Tag Archives: ISIS

Freed from jihadists, Mosul residents focus fury on Iraqi politicians

crater in Mosul made by Islamic State

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL (Reuters) – As raw sewage gushed out of a crater made by an airstrike against Islamic State in Mosul, seething residents who sold their clothes to survive had a sobering message for Iraqi politicians boasting of military advances against the group.

“If life does not improve, we will not accept this and there will be a revolt against the government,” said Ihsan Abdullah. “If things don’t change Islamic State will just come back. Mosul residents will support whoever can help them.”

A former traffic policeman, he said he had not worked since Islamic State swept into the city in 2014, leaving him no choice but to sell his clothes for food.

When government forces arrived, he asked for his job back, but he was told he would first need to go to Baghdad to get clearance proving he was not a member of Islamic State. That would take too long, he said.

Iraqi forces have driven the militants out of east Mosul, and are poised to expand their major offensive into the western half of the biggest city in northern Iraq. That has brought relief after more that two years of Islamic State’s harsh rule.

But residents are turning their fury towards the Iraqi government, blaming it not only for current hardships such as a lack of basic services, but for the conditions that enabled Islamic State to take over Mosul in the first place.

Many bitterly recalled the ease with which about 800 Islamic State militants seized control in a few hours, as thousands of Iraqi soldiers fled.

“All of this is because of the politicians. They sold out Mosul and created sectarian problems. It was in their interest to divide the country,” said coffee shop owner Akram Waadallah.

A group of men around him supported that view, standing beside shops destroyed by Islamic State’s rule and the firepower needed to dislodge the jihadists.

One man stepped forward and echoed a common complaint. “There is no running water. What are we supposed to do drink out of a dirty well?”

WINNING BACK TRUST

Iraqi leaders say they are determined to eradicate Islamic State, stabilize the country and create jobs for citizens.

Mosul, once a thriving trade hub and center for higher learning, is especially sensitive to sectarian tensions.

Sunnis, the majority in the city but a minority in Iraq, were all-powerful under Saddam Hussein. Many Sunni army officers hailed from Mosul, and many in the city were resentful after Saddam was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and Shi’ites came to dominate the government in Baghdad.

When the Sunni Muslim fighters of Islamic State swept into Mosul in 2014, they were welcomed by many fellow Sunnis who had accused the Shi’ite-dominated security forces of abuse.

Islamic State’s brutal rule and intolerance eventually alienated the public, but driving the fighters out is only the first step for the authorities trying to win back trust.

The battle for Mosul could make or break Iraq. If sectarian tensions persist, Iraqi officials say, the country will fail to unite and could even be partitioned based on sect.

For now, Mosul residents are focusing on their immediate needs, finding jobs and persuading authorities to provide basic services like water and electricity.

Former Iraqi soldier Azhar Mohamed was relieved when Islamic State was driven out of Mosul. When they were running Mosul, he often moved from house to house, rarely spending more than a night in one place to avoid capture.

But hardships persist. He too can’t seem to persuade authorities to give him his job back, so he can start to rebuild in a city with rows and rows of demolished buildings, shuttered shops and deep suspicions of the Baghdad government.

“I just want my job,” said Mohamed.

(Editing by Peter Graff)

Syrian army, allies cut off Islamic State supply route near al-Bab: monitor

Smoke rises from Syrian town admist war

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s army and its allies advanced towards the northern Islamic-State held city of al-Bab on Monday, cutting off the last main supply route that connects to militant strongholds further east towards Iraq, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group monitoring the war, said the army and the Lebanese Hezbollah group made gains southeast of al-Bab overnight.

Backed by air strikes, government forces and their allies severed the main road that links the city near the Turkish border to other IS-held territory in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor provinces.

Islamic State militants are now effectively besieged in the area, by the army from the south and by Turkish-backed rebels from the north, as Damascus and Ankara race to capture the largest IS stronghold in Aleppo province.

The Syrian army’s advance towards al-Bab risks triggering a confrontation with the Turkish military and its allies, groups fighting under the Free Syria Army banner, which have been waging their own campaign to take the city.

In less than three weeks, Syrian army units moved to within 5 km (3 miles) of al-Bab, as Damascus seeks to stop its neighbor, Turkey, penetrating deeper into a strategic area of northern Syria.

Northern Syria is one of the most complicated battlefields of the multi-sided Syrian war, with Islamic State now being fought there by the Syrian army, Turkey and its rebel allies, and an alliance of U.S.-backed Syrian militias.

Turkey launched its campaign in August in Syria, “Euphrates Shield”, in order to secure its frontier from Islamic State and halt the advance of the powerful Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkish troops and FSA rebels clashed heavily with IS militants around the town of Bazaa, east of al-Bab, in recent days, the Observatory said. Turkish-backed forces had briefly captured the town before Islamic State suicide bombers pushed them out on Saturday.

The Observatory also reported fighting south of al-Bab on Monday between government forces and Islamic State.

Al-Bab sits 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Aleppo, where the government defeated rebels in December, its most important gain of the nearly six-year-old war.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis)

At former jihadist training camp, Iraqi police face drones, crack snipers

Iraqi federal police

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL (Reuters) – As a walkie-talkie carried word of another casualty from an Islamic State mortar attack, an Iraqi policeman peered through leaves at enemy positions just across the Tigris River. He kept his head low to avoid snipers but also had an eye on the sky.

Minutes later, the militants sent a drone overhead. It carried out surveillance and dropped an explosive. Then mortar bombs landed nearby, sending the policemen running for safer ground.

More than three months into the battle to drive them from their biggest stronghold, the hardline Sunni militants of Islamic State remain lethal and determined, despite being driven from the eastern half of the city of more than a million people.

Few are more acutely aware of the danger they pose than police Lt-Colonel Falah Hammad Hindi, who instructed his men to take cover as mortars landed ever closer.

“The weapon of choice is the drone,” said Hindi, whose unit faces sometimes 16 drone attacks in a single day as well as mortar bombs and snipers.

His unit, charged with holding ground while Iraqi troops prepare to expand their offensive to west Mosul, is stationed on a former Islamic State training ground and closed military area on the east bank of the Tigris.

He has gained insight into the militants’ thinking and strengths and gave a frank assessment of their capabilities, starting with the snipers he can spot without binoculars.

“The snipers are highly effective. They are foreign fighters, the most committed,” Hindi told Reuters.

When Islamic State swept into Mosul in 2014 and declared a caliphate on land straddling Iraq and Syria, they attracted volunteers from as far afield as Afghanistan and Tunisia and also won many sympathizers in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

POTATOES AND DATES

Mosul’s predominantly Sunni population was angered by Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated army, accusing it of widespread abuses of their minority sect, allegations rejected by the government.

Islamic State exploited that resentment, hunting down and executing members of the army and police as it tightened its grip on Mosul and simultaneously attracting local volunteers who saw it, initially, as a bulwark against Shi’ite power.

New recruits were trained at the site where Hindi and his men are now based, a former plant nursery, family park and state-owned honey farm.

Here they learned the group’s credo, a version of Islam even more radical than its predecessor in Iraq, al Qaeda.

Trees and lush greenery provided ideal cover from air strikes, so jihadists could become indoctrinated in relative safety. To be extra cautious, the militants built an underground tunnel with sandbags for air raids.

Aside from weapons training, jihadists learned discipline. They were made to suffer in the cold when it rained or snowed.

“Some men were fed only a few potatoes per week,” said Hindi, who lost a brother to an Islamic State attack. “Others were only allowed to eat three dates per day. They became battle-ready here.”

In order to battle Islamic State militants positioned about 500 meters across the river at a hospital and hotel, policemen study their training for clues.

They also rely on intelligence from residents of west Mosul, turned against Islamic State by the brutality of its rule.

“They hide in their homes and provide information about the jihadists. Their movements, their weapons,” said Hindi, 32.

The risks are high. Some informers have been executed.

The campaign for west Mosul will likely involve far tougher and more complex street fighting because the west’s narrow streets mean far fewer tanks and armored vehicles can be deployed against Islamic State.

The militants are also expected to put up a much fiercer fight in the western half of Mosul because the battle will determine whether their self-proclaimed caliphate will survive.

“They have no escape route in the west so they will fight to the death,” said Hindi.

The conflict will play to the group’s strengths: suicide bombers, whom Hindi said were being reserved and positioned for that battle, car bombs and booby traps.

Just as Hindi and his men made it to what they thought was a more secure area, they took cover behind trees, after concluding another drone was circling above. A mortar bomb landed a few hundred meters away.

Eventually he sat in his office, discussing future challenges over cups of sweet tea. Another senior officer, who also lost a brother to jihadists, paid a visit.

“Two days ago, 38 terrorists snuck over the river in a boat to carry out an attack,” he told Hindi. The men were killed.

“They want to show they are still a threat and in control.”

Even if Islamic State is defeated in all of Mosul, the Shi’ite-led government and army faces the daunting task of easing sectarian tensions and winning over the Sunni city, once a vibrant trade hub.

“It all depends on how the army behaves,” said Hindi. “If there are abuses again, a new generation of Daesh (Islamic State) fighters will be back.”

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Syrian army says it will press on against Islamic State near Aleppo

Syrian soldiers guarding checkpoint in area with Islamic State

By John Davison and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army signaled on Thursday it would press on with operations against Islamic State northeast of Aleppo, in a veiled warning to Turkey which backs a separate military campaign in northern Syria.

Syrian government forces have rapidly driven Islamic State back in the last two weeks, advancing to within 6 km (4 miles) of the city of al-Bab that the jihadists are fighting to hold.

The army’s gains risk sparking a confrontation with Turkey, which has sent tanks and warplanes across the border to support Syrian insurgents who are trying to seize al-Bab in a separate offensive.

Turkey’s offensive, launched last year, aims to drive both Islamic State and Syrian Kurdish fighters away from its borders, as Turkey sees both groups as a security threat.

Syria’s military general command said government forces and their allies had recaptured more than 30 towns and villages from Islamic State, and a 16 km (10 mile) stretch of the highway that links Aleppo to al-Bab to the northeast.

“This achievement widens the secured areas around Aleppo city and is the starting point for (further) operations against Daesh (Islamic State),” a military spokesman said in a statement broadcast on state TV.

The military “confirms its commitment to … protecting civilians and maintaining the unity of the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the statement added, in a remark apparently directed at Turkey.

Turkey’s offensive has brought the rebel factions it backs – some of which have also fought against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Aleppo – to the outskirts of al-Bab, according to a group that monitors the war.

Ankara last week denied that Turkey would hand over al-Bab to Assad after driving out Islamic State.

A source in the military alliance fighting in support of Assad told Reuters on Wednesday the Syrian army aimed to reach al-Bab and was ready “to clash with the FSA fighting” alongside the Turkish army if necessary.

Turkey launched its “Euphrates Shield” campaign in Syria to secure its frontier from Islamic State and halt the advance of the powerful Kurdish YPG militia. Helping rebels to topple Assad is no longer seen as a priority for Ankara.

The Euphrates Shield campaign has carved out an effective buffer zone controlled by Turkey-backed rebel groups, obstructing the YPG’s plans of linking up Kurdish controlled areas in northeastern and northwestern Syria.

The YPG, backed by the United States, is separately also battling Islamic State, and Washington’s backing for the Kurdish fighters has created tension with Turkey.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULTS

Fighting between Syrian forces, backed by Russia, and Islamic State has meanwhile intensified elsewhere in the country in recent weeks, with the group on the offensive in several areas of Syria while it is driven back inside its Mosul stronghold in neighboring Iraq.

Government forces clashed with the militants west of the historic city of Palmyra late on Wednesday, in an attempt to recover ground recently lost, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.

The army made some progress and took over farmland around the village of al-Tayas, 50 km (30 miles) west of Palmyra and near the T4 air base, but dozens of Syrian troops have been killed in the latest clashes in the area, the British-based Observatory said.

The jihadists seized Palmyra and some nearby oil fields in December for a second time in the nearly six-year Syrian conflict. They had been driven out by the army and its allies in March.

Further southwest the army fought Islamic State near the al-Seen military airport, the Observatory said.

Islamic State on Sunday launched an attack on the airport, 70 km northeast of Damascus, it said, adding that dozens of Syrian soldiers and militants had died in several days of fighting.

Government forces have recaptured at least one village in the area, the Observatory and a military media unit run by Assad’s ally Hezbollah said.

Islamic State fighters have also been attacking the remaining pockets of government-held territory in the city of Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria, long besieged by the group. Heavy Russian air strikes have targeted Islamic State in the area. Deir al-Zor province is almost entirely held by Islamic State.

(Reporting by John Davison and Tom Perry; Editing by Tom Heneghan and Dominic Evans)

Sold by Islamic State, bought by strangers: Yazidi child reunited with family

boy returned to yazidi family in Iraq

By Isabel Coles

RASHIDIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – His name was Ayman, but the couple who brought the boy home to their Iraqi village after buying him for $500 called him Ahmed.

Islamic State militants had killed or enslaved Ayman’s parents in their purge of the Yazidi religious minority to which he belongs, then sold the four-year-old to Umm and Abu Ahmed, who are Muslims.

For the 18 months he lived with the couple, his relatives assumed he was dead, one of several thousand Yazidis who have been missing since the militants overran their homes in what the United Nations has called genocide.

When Iraqi forces retook east Mosul and the surrounding area last week, they found Ayman and returned him to what is left of his family. While their reunion was full of joy, breaking the bond between Ayman and his adoptive parents brought new sorrow.

Speaking to Reuters journalists brought by Iraqi forces to his home in Rashidiya, north of Mosul, Abu Ahmed swiped through photographs of the boy on his phone: “That’s him riding a bicycle here. That’s him standing in our hall. That’s an exercise machine he played on.”

The windows of the couple’s one-story home on the eastern bank of the Tigris river have been shattered by a blast that destroyed their neighbor’s house, evidence of the fierce fighting that will continue when the army attacks the western side, which is still controlled by Islamic State.

Abu Ahmed emptied the contents of a box onto the bed Ayman used to share with them: toy cars and building blocks, and a children’s book for learning Arabic script.

It was Umm Ahmed’s idea to adopt a child. The couple had no children, and she heard Islamic State was selling orphans in the town of Tel Afar, some 40 km (25 miles) to the west.

“My objective was to win favor (with God),” said Umm Ahmed, only her eyes showing in a gap in her black veil. “To be honest, I wanted to teach him my religion, Islam.”

Her husband, a government employee, was against the idea but could not dissuade his wife, who went alone to get the boy from an orphanage run by the militants, paying for him with her earnings as a teacher.

Although the boy cried and did not want to go with her, she coaxed him, saying: “Come, you will be my child. We will live together and I will buy you everything.”

REALLY SMART

Gradually he grew accustomed to his adoptive parents, who taught him Arabic instead of the Kurdish dialect spoken by Yazidis. They told people he was a nephew they had taken in and enrolled him at the local school under the name Ahmed Shareef, but mostly he was kept indoors.

“He was really smart. I taught him to pray and perform ablutions. Do you know how much of the Koran he memorized?” Umm Ahmed said.

They did not want him to forget who he was and encouraged him to speak about life in his village of Hardan. But she said: “I always warned him not to tell anyone (he was Yazidi).”

Islamic State imposed a radical version of Islam in Mosul after establishing the city as its de facto capital: banning cigarettes, televisions and radios, and forcing men to grow beards and women to cover from head to toe.

They branded the Yazidis, whose beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions, as devil-worshipers.

Sometimes Ayman asked about the rest of his family but Umm and Abu Ahmed did not know what happened to them except for a sister in her mid-teens who was taken as a slave by a militant from Tel Afar. The militant brought the sister to visit several times but her current fate is unknown.

The whereabouts of a half-brother who was sold at the orphanage before Ayman are also not known.

As the U.S.-backed campaign to drive Islamic State out of Mosul gathered pace and the Iraqi army’s ninth division reached Rashidiya, things began to unravel for Umm and Abu Ahmed.

On entering the village, a commander received a tip that a Yazidi boy was being held there and dispatched soldiers to retrieve him. The couple had no choice but to give him up.

A video clip of the moment they were parted shows Ayman clinging to Umm Ahmed and crying.

In the clip, provided to Reuters by an aid group embedded with the army, she pleads with the soldiers who came to get the boy. “Leave him with me a bit,” she says, then tries to comfort him in spite of her own distress: “You will go and see your mother now… and when you grow up you will come and see me”.

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Ayman’s parents and most other relatives are still missing, but his grandmother and uncle live on the edge of one of several camps to which the Yazidi community has been displaced en masse, about 50 km (30 miles) away from Rashidiya.

Samir Rasho Khalaf thought his nephew had been killed until he saw a post on Facebook on Jan. 28 that a Yazidi child named Ayman Ameen Barakat had been found.

“I was stunned,” said Khalaf. “It’s a miracle: he came back from the dead.”

That same night, they were reunited. In a video of the reunion shown to Reuters by the soldiers who handed Ayman over, his grandmother strikes herself on the head repeatedly when she sees the boy, picking him up and wailing in disbelief.

“We all cried,” Major Wathiq Amjad Naathar, the army official who oversaw the handover, told Reuters.

That night, Ayman was beside himself and begged to be returned to Umm Ahmed, Khalaf said.

But on a visit by a Reuters reporter and TV crew this week, he appeared happy and calm, if bashful about all the attention.

Asked if he had been happy with his adoptive parents, he said yes, and asked if he was happy to be back with his real family, he said yes too.

Khalaf said he was pleased that Umm and Abu Ahmed kept Ayman safe and healthy, and he was grateful that, unlike so many other Yazidi boys abducted by Islamic State, he was not forced to train with weapons or fight.

But he was angry the couple did not try harder to find his family to say he was alive and well, and has refused to allow them to talk to Ayman, even though they called once.

“We don’t mention them (his adoptive parents) so he will forget them,” he said.

Umm Ahmed said he will never forget them, however, just as they will not forget him.

“I expect he will return,” she said.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Afghan government controls less than 60 percent of country: watchdog

Afghan National Army soldier stands guard

By Josh Smith

KABUL (Reuters) – The Afghan government controls less than 60 percent of the country, a U.S. watchdog agency reported on Wednesday, after security forces retreated from many strongholds last year.

Afghan soldiers and police, with the aid of thousands of foreign military advisers, are struggling to hold off a resurgent insurgency led by the Taliban, as well as other groups like Islamic State.

As of November, the government could only claim to control or influence 57 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, according to U.S. military estimates released by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), in a quarterly report to the U.S. Congress.

That represents a 15 percent decrease in territory held compared with the same time in 2015, the agency said in a report.

“SIGAR’s analysis of the most recent data provided by U.S. forces in Afghanistan suggests that the security situation in Afghanistan has not improved this quarter,” it said.

“The numbers of the Afghan security forces are decreasing, while both casualties and the number of districts under insurgent control or influence are increasing.”

More than 10 percent of districts are under insurgent control or influence, while 33 percent are contested, according to the report.

Some of the most contested provinces include Uruzgan, with five of six districts under insurgent control or influence, and Helmand, with eight of its 14 districts under insurgent control or influence.

U.S. military officials say much of the loss of territory reflects a change in strategy, with Afghan forces abandoning many checkpoints and bases in order to consolidate and focus on the most threatened areas.

Insurgents tried at least eight times to capture provincial capitals, although each assault was eventually beaten off.

According to U.S. military estimates, the number of Afghans living under insurgent control or influence decreased slightly in recent months to about 2.5 million people.

But nearly a third of the country, or 9.2 million people, live in areas that are contested, according to SIGAR, leading to some of the highest civilian casualty rates the United Nations has ever recorded in Afghanistan.

Afghan security forces also sustained heavy casualties, with at least 6,785 soldiers and police killed in the first 10 months of last year, with 11,777 wounded, SIGAR reported.

Casualty figures are rarely released by the Afghan government, while difficulties in confirming and tracking troop numbers make any figures subject to wide variation.

SIGAR reported some progress in combating corruption, which has plagued both Afghan military and political institutions.

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Florida man found guilty of Islamic State-inspired bomb plot

(Reuters) – A Florida man was convicted on Tuesday of plotting to set off a bomb at a public beach in an act that prosecutors said was inspired by the militant group Islamic State.

Harlem Suarez, 25, was found guilty at trial of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and providing material support to terrorists. He faces up to life in prison at his sentencing.

Federal agents employed a paid informant to communicate with Suarez after he promoted Islamic State on Facebook, according to court documents. Suarez decided he wanted to build a nail-filled bomb that he would bury at a beach in Key West and detonate remotely, prosecutors said.

He gave the informant components, including nails, and was arrested after he took possession of what he believed was an explosive device from the informant in July 2015, authorities said.

His defense lawyer argued that he was goaded into the plot by the informant, and Suarez took the stand to tell jurors he was merely playing along, according to local media reports. The Cuban-born Suarez came to the United States as a young boy with his family.

U.S. prosecutors have charged more than 100 individuals since 2013 with Islamic State-related crimes.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by James Dalgleish)

With Islamic State gone, East Mosul residents face uncertain future

library of University of Mosul that was burned and destoryed by ISIS

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL (Reuters) – When Islamic State militants swept into Mosul in 2014, they wandered into Manaf Younes’ billiards hall and declared it un-Islamic, taking away his billiard balls with a stern warning.

A hall that was often packed with players until midnight was suddenly abandoned. Photographs of awards that made Younes proud gathered dust for two years and the billiard tables remained covered up.

Iraqi government forces have now pushed the militants out of east Mosul and are poised to attack the west. While Younes is thrilled, like many other small businessmen in the city, his joy is tempered by uncertainty as he tries to revive his former life.

Islamic State imposed a radical version of Islam in Mosul after establishing the country’s second biggest city as its de facto capital: banning cigarettes, televisions and radios, and forcing men to grow beards and women to cover from head to toe.

“I am broke. I had to sell my two cars to survive. Now my landlord is demanding two years of back rent,” said Younes, picking up a trophy that reminded him of the old days.

He frowned at explosions in the distance, where Iraqi forces and jihadists are exchanging fire along the Tigris River that bisects the sprawling metropolis, once a trade hub and center for higher learning.

“These explosions hurt the business. They shake the billiard tables and make them imbalanced,” he said.

The fighting has already caused widespread destruction.

U.S.-led airstrikes have demolished scores of buildings and left huge craters that destroyed roads. Rooftops have collapsed into the bottom floors. Other buildings have gaping holes from rockets or machinegun fire.

Mortar bombs still land in the city and gunfire is heard.

Across from Younes’ billiard hall stands what’s left of Mosul University, once one of the finest education institutions in the Middle East.

Islamic State sold the university’s ancient manuscripts and imposed its own form of education, banning philosophy books. When the army arrived, the jihadists burned down many of its buildings, leaving piles of ashes.

A few pages of textbooks on hematology and diffusion were scattered on floors cluttered with debris. Upstairs in the cafeteria were blackened tables and chairs, below huge holes from airstrikes.

A few bakers and restaurant owners in the neighborhood stood mostly idle.

They too recalled hardships under Islamic State rule.

The militants and their wives would show up clutching AK-47 assault rifles and jump to the front of queues, demanding discounts, they said.

One restaurant owner, Qusay Ahmed, said he was dragged away to an Islamic State jail and tortured for four months after militants accused him of stealing.

“They ripped my toenails off with pliers,” he said.

The torturers may be gone, but there are new challenges.

He and other restaurant owners have no potable water and scarce electricity, and hardly any customers.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

A billiard table covered in plastic sheeting and dust stands in an empty billiard hall which was closed by Islamic State militants, in the city of Mosul, Iraq January 30, 2017. Picture taken January 30, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

Syrian groups see more U.S. support for IS fight, plan new phase

People work to clean damaged Aleppo

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian militias said on Tuesday it saw signs of increased U.S. support for their campaign against Islamic State with President Donald Trump in office, a shift that would heighten Turkish worries over Kurdish power in Syria.

A Kurdish military source told Reuters separately the next phase of a campaign by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance — which includes the Kurdish YPG militia — aimed to cut the last remaining routes to Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa city, including the road to Deir al-Zor.

The YPG has been the main partner on the ground in Syria for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, fighting as part of the SDF that has driven Islamic State from swathes of northern Syria with the coalition’s air support.

The YPG also has links to a Kurdish party, the PKK, designated by Turkey as a terrorist group.

It forms the military backbone of autonomous regions that have been set up by Kurdish groups and their allies in northern Syria since the onset of the war in 2011, alarming Turkey where a Kurdish minority lives just over the border. The main Syrian Kurdish groups say their aim is autonomy, not independence.

SDF spokesman Talal Silo told Reuters the U.S.-led coalition supplied the SDF with armored vehicles for the first time four or five days ago. Although the number was small, Silo called it a significant shift in support. He declined to give an exact number.

“Previously we didn’t get support in this form, we would get light weapons and ammunition,” he said. “There are signs of full support from the new American leadership — more than before — for our forces.”

He said the vehicles would be deployed in the campaign against Islamic State which has since November focused on Raqqa city, Islamic State’s base of operations in central Syria.

The first two phases of the offensive focused on capturing areas to the north and west of Raqqa, part of a strategy to encircle the city.

The third phase would focus on capturing remaining areas, including the road between Raqqa city and Deir al-Zor, the Kurdish military source said.

IS holds nearly all of Deir al-Zor province, where it has been fighting hard in recent weeks to try to capture the last remaining pockets of Syrian government-held territory in Deir al-Zor city.

Cutting off Raqqa city from IS strongholds in Deir al-Zor would be a major blow against the group.

“The coming phase of the campaign aims to isolate Raqqa completely,” said the Kurdish military source, who declined to be named. “Accomplishing this requires reaching the Raqqa-Deir al-Zor road,” the source said.

“This mission will be difficult.”

Silo of the SDF said preparations were underway for “new action” against IS starting in “a few days”, but declined to give further details.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Sonya Hepinstall)

Jihadists mock Trump travel ban, vow more attacks

FILE PHOTO: An Islamic State flag is seen in this picture

By Omar Fahmy and Ali Abdelaty

CAIRO (Reuters) – Supporters of Islamic State mocked U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to deny entry to citizens of seven Muslim- majority countries, saying it would fail to stop attacks in the United States and help win new militant recruits instead.

“Your decision will do nothing. Attacks will come at you from inside America, from Americans born in America with American parents and grandparents,” one Islamic State supporter posted on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app.

In a move he said would help protect the United States from terrorists, Trump signed an order on Friday suspending the entry of people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for at least 90 days. Admission of all refugees was halted for four months, and for Syrians indefinitely.

The sweeping travel curbs took effect immediately, wreaking havoc for would-be travellers with passports from the seven countries and prompting an international outcry.

Islamic State, which has been fighting military assaults on several fronts in its heartlands of northern Syria and Iraq, has made no formal comment on Trump’s ban. But some sympathisers took to social media to pour scorn on immigration restrictions they said would serve Islamic State’s cause.

“Trump bans Muslims from entering America and kills them in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, then threatens them … the wretch does not know he presents an invaluable service to Islamic State,” a supporter calling himself Salem al-Mosuly wrote on Twitter.

An Islamist channel on the messaging app Telegram called “Scholars of Haq”, monitored by U.S. monitoring service SITE, asked whether Trump’s policies meant he was currently the best “caller to Islam” – someone who attracts new believers.

Of the first 48 users to respond, 34 answered that he was, according to SITE. SITE quoted one respondent, Abu Magrebi, as saying: “What Trump has done has clearly revealed the truth, and harsh reality behind the American government’s hatred towards Muslims.”

“What is Trump doing to his country? He just become president and already people (are) protesting against his policy, and worldwide countries criticising him. Trump will bring American down God willing,” Abu Magrebi wrote in another post monitored by SITE.

By Monday morning, the Scholars of Haq channel had been taken down, along with several other channels on which Islamist militants had posted responses on Sunday.

Other Islamic State supporters mocked an order issued by Trump on Sunday requiring his joint chiefs of staff give him a plan, in the next 30 days, to defeat the militant group.

“The Crusader Trump has made himself an unthinking Pharaoh. The despicable Crusader forgets the reckless utterances of Bush Junior and the mule Obama before him. They did not succeed and by the grace of God we will rub his nose in the mud as we did his predecessors,” wrote user Turjman Al Asawirti on Telegram.

(Additional reporting by Sami Aboudi in Dubai and Eric Knecht in Cairo; Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Peter Graff)