops fired rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-guns at militants around the station as families ran across streets to avoid snipers

“We sitting inside our house and bullets were coming through our door” said one woman fleeing to government lines.

U.S. SUPPORT TO INCREASE

Saad Maan also said the bodies of a colonel and two other officers who had gone missing during the battle had been found. The colonel had been shot. But he said the men had not been captured by the insurgents.

An Interior Ministry official told Reuters on Monday that the insurgents had captured a police colonel and eight other officers after they ran out of ammunition during a skirmish. But a Rapid Response units spokesman denied this when asked for comment on Monday night.

The issue is sensitive as Islamic State have a record of torturing, mutilating and killing military and civilian captives, and such an incident could be a blow to troops’ morale.

The number of displaced people from both sides of Mosul since the start of the offensive has reached 355,000, according to government figures. Some 181,000 had poured out of western Mosul since the start of the operations to retake that side.

In Washington, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he had won assurances of greater U.S. support in the war in talks on Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump. But Abadi cautioned that military might alone would not be sufficient.

He told a forum in Washington after his meeting with Trump that he had been told U.S. “support will not only continue but will accelerate.”

“But of course we have to be careful here,” he said. “We are not talking about military confrontation as such. Committing troops is one thing, while fighting terrorism is another thing.”

Abadi, who leads the Shi’ite majority government in Baghdad, said it would be crucial to win over the local population in Sunni-dominated Mosul to achieve lasting peace.

He is in Washington this week ahead of a gathering of world leaders of the coalition fighting Islamic State, who as well as waging war in Iraq and Syria have inspired attacks on civilian targets in Europe, Africa and elsewhere that have killed hundreds of people.

Click http://tmsnrt.rs/2mZWV4j for graphic on Battle for Mosul

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Man claiming to be Boko Haram leader denies 5,000 hostages freed

By Ardo Abdullahi

BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) – A man purporting to be the leader of Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram denied in a video posted on Friday that 5,000 people held by the group had been freed by West African forces earlier in the week.

On Wednesday, Cameroon said regional forces had rescued the hostages, who were held in villages by the jihadist group, in an operation along the Nigeria-Cameroon border.

“You are telling lies that you killed 60 of our men and rescued 20 children, and that you rescued 5,000 of your people, Paul Biya,” said the man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, referring to Cameroon’s president.

He also claimed responsibility for attacks earlier this week which included suicide bombings in the city of Maiduguri and a raid on the town of Magumeri, both of which are in the northeast Nigerian state of Borno.

Nigeria’s military has said on multiple occasions in the last few years that it has killed or wounded Shekau.

Such statements have often been followed by video denials by someone who says he is Shekau, but poor footage makes it difficult to confirm if the person is the same man as in previous footage.

Boko Haram has killed around 15,000 people and forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes since 2009 in an insurgency aimed at creating a state adhering to strict Islamic laws in the northeast of Africa’s most populous nation.

The jihadist group, whose attacks have increased since the end of the rainy season in late 2016, also carries out cross-border attacks in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Kingimi; writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Need to avoid civilian deaths weighs on minds of U.S. forces in Mosul battle

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 18, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Angus MacSwan

QAYYARA WEST AIRFIELD, Iraq (Reuters) – As the battle for Mosul moves to the narrow streets and densely packed houses of the Old City, U.S. artillery gunners and helicopter pilots supporting Iraqi forces face an age-old problem – how to avoid killing civilians.

They place their faith in precision missiles which can hit their target with great accuracy. But human instinct also comes into play against an Islamic State enemy which has used civilians as human shields and hides in houses and mosques.

“Our mission is to find and destroy ISIS. We are not here to kill the wrong people,” said Captain Lucas Gebhart, commander of the 4/6th Cavalry’s Bravo Troop of Apache attack helicopters.

The troop is based at this airfield about 60 kms south of Mosul, as is a rocket battery which fires into west Mosul.

A major site at the height of the U.S. occupation, Islamic State captured Qayyara from Iraqi government forces in 2014 and destroyed it. The Iraqis retook it in July last year, and now the U.S. Army is building it up again as a support base for the Mosul operation.

Gebhart, who wore a U.S. Cavalry hat with a crossed-sabre insignia along with his regular uniform, has been here since December. The troop flies close support for the Iraqi army and escorts medical evacuations. It has had more than 200 engagements with Islamic State fighters in that time, he said.

“We fly every day, weather permitting. We are firing missiles most of the time,” Gebhart told reporters.

The Iraqi army started its offensive on Mosul, Islamic State’s last stronghold in Iraq, in October and retook the east side of the city, bisected by the Tigris river, in January. The west, including the Old City, is much harder going.

“The west side is very congested and it will present new challenges for us. We realize the need to be careful as we go forward,” Gebhart said.

One of those challenges is avoiding civilian casualties in a conflict where fighters are mixed in among the population and sometimes hiding behind them.

“Everyone that flies with me are fathers and husbands, so we are very deliberate to avoid casualties we don’t want. We use guided missiles. The things we shoot from an Apache, they go where we want them to go,” Gebhart said.

Targets are identified and approved by the Iraqi army. But circumstances can change in a moment.

“I have personal experience of human shields. I engaged a target and they pulled a family of women and children out of a house. The missile was already in the air but I was able to move it,” he said.

“You’ve got a little bit of time. If something happens post-missile release, we have procedures to move it.”

Gebhart, aged 32, joined the military as a teenager after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. He served in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq in 2003 before going to West Point and becoming a cavalry officer. He also served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

“I love my job. I don’t lose sleep over it,” he said.

WE LOVE TO FIRE

In another section of the base, the 18th Field Artillery “Odin” battery operates a High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), fired off the back of trucks.

On Friday afternoon, the battery fired 10 rockets, each worth about $100,000, in the space of about 20 minutes. They headed skywards in a cloud of white smoke and a flash of fire as a Bob Marley song played from a platoon tent. They would reach their target in east Mosul in about a minute.

Lieutenant Mary Floyd explained that the rockets were GPS-guided. All fire missions were approved by senior officers at the Combined Joint Operations Center and the coordinates were sent to the battery through computers.

“The rockets go really high so we have to clear airspace -– civilian and military -– along the flight path. We have had to end missions because they saw aviation,” she said.

Although rockets are often aimed at targets in built-up, populated areas, the battery was confident they would hit what they intended. If the rockets are off target, they do not detonate, she said.

“They have very, very low collateral damage, so we like to use them a lot,” Floyd said, using the military term for civilian casualties. “When the rockets hit they land at near a vertical angle. That really confines the blast to one house.”

The battery has fired hundreds of rockets since deploying to Qayyara, she said.

“The tempo changes. We’ll go a couple of days without orders. Then we might be firing all night.”

The issue of civilian casualties has dogged the U.S. military during its long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from shootings at check-points to drone bombings. In the battle for Mosul, Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition war planes have also been pounding parts of the city.

Figures of such casualties are hard to come by. Washington has stressed its forces take every effort to avoid them.

On Tuesday, a prominent Iraqi politician and businessman, Khamis Khanjar, said at least 3,500 civilians have been killed in west Mosul since the offensive closed in on it.

The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that up to March 4, it had assessed that “more likely than not”, at least 220 civilians had been unintentionally killed by coalition strikes since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve.

While the men and women of Odin battery were fully aware of the risk, they believe in their work.

“We love to fire. It makes me very happy,” Floyd said. “At night it is very beautiful.”

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Iraqi troops seize main bridge, advance on mosque in battle for Mosul

Members of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) sit in a military vehicle during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, in the city of Mosul, Iraq March 15, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Patrick Markey and John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces battling Islamic State for Mosul took control of a main bridge over the Tigris river on Wednesday and advanced towards the mosque where the group’s leader declared a caliphate in 2014, federal police said.

The seizure of the Iron Bridge, linking eastern Mosul with the militant-held Old City on the west side, means the government holds three of the five bridges over the Tigris and bolsters Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s assertion that the battle is reaching its final stages.

The bridge, which was damaged in fighting late last year, was captured by federal police and Interior Ministry Rapid Response units, a police statement said.

The gains were made in heavy fighting in which troops fought street-by-street against an enemy using suicide car bombs, mortar and sniper fire, and grenade-dropping drones to defend what was once their main stronghold.

“Our troops are making a steady advance … and we are now less than 800 meters from the mosque,” a federal police spokesman said.

Losing the city would be a huge blow to Islamic State as it has served as the group’s de facto capital since its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself head of a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria from the Nuri Mosque in July 2014.

The capture of the mosque would thus be a huge symbolic victory as well as a concrete gain. But many hard days of fighting could still lie ahead as government forces try to make headway in the streets and narrow alleyways of the Old City.

Islamic State fighters have booby-trapped houses, and government forces will also be fighting amongst civilians, ruling out the extensive use of air and artillery support.

Heavy fighting was also reported on Wednesday around the Mosul museum by journalists and combatants. An Islamic State suicide car bomb exploded near the museum. Helicopters strafed the ground with machinegun fire and missiles.

DECISIVE STAGE

The intense combat marked a decisive stage in the battle for Mosul which started on Oct. 17 last year, and in the wider struggle against Islamic State.

In neighboring Syria, three separate forces are advancing on the city of Raqqa, the main Syrian city under Islamic State control.

As well as waging jihad in Iraq and Syria, the militants have inspired attacks in cities in Europe, Africa and elsewhere that have killed hundreds of civilians.

In Baghdad, Abadi said: “Daesh (Islamic State) become day after day surrounded inside a tight area and they are in their final days.”

In a news conference on Tuesday night, he warned the insurgents that they must surrender or face death.

“We will preserve families of Daesh who are civilians but we will punish the terrorists and bring them to justice if they surrender,” he said. “They are cornered and if they will not surrender. They will definitely get killed.”Iraqi officers said cloudy weather hampered air cover on Wednesday morning. Police commander Younes Jabouri said troops were moving forward but it was not easy because of the weather.

“We’re on the edge of the Old City. There are lots of shops, garages and markets and a lot of residents and small streets and alleyways. It takes time because there are a lot of civilians and Daesh uses them as human shields, they don’t let them leave,” he said.

Residents have streamed out of western neighborhoods recaptured by the government, many desperately hungry and traumatized by living under Islamic State’s harsh rule.

Haider Ibrahim Rohawi, a market trader, was fleeing Lagedat district with his family, pushing his possessions in a handcart.

“Yesterday afternoon the army came. Just a day before Daesh were in our houses with us. There was a lot of fighting. They shot one of the Daesh right in front of me. Everyone is threatened by Daesh, that’s why we leave. The area is freed. We have no power, no fuel, nothing.”

As many as 600,000 civilians are still trapped with the militants inside Mosul. The Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday that in recent days, almost 13,000 displaced people from western Mosul had been given assistance and temporary accommodation each day, adding to the 200,000 already displaced.

Staff Brigadier Falah al-Obeidi of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) told Reuters his troops on Wednesday took control over the Dor al-Sikak and al-Nafut areas, site of the militants’ main weapons stores in Mosul just west of the Old City.

“Yesterday resistance was very strong in that area. It’s where their stores are, and the people living there, both men and women, are with them (supporters or members),” he said.

Aerial surveillance photos showed women carrying guns, Obeidi said.

CTS troops also brought in a Russian-made missile and two warheads. They had found 40 more such missiles stored in homes in Dor al-Sikak.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil; Editing by Louise Ireland and Dominic Evans)

Assad says yet to see real steps on Islamic State by Trump, U.S. forces ‘invaders’

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Chinese TV station Phoenix in Damascus, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on March 11, 2017. SANA/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THIS IMAGE. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he had yet to see “anything concrete” from U.S. President Donald Trump over his vow to defeat Islamic State and called U.S. forces in Syria “invaders” because they were there without government permission.

Assad, in an interview with Chinese TV station Phoenix, said “in theory” he still saw scope for cooperation with Trump though practically nothing had happened in this regard.

Assad said Trump’s campaign pledge to prioritize the defeat of Islamic State had been “a promising approach” but added: “We haven’t seen anything concrete yet regarding this rhetoric.”

Assad dismissed the U.S.-backed military campaign against Islamic State in Syria as “only a few raids” he said had been conducted locally. “We have hopes that this administration … is going to implement what we have heard,” he added.

Asked about a deployment of U.S. forces near the northern city of Manbij, Assad said: “Any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation … are invaders.”

“We don’t think this is going to help”.

The U.S.-led coalition has been attacking Islamic State in Syria for more than two years. It is currently backing a campaign by Syrian militia allies to encircle and ultimately capture Raqqa, Islamic State’s base of operations in Syria.

Assad noted that the Russian-backed Syrian army was now “very close” to Raqqa city after advancing to the western banks of the Euphrates River.

He said Raqqa was “a priority for us”, but indicated that there could also be a parallel attack by the army towards Deir al-Zor in the east, near the Iraqi border. Deir al-Zor province is almost completely in the control of IS, also known as ISIS.

The Deir al-Zor region had been “used by ISIS as a route for logistics support between ISIS in Iraq and ISIS in Syria, so whether you attack the stronghold or you attack the route that ISIS uses, it (has) the same result”, Assad said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Islamic State frees Mosul prisoners as grip on last major city slips

Iraqi rapid response members are seen as they try to avoid being hit by Islamic State snipers in western Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State has released dozens of prisoners held in jails in the districts of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that remain under its control, residents said on Saturday.

The release of the prisoners on Friday is another sign that the militants are being overwhelmed by the U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive that started on Oct. 17 to dislodge them from Mosul, their last major city stronghold in Iraq.

Islamic State has lost most cities it captured in Iraq in 2014 and 2015. It declared a caliphate that also spanned parts of Syria from Mosul in 2014.

Among those released were people who had been caught selling cigarettes, violating a smoking ban, or in possession of a mobile phone and therefore suspected of communicating with the outside world, the residents said.

Iraqi forces dislodged Islamic State from the eastern side of Mosul in January, and on Feb. 19 launched the offensive on the districts located west of the Tigris river.

State-run TV on Friday said about half western Mosul has been taken back from the militants who are besieged in the old city center and districts to the north.

One of the men released on Friday said two militants got him out of a basement where he was held captive with other people, blindfolded the group and drove them away in a bus.

“After driving a distance, we stopped and they told us to remove the blindfolds and then they said ‘go, you are free,'” he said by phone, adding that about 25 prisoners were on the bus.

The man, who requested not to be identified, indicated that had spent two weeks in prison for selling cigarettes.

One Mosul resident said his brother had suddenly reappeared at the house on Friday after spending a month in captivity for possessing a mobile phone.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Alexander Smith)