Tag Archives: Islamic State

Iraqi general says 70 percent of east Mosul retaken from Islamic State

Iraqi army marches on

By Stephen Kalin and Isabel Coles

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces have retaken around 70 percent of eastern Mosul from Islamic State militants and expect to reach the river bisecting the city in the coming days, Iraq’s joint operations commander told Reuters.

Lieutenant General Talib Shaghati, who is also head of the elite counter-terrorism service (CTS) spearheading the campaign to retake the northern city, said the cooperation of residents was helping them advance against Islamic State.

In its 12th week, the offensive has gained momentum since Iraqi forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition renewed their push for the city a week ago, clearing several more eastern districts despite fierce resistance.

“Roughly 65-70 percent of the eastern side has been liberated,” Shaghati said in an interview late on Wednesday in the Kurdish capital of Erbil. “I think in the coming few days we will see the full liberation of the eastern side”.

The western half of the city remains under the full control of Islamic State, which is fighting to hold on to its largest urban stronghold with snipers and suicide car bombs numbering “in the hundreds” according to Shaghati.

The Mosul assault, involving a 100,000-strong ground force of Iraqi government troops, members of the autonomous Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi’ite militiamen, is the most complex battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The commander of a U.S.-led coalition backing the Iraqi offensive told Reuters on Wednesday that increased momentum was due largely to better coordination among the army and security forces. He said the Iraqis had improved their ability to defend against Islamic State car bombs.

Although vastly outnumbered, the militants have used the urban terrain to their advantage, concealing car bombs in narrow alleys, posting snipers on tall buildings with civilians on lower floors and making tunnels and surface-level passageways between buildings. They have also embedded themselves among the local population.

HUMAN SHIELDS

The presence of large numbers of civilians on the battlefield has restricted Iraqi forces’ use of artillery but the cooperation of residents has also helped them target the militants.

“They give us information about the location of the terrorists, their movements and weapons that has helped us pursue them and arrest some and kill others,” Shaghati said.

In the run-up to the Mosul offensive, Iraqi officials expressed hope that residents would rise up against Islamic State, accelerating the group’s demise in the city. But mass executions seem to have discouraged widespread resistance.

An Iraqi victory in Mosul would probably spell the end for Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate, which leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared 2-1/2 years ago from Mosul’s main mosque after the militants overran the city.

But in recent days, the militants have displayed the tactics to which they are likely to resort if they lose the city, killing dozens with bombs in Baghdad and attacking security forces elsewhere.

An attack claimed by Islamic State killed six people on Thursday on the capital’s eastern outskirts.

CTS pushed into Mosul from the east in late October and made swift advances but regular army troops tasked with advancing from the north and south made slower progress and the operation stalled for several weeks.

The roughly 10,000 members of CTS, established a decade ago with support from the U.S. forces, are considered the best-trained and equipped fighters in Iraq.

Shaghati described the role of the international coalition, providing air support and advising Iraqi forces on the ground as “outstanding” and said Islamic State was crumbling under pressure.

“Daesh (Islamic State) devised many plans to obstruct and block us but they failed. We were able to surpass them and these areas were liberated with high speed,” Shaghati said.

“We have intelligence that (Islamic State) leaders and their families are fleeing outside Iraq.”

(Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

More than 2,000 Iraqis a day flee Mosul as military advances

Iraqis fleeing the Islamic State

By Stephen Kalin and Isabel Coles

NEAR MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – More than 2,000 Iraqis a day are fleeing Mosul, several hundred more each day than before U.S.-led coalition forces began a new phase of their battle to retake the city from Islamic State, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

After quick initial advances, the operation stalled for several weeks but last Thursday Iraqi forces renewed their push from Mosul’s east toward the Tigris River on three fronts.

Elite interior ministry troops were clearing the Mithaq district on Wednesday, after entering it on Tuesday when counterterrorism forces also retook an industrial zone.

Federal police advanced in the Wahda district, the military said on Wednesday, in the 11th week of Iraq’s largest military campaign since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

As they advanced, many more civilian casualties were also being recorded, the U.N. said.

Vastly outnumbered, the militants have embedded themselves among residents and are using the city terrain to their advantage, concealing car bombs in narrow alleys, posting snipers on tall buildings with civilians on lower floors, and making tunnels and surface-level passageways between buildings.

“We were very afraid,” one Mithaq resident said.

“A Daesh (Islamic State) anti-aircraft weapon was positioned close to our house and was opening fire on helicopters. We could see a small number of Daesh fighters in the street carrying light and medium weapons. They were hit by planes.”

Security forces have retaken about a quarter of Mosul since October but, against expectations and despite severe shortages of food and water, most residents have stayed put until now.

More than 125,000 people have been displaced out of a population of roughly 1.5 million, but the numbers have increased by nearly 50 percent to 2,300 daily from 1,600 over the last few days, the U.N. refugee agency said.

The humanitarian situation was “dire”, with food stockpiles dwindling and the price of staples spiraling, boreholes drying up or turning brackish from over-use and camps and emergency sites to the south and east reaching maximum capacity, it said.

Most of the fleeing civilians are from the eastern districts but people from the besieged west, still under the militants’ control, are increasingly attempting to escape, scaling bridges bombed by the coalition and crossing the Tigris by boat.

An Iraqi victory in Mosul would probably spell the end for Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate but in recent days the militants have displayed the tactics to which they are likely to resort if they lose the city, killing dozens with bombs in Baghdad and attacking security forces elsewhere.

Speaking with reporters in Washington through a video link, a U.S. military spokesman said the number of U.S.-led coalition advisers assisting Iraqi security forces in the second phase of the operation to retake Mosul had doubled to 450 in the past few weeks.

Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition fighting Islamic State, also confirmed that the advisors had entered the city limits of Mosul.

“They have been in the city at different times,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Kalin and Idrees Ali in Washington.; Editing by Louise Ireland and Alistair Bell)

Thousands more Iraqis flee Mosul as military advances

A member of Iraqi security forces inspects a house in the Intisar district of eastern Mosul, Iraq,

By Stephen Kalin and Isabel Coles

NEAR MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – More than 2,000 Iraqis a day are fleeing Mosul, several hundred more each day than before U.S.-led coalition forces began a new phase of their battle to retake the city from Islamic State, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

After quick initial advances, the operation stalled for several weeks but last Thursday Iraqi forces renewed their push from Mosul’s east towards the Tigris River on three fronts.

Elite interior ministry troops were clearing the Mithaq district on Wednesday, after entering it on Tuesday when counterterrorism forces also retook an industrial zone.

Federal police advanced in the Wahda district, the military said on Wednesday, in the 12th week of Iraq’s largest military campaign since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

As they advanced, many more civilian casualties were also being recorded, the U.N. said.

Vastly outnumbered, the militants have embedded themselves among residents and are using the city terrain to their advantage, concealing car bombs in narrow alleys, posting snipers on tall buildings with civilians on lower floors, and making tunnels and surface-level passageways between buildings.

“We were very afraid,” one Mithaq resident said.

“A Daesh (Islamic State) anti-aircraft weapon was positioned close to our house and was opening fire on helicopters. We could see a small number of Daesh fighters in the street carrying light and medium weapons. They were hit by planes.”

Security forces have retaken about a quarter of Mosul since October but, against expectations and despite severe shortages of food and water, most residents have stayed put until now.

Displaced Iraqi people, who fled the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, stand in line as they leave Khazer camp to go home, Iraq

Displaced Iraqi people, who fled the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, stand in line as they leave Khazer camp to go home, Iraq January 4, 2017. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily

More than 125,000 people have been displaced out of a population of roughly 1.5 million, but the numbers have increased by nearly 50 percent to 2,300 daily from 1,600 over the last few days, the U.N. refugee agency said.

The humanitarian situation was “dire”, with food stockpiles dwindling and the price of staples spiralling, boreholes drying up or turning brackish from over-use and camps and emergency sites to the south and east reaching maximum capacity, it said.

Most of the fleeing civilians are from the eastern districts but people from the besieged west, still under the militants’ control, are increasingly attempting to escape, scaling bridges bombed by the coalition and crossing the Tigris by boat.

An Iraqi victory in Mosul would probably spell the end for Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate but in recent days the militants have displayed the tactics to which they are likely to resort if they lose the city, killing dozens with bombs in Baghdad and attacking security forces elsewhere.

Double click on http://tmsnrt.rs/2fd0nGE for map on Battle for Mosul

(Additional reporting by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Turkey says Istanbul attacker’s identity established, manhunt goes on

Police special forces patrol outisde the Reina nightclub which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey

By Nick Tattersall and Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey has established the identity of the gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day, its foreign minister said on Wednesday, as police rounded up more suspected accomplices.

In an interview with the state-run Anadolu news agency, Mevlut Cavusoglu gave no further details about the gunman, whom Turkish officials have not named.

The attacker shot his way into the exclusive Reina nightclub on Sunday then opened fire with an automatic rifle, reloading his weapon half a dozen times and shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground. Turks as well as visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada were among the dead.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

Turkish media reports have said the attacker is believed to be an ethnic Uighur, possibly from Kyrgyzstan.

The shooting in Istanbul’s Ortakoy neighbourhood, an upscale district on the Bosphorus shore, came after a year in which NATO member Turkey was shaken by a series of attacks by radical Islamist and Kurdish militants and by a failed coup.

President Tayyip Erdogan said the attack, which targeted a club popular with local celebrities and moneyed foreigners, was being exploited to try to divide the largely Sunni Muslim nation and that the state never meddled in how people lived.

“There is no point trying to blame the Ortakoy attack on differences in lifestyles,” he said in a speech to local administrators at the presidential palace in Ankara.

“Nobody’s lifestyle is under systematic threat in Turkey. We will never allow this,” he said in comments broadcast live. It was his first public speech since the shooting.

Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, which condemned the attack in its immediate aftermath, had issued a statement in December saying celebrating the New Year did not fit with Muslim values, triggering criticism from some parts of Turkish society.

Such calls have made many secular Turks suspicious of the Islamist background of Erdogan and the ruling AK Party, seeing them as bent on eroding the secular principles of the modern republic founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk after the fall of the Ottoman empire. Erdogan rejects such suggestions.

MORE DETENTIONS

The attacker appeared to have been well versed in guerrilla warfare and may have trained in Syria, a security source and a newspaper report said on Tuesday.

The Haberturk newspaper said police investigations revealed that the gunman had entered Turkey from Syria and went to the central city of Konya in November, travelling with his wife and two children so as not to attract attention.

On Wednesday, police in the western city of Izmir detained 27 people who had travelled from Konya, citing suspicion of links to the attack, the Dogan news agency said.

They included women and children. Video footage showed some of them being brought out of an apartment building to waiting vehicles.

Seven Uighur Turks were also detained at a restaurant in the working-class Istanbul neighbourhood of Zeytinburnu, where the gunman was thought to have gone by taxi after the attack and asked to borrow money to pay the driver, Haberturk said.

The newspaper said raids had been carried out on 50 addresses in the district, where many Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Uighurs live, and 14 people detained in total.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Tulay Karadeniz and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Gunman in Istanbul nightclub attack may have trained in Syria

An injured woman is carried to an ambulance from a nightclub where a gun attack took place during a New Year party in Istanbul, Turkey.

By Humeyra Pamuk and Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day in an attack claimed by Islamic State appears to have been well versed in guerrilla warfare and may have trained in Syria, a newspaper report and a security source said on Tuesday.

The attacker, who remains at large, shot dead a police officer and a civilian at the entrance to the exclusive Reina nightclub on Sunday. He then opened fire with an automatic rifle inside, reloading his weapon half a dozen times and shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground.

In a statement claiming the attack on Monday, Islamic State described the club as a gathering point for Christians celebrating their “apostate holiday” and said the shooting was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

“The assailant has experience in combat for sure … he could have been fighting in Syria for years,” one security source told Reuters, saying that he was likely to have been directed in his actions by the jihadist group.

A Turkish police handout picture made avalible on January 2, 2017 of a suspect in Istanbul nightclub attack which killed at least 39 people on New Year's Eve.

A Turkish police handout picture made avalible on January 2, 2017 of a suspect in Istanbul nightclub attack which killed at least 39 people on New Year’s Eve. REUTERS/Reuters TV/Handout

The Haberturk newspaper said police investigations revealed that the gunman had entered Turkey from Syria and went to the central city of Konya in November, traveling with his wife and two children so as not to attract attention.

Some Turkish media reported that police were seeking a 28-year-old Kyrgyz national believed to be the gunman.

Kyrgyzstan’s security service said it was in touch with Turkish authorities and that a man had been questioned by Kyrgyz police and then released.

Turkish officials have not commented on the details of the investigation. But government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday that the authorities were close to fully identifying the gunman, after gathering fingerprints and information on his appearance.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said a total of 14 people had been detained. Two foreign nationals were detained at Istanbul’s main Ataturk airport in connection with the attack, broadcaster NTV said.

A selfie video of the alleged attacker, apparently walking around Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, was broadcast by Turkish news channels on Tuesday as police operations to track him down continued.

Kurtulmus made no reference to the Islamic State claim of responsibility on Monday but said it was clear Turkey’s military operations in Syria had annoyed terrorist groups and those behind them.

NATO member Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and since August has been conducting military operations inside Syria to drive the radical Sunni militants, as well as Kurdish militia fighters, away from its borders.

Islamic State has been blamed for at least half a dozen attacks on civilian targets in Turkey over the past 18 months; but, other than assassinations, it was the first time it has directly claimed any of them. It made the statement on one of its Telegram channels, a method used after attacks elsewhere.

Haberturk cited a barman at the club as saying the gunman had thrown explosive devices several times during the shooting spree, apparently in order to disorientate people and give himself time to reload.

Several witnesses who spoke to Reuters also said there had been small explosions during the attack.

(Additional reporting by Olga Dzyubenko in Bishkek; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Richard Lough)

Smuggled by boat or scaling wrecked bridges, residents escape Mosul’s besieged west

Displaced people, who fled the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, gather at Hassan Sham camp, east of Mosul, Iraq,

By Isabel Coles

HASSAN SHAM, Iraq (Reuters) – They wait for nightfall before attempting the perilous escape across bombed-out bridges and front lines between Islamic State militants and Iraqi forces.

Some cross the Tigris River by boat, after the U.S.-led coalition bombed the five bridges connecting the city’s two halves to restrict Islamic State movements. Others scale what remains of the bridges using a rope.

Most of the 116,000 civilians who have fled Mosul since Iraqi forces launched their campaign to recapture Islamic State’s biggest stronghold came from the eastern half of the city, where government troops have gradually gained ground.

But as the biggest battle in Iraq since 2003 enters its 12th week, a growing number of people are escaping from the besieged west bank of the Tigris, a half of the city that is still fully under the militants’ control.

“Only the lucky ones get out,” said Jamal, who crossed the river using a rope to climb over the remnants of one bridge and is now at a camp for civilians displaced from Mosul with his wife and three children.

“If they opened a route for a quarter of an hour, not a single person would remain on the western side.”

Although there is no fighting yet in the west, food is scarcer than ever since government-backed Shi’ite militias advanced through desert terrain southwest of Mosul in November, sealing Islamic State’s only access route to the city.

Civilians who fled the west in recent days said the militants had announced they would soon distribute food and break the siege in an attempt to placate their increasingly desperate subjects and convince them to stay.

A displaced girl , who fled the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, stands behind the fence at Hassan Sham camp, east of Mosul, Iraq,

A displaced girl , who fled the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, stands behind the fence at Hassan Sham camp, east of Mosul, Iraq, January 2, 2017. Picture taken 2, 2017. REUTERS/Ari Jalal

“HAVE TO EXECUTE THE WHOLE OF MOSUL”

In the run-up to the campaign, aid agencies were preparing for a mass exodus from Mosul. So far most of the city’s residents — numbering as many as 1.5 million — either have chosen to stay or have been unable to escape.

That has worked in Islamic State’s favor, slowing the progress of Iraqi forces seeking to avoid civilian casualties.

Twenty year old Abu Mohsen, whose was ferried across the Tigris by his friend, a fisherman, said when the operation began, most people in the west had planned to wait it out. But as advances slowed last month, their calculations were changing.

“When the operations stopped people said the army will not reach us. They said it will take a year or two,” he said.

Iraqi forces renewed their push to retake the city last week, making progress in several eastern districts.

Until recently, the militants punished anyone caught fleeing their self-styled caliphate with execution, but recent arrivals at the camp said the sheer volume of people trying to escape had forced them to lessen the penalty.

“They would have to execute the whole of Mosul, so they started to flog people and send them back home instead,” said 22 year old Abu Abd, who crossed the river three days ago when Islamic State militants were distracted.

Some of the bridges can still be crossed on foot, but Islamic State forbids passage to those they suspect of fleeing to the government side, especially those with women and children.

Displaced people, who fled the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, gather at Hassan Sham

Displaced people, who fled the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, gather at Hassan Sham camp, east of Mosul, Iraq, January 2, 2017. Picture taken 2, 2017. REUTERS/Ari Jalal

Most of the boats crossing the Tigris are controlled by Islamic State. Those who make it across the river must then find a way through the frontline between the militants and Iraqi forces, who are fighting street to street.

“When we saw the army it was as though we were dreaming. We couldn’t believe our own eyes,” said Abu Abdullah, who fled from the 17 Tomuz neighbourhood in the west.

The camp is safer, but brings a new kind of hardship. The displaced are not allowed out for security reasons and have no work. For some, it proves too much. Camp workers and displaced people said a displaced man had cut his own throat in a bathroom cubicle on Sunday.

(Editing by Peter Graff)

Syrian child refugees taught to release stress and resist recruitment

Syrian refugee children queue as they head towards their classroom at a school in Mount Lebanon,

By Sally Hayden

BEIRUT (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The screams of a dozen Syrian and Palestinian children pierce the air of a community center in Lebanon’s Shatila refugee camp.

Yet the children are not hurt. They are yelling to express the anger and fear they feel as victims of conflict in special “peace education” classes.

“We don’t hit each other. We don’t say bad things about each other. Boys don’t hit girls,” said 11-year-old Hala, who asked not to be identified for security reasons.

Hala fled Deir el Zor in Syria and has been living in Lebanon for less than two years. She said one of her favorite activities is “playback”, where each child will tell a story or describe a situation that is bothering them and will have the other children act it out.

Organized by Basmeh and Zeitooneh, a local charity, the classes in a chaotic fifth floor room were set up to help children voice their opinions, release the stress caused by war and displacement and rediscover their imaginations, staff say.

They hope by providing children with activities such as painting, dram and storytelling, they will be less vulnerable to recruitment by militant groups preying on children and teenagers who may be out of school with little to occupy them.

“These kids have been through a lot. They’re traumatized in many different ways,” said “peace education” project manager Elio Gharios.

“They’re agitated, maybe introverted, aggressive at times,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Lebanon is home to more than 1 million Syrian refugees, half of them children.

In 1949, it opened the Shatila camp in Beirut to host Palestinian refugees fleeing Israel’s founding in 1948.

As a new wave of Syrian refugees joined the ranks of the displaced, Shatila has grown upwards, with some buildings now six floors high. Houses are damp and overcrowded, and the tangled electricity wires that hang across the streets cause multiple deaths a year.

More of an urban slum than a traditional refugee camp, Shatila which covers one square kilometer is home to as many as 42,000 people, according to Rasha Shukr, the Beirut area manager for Basma and Zeitooneh.

Syrian refugee children play as volunteers entertain them inside a housing compound in Sidon, southern Lebanon

Syrian refugee children play as volunteers entertain them inside a housing compound in Sidon, southern Lebanon June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

BRAINWASHING

Gharios, a charismatic 24-year-old Lebanese psychology graduate, said children aged between seven and 14 attend the classes with up to 20 children in each session.

Each class starts with the children deciding on rules for how they can and cannot treat each other.

“They need to know that finding peaceful ways to resolve conflicts is a very important matter … They are reminded every time that violence is not the solution, it’s not the way,” Gharios said.

“They’re young, it is the teenagers who are easiest to brainwash. Many children know how to roll a joint, say, and they’re 12 or 11. Many have witnessed things happen in here where someone would hold a gun against someone else’s head.”

Young Syrian refugees are at particular risk of being recruited by extremist groups in Lebanon and elsewhere because their recent displacement often fuels a sense of hopelessness, says UK-based charity International Alert, which funds projects in Shatila camp, including the classes.

Palestinian groups including Hamas militants and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement are active inside Shatila, according to charities working there.

Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, another extremist group, have also been known to target young refugees online, they say.

International Alert says these classes make children less vulnerable to recruitment because they provide them with a safe environment to discuss problems, learn conflict resolution skills and to rebuild a sense of purpose.

RECRUITMENT

Caroline Brooks, Syria projects manager at International Alert, which supports similar programs throughout Lebanon, Syria and Turkey, said there were many reasons why children may join an extremist group.

Often there is a need for a sense of significance, purpose, and belonging, and sometimes there is a desire for revenge, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A lack of alternatives and the need to make a living are also strong pull factors, Brooks said.

Conflict and displacement tend to fuel the abuse and exploitation of children, refugee experts say.

For example, many children are forced to work or beg to feed themselves and their families, young girls face greater risk of being married off and domestic violence increases, they say.

“Peace education” classes, which started this year, have already had some impact, Brooks said citing a 17-year-old in the program who was approached by an Islamic State recruiter through Facebook.

The teenager immediately reported it to a member of staff involved in the classes.

For Hala, the classes which she has been attending for right months have made a huge difference to her and her younger siblings.

“My brothers changed. They became much happier,” she said.

(Reporting by Sally Hayden; Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)

Islamic State kills 24 in Baghdad blast, cuts road to Mosul

People look at a burned vehicle at the site of car bomb attack in a busy square at Baghdad's sprawling Sadr City district, in Iraq

By Kareem Raheem and Ghazwan Hassan

BAGHDAD/TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) – An Islamic State car bomb killed 24 people in a busy square in Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City district on Monday, and the militants cut a key road north from the capital to Mosul, their last major stronghold in the country.

An online statement distributed by Amaq news agency, which supports Islamic State, said the ultra-hardline Sunni group had targeted a gathering of Shi’ite Muslims, whom it considers apostates. Sixty-seven people were wounded in the blast.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are currently fighting to push Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul, but are facing fierce resistance. The group has lost most of the territory it seized in a blitz across northern and western Iraq in 2014.

The recapture of Mosul would probably spell the end for its self-styled caliphate, but the militants would still be capable of fighting a guerrilla-style insurgency in Iraq, and plotting or inspiring attacks on the West.

Three bombs killed 29 people across the capital on Saturday, and an attack near the southern city of Najaf on Sunday left seven policemen dead. Monday’s blast in Sadr City hit a square where day laborers typically gather.

Nine of the victims were women in a passing minibus. Their charred bodies were visible inside the burnt-out remains of the vehicle. Blood stained the ground nearby.

A separate blast near a hospital in central Baghdad killed one civilian and wounded nine, police and medical sources said.

“The terrorists will attempt to attack civilians in order to make up for their losses, but we assure the Iraqi people and the world that we are able to end terrorism and shorten its life,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told reporters after meeting with visiting French President Francois Hollande.

Hollande, whose country has faced a series of militant attacks in the past two years, said French soldiers serving in a U.S.-led coalition against the jihadists in Iraq were preventing more mass killings at home.

ROAD TO MOSUL

Since the drive to recapture Mosul began on Oct. 17, elite forces have retaken a quarter of the city in the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Abadi has said the group will be driven out of the country by April.

Clashes continued in and around Mosul on Monday. The counter-terrorism service (CTS) blew up several Islamic State car bombs before they reached their targets, and linked up with the Rapid Response forces, an elite Interior Ministry unit, said spokesman Sabah al-Numani.

CTS was also clearing North Karma district of remaining militants, the fourth area the unit has retaken in the past week, he said.

Islamic State targeted military positions away from the main battlefield, killing at least 16 pro-government fighters and cutting a strategic road linking the city to Baghdad.

Militants attacked an army barracks near Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of the capital, killing four soldiers and wounding 12 people, including Sunni tribal fighters, army and police sources said.

They seized weapons there and launched mortars at nearby Shirqat, forcing security forces to impose a curfew and close schools and offices in the town, according to local officials and security sources.

Shirqat mayor Ali Dodah said Islamic State seized three checkpoints on the main road linking Baiji to Shirqat following the attacks. Shelling in Shirqat had killed at least two children, he told Reuters by phone.

In a separate incident, gunmen broke into a village near Udhaim, 90 km (56 miles) north of Baghdad, where they executed nine Sunni tribal fighters with shots to the head, police and medical sources said.

In the same area, at least three pro-government Shi’ite militia fighters were killed and seven wounded when militants attacked their position with mortar rounds and machine guns, police sources said.

(Additional reproting by Ahmed Rasheed and Saif Hameed in Baghdad and Isabel Coles in Erbil; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Islamic State claims Istanbul attack, gunman remains at large

Flowers are placed outside the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey.

CAIRO/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Islamic State claimed responsibility on Monday for a New Year’s Day mass shooting in a packed Istanbul nightclub that killed 39 people, an attack carried out by a lone gunman who remains at large.

It described the Reina nightclub, where many foreigners as well as Turks were killed, as a gathering point for Christians celebrating their “apostate holiday”. The attack, it said, was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

“The apostate Turkish government should know that the blood of Muslims shed with airplanes and artillery fire will, with God’s permission, ignite a fire in their own land,” the Islamic State declaration said.

There was no immediate comment from Turkish officials.

The jihadist group has been blamed for at least half a dozen attacks on civilian targets in Turkey over the past 18 months but, other than targeted assassinations, this is the first time it has directly claimed any of them. It made the statement on one of its Telegram channels, a method used after attacks elsewhere.

NATO member Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and launched an incursion into neighboring Syria in August to drive the radical Sunni militants from its borders, sending in tanks and special forces backed by fighter jets.

Nationals of Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Lebanon, Libya, Israel, India, a Turkish-Belgian dual citizen and a Franco-Tunisian woman were among those killed at the exclusive nightclub on the shores of the Bosphorus waterway. Twenty-five of the dead were foreigners, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

Police distributed a hazy black-and-white photo of the alleged gunman taken from security footage. State broadcaster TRT Haber said eight people had been detained in Istanbul.

The authorities believe the attacker may be from a Central Asian nation and suspect he had links to Islamic State, the Hurriyet newspaper said. It said he may be from the same cell responsible for a gun-and-bomb attack on Istanbul’s main airport in June, in which 45 people were killed and hundreds wounded.

The attack at Reina, popular with Turkish celebrities and wealthy visitors, shook Turkey as it tries to recover from a failed July coup and a series of deadly bombings in Istanbul and elsewhere, some blamed on Islamic State, others claimed by Kurdish militants.

Around 600 people were thought to be inside when the gunman shot dead a policeman and civilian at the door, forcing his way in then opening fire with an automatic assault rifle. Witnesses said he shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest).

Some at the club jumped into the Bosphorus after the attacker began shooting at random just over an hour into the new year. Witnesses described diving under tables as he walked around spraying bullets.

A woman reacts outside the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey,

A woman reacts outside the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey, January 2, 2017. REUTERS/Yagiz Karahan

KALASHNIKOV IN SUITCASE

The attacker was believed to have taken a taxi from the southern Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul and, because of the busy traffic, got out and walked the last four minutes to the entrance of the nightclub, newspaper Haberturk said.

He pulled his Kalashnikov rifle from a suitcase at the side of the road, opened fire on those at the door, then threw two hand grenades after entering, Haberturk said, without citing its sources. It said six empty magazines were found at the scene and that he was estimated to have fired at least 180 bullets.

Security services had been on alert across Europe for new year celebrations following an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that killed 12 people. Only days ago, an online message from a pro-Islamic State group called for attacks by “lone wolves” on “celebrations, gatherings and clubs”.

In a statement hours after the shooting, President Tayyip Erdogan said such attacks aimed to create chaos and destabilize the country.

Four months into its operation in Syria, the Turkish army and the rebels it backs are besieging the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab. Erdogan has said he wants them to continue to Raqqa, the jihadists’ Syrian stronghold.

Turkey has also been cracking down on Islamic State networks at home. In counter-terrorism operations between Dec 26-Jan 2, Turkish police detained 147 people over links to the group and formally arrested 25 of them, the interior ministry said.

The New Year’s Day attack came five months after a failed military coup, in which more than 240 people were killed, many of them in Istanbul, as rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and fighter jets in a bid to seize power.

More than 100,000 people, including soldiers and police officers, have been sacked or suspended in a subsequent crackdown ordered by Erdogan, raising concern both about civic rights and the effectiveness of Turkey’s security apparatus.

The government says the purges will make the military, police and other institutions more disciplined and effective.

Turkey has seen repeated attacks in recent weeks. On Dec. 10, two bombs claimed by Kurdish militants exploded outside a soccer stadium in Istanbul, killing 44 people. A security guard who survived that attack was killed at Reina.

A car bomb killed at least 13 soldiers and wounded 56 when it ripped through a bus carrying off-duty military personnel in the central city of Kayseri a week later, an attack Erdogan also blamed on Kurdish militants.

Islamic State’s Amaq website said the group was behind a car bomb attack that killed 11 people and wounded 100 in the city of Diyarbakir in November, but Turkish authorities denied this and said Kurdish militants carried out the attack.

The Russian ambassador to Turkey was shot dead as he gave a speech in Ankara on Dec. 19 by an off-duty police officer who shouted “Don’t forget Aleppo” and “Allahu Akbar”.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo; Editing by Giles Elgood and Ralph Boulton)

Threat of New Year attack in U.S. low but ‘undeniable’: agencies

NYPD standing guard during Christmas Eve

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. defense and security agencies said they believed the threat of militant attacks inside the United States was low during this New Year’s holiday, yet some chance of an attack was “undeniable,” according to security assessments reviewed on Friday.

“There are no indications of specific threats to the U.S. Homeland,” said a “situational awareness” bulletin issued to U.S. Army personnel this week by the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. “However the threat from homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) in the United States is undeniable,” the bulletin added.

A copy of the bulletin was seen by Reuters on Friday.

A separate bulletin, issued by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command and headlined, “New Year’s Day Celebration Threat Assessment,” rated the overall threat of attacks against U.S. Army installations and personnel as “moderate.”

The command’s intelligence operations center received “no reporting of specific or credible threats targeting U.S. Army installations or its personnel for the upcoming 2017 New Year’s celebration,” said the bulletin, a copy of which also was made available to Reuters.

The assessment, however, noted that two recent issues of Rumiyah, an Islamic State propaganda publication, did “provide information on conducting knife attacks and using vehicles to cause mass casualties in populated areas.”

Such tactics were used in recent attacks on civilians in Nice, France, and in Columbus, Ohio, said the bulletin. It did not mention the Dec. 19 truck attack on a Christmas Market in the German capital, Berlin.

U.S. Army and Pentagon officials did not immediately respond to requests for comments on the threat assessments.

A senior U.S. official familiar with government-wide analyses of New Year’s holiday attack threats said the Army assessments were consistent with those of other U.S. security and intelligence agencies.

Some specific threats have come to the attention of government agencies, but were not considered credible, said the senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Jonathan Landay and David Gregorio)