Tag Archives: Islamic State

Islamic State-linked account posts photo purported to be Orlando nightclub shooter

Police and fire trucks in front of Pulse night club

CAIRO (Reuters) – A Twitter account associated with Islamic State on Sunday posted a photo purported to be Omar Mateen, identified by U.S. authorities as the shooter who killed at least 50 people in a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

“The man who carried out the Florida nightclub attack which killed 50 people and injured dozens,” the caption accompanying the photo read. There was no official Islamic State statement.

It was not possible to verify whether the picture was in fact of Mateen. Other Twitter accounts linked to Islamist militancy also carried photos of the same individual, and Islamic State supporters posted messages of praise for the attack.

(Reporting by Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to defend Yazidi women, ISIS sex slaves

Lawyers meet with Syrian refugees

By Lin Taylor

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney will defend Yazidi women who have been victims of sexual slavery, rape and genocide by Islamic State militants in Iraq, her law firm said on Friday.

Clooney, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London, is seeking to prosecute the Islamist group through the International Criminal Court for their crimes against the Yazidi community.

“We know that thousands of Yazidi civilians have been killed and that thousands of Yazidi women have been enslaved,” Clooney, who is married to actor George Clooney, said in a statement.

“We know that systematic rapes have taken place, and that they are still taking place,” Clooney said. “And yet no one is being held to account.”

Islamic State militants have killed, raped and enslaved thousands of Yazidis since 2014, accusing them of being devil worshippers and forcing over 400,000 of the religious minority to flee their homes in northern Iraq.

Yazidi campaigners, including Nobel Peace Prize nominee Nadia Murad Basee Taha, have been pushing for international justice for the crimes committed against them by Islamic State.

Taha, 21, took her message to the U.N. Security Council in December last year, and has spoken to successive governments, appealing to the international community to act.

Taha said she was abducted by Islamic State militants from her village in Iraq in August 2014, and taken to the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, where she and thousands of other Yazidi women and children were exchanged by militants as gifts.

She was tortured and repeatedly raped before she escaped three months later.

According to the United Nations, the Sunni militants enslaved about 7,000 women and girls in 2014, mainly Yazidis whose faith blends elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam, and is still holding 3,500, some as sex slaves.

The United States, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe have all described the Islamist militant group’s actions as genocide.

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

U.S, Iraqi officials can’t confirm report Islamic State leader wounded

Iraqi security forces firing at Islamic State

BAGHDAD/FALLUJA (Reuters) – U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Friday they could not confirm a report by an Iraqi TV channel that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been wounded in an air strike in northern Iraq.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the radical Islamist militants, Colonel Chris Garver, said in an email that he had seen the reports but had “nothing to confirm this at this time”.

Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition, told a daily briefing at the White House in Washington that there was no reason to believe that Baghdadi was not alive “even though we haven’t heard of him since late last year.”

“We presume that he’s still alive,” he added. “It’s really a matter of time for him.”

Kurdish and Arab security officials in northern Iraq said they also could not confirm the report.

Al Sumariya TV cited a local source in the northern province of Nineveh saying that Baghdadi and other Islamic State leaders were wounded on Thursday in a coalition air strike on one of the group’s command headquarters close to the Syrian border.

The channel has good connections with Shi’ite politicians and Iraqi forces engaged in the battle against Islamic State.

There have been several reports in the past that Baghdadi, whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, was killed or wounded after proclaiming himself caliph of all Muslims two years ago.

In the last audio message, posted at the end of December on Twitter accounts that had published Islamic State statements previously, Baghdadi said the air strikes carried out by Russia and the U.S.-led coalition had failed to weaken the group.

The ultra-hardline Sunni group is under increased pressure in both Iraq and Syria, and the territory under its control has shrunk significantly since 2014, limiting the potential for its leaders to move around or seek shelter.

The U.S. earlier this year announced an intensification of the war on Islamic State with more air strikes and more American troops on the ground to advise and assist allied forces.

The U.S.-led coalition has regularly flown raids out of Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, in operations aimed at killing and capturing Islamic State leaders.

A Kurdish intelligence official and an Arab from the Baaj area west of Mosul said the U.S.-led coalition had conducted such a raid there earlier this week. The coalition did not confirm this raid.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces are positioned in an arc around the north and east of Mosul while the Iraqi army is trying to capture Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad.

The army’s elite Counter Terrorism Service was battling on Friday in al-Shuhada, a southern district of Falluja, a Reuters photographer reported from the scene.

Loud explosions and bursts of gunfire were heard from the district, while aircraft believed to belong to the U.S.-led coalition flew overhead.

Al-Shuhada marks the first advance of the army inside the built-up area of Falluja, after two weeks of fighting on the outskirts to complete the encirclement of the city.

The encirclement was completed with help from Iran-backed Shi’ite militias. They deployed behind the army’s lines and did not take part directly in the assault on the city to avoid inflaming sectarian feelings.

A government official said Islamic State militants are putting up a tough fight defending the city that stands as a symbol of the Sunni insurgency that followed the U.S. occupation of Iraq, in 2003.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the troops are progressing cautiously in order to protect tens of thousands of civilians trapped in Falluja.

The United Nations says 90,000 civilians may have remained in Falluja, under “harrowing” conditions with little access to food, water and healthcare, and no safe exit routes.

The insurgents have dug a network of tunnels to move around without being detected and planted thousands of mines and explosive devices to delay the army’s advance.

Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said a week ago that the battle of Falluja “will take time”.

The Iraqi army is also massing tanks and troops south of Mosul, in preparation for an offensive planned later this year to retake the largest city under the control of the militants.

In Syria, Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government forces and U.S.-backed Syrian opposition and Kurds are separately trying to advance on Raqqa, the group’s capital in Syria.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli and Isabel Coles; Additional reporting by Tim Gardner in Washington; Editing by Dominic Evans and Hugh Lawson)

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

Syrian Democratic Forces manning anti-aircraft weapon

By John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SDF SEIZES ALL ROADS INTO MANBIJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BAGHDAD BOMBINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baghdad bombings kill 25 as Falluja siege continues

People gather at the site of car bomb attack in Baghdad al-Jadeeda

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Two suicide bombings that killed about 25 people in Baghdad on Thursday were claimed by Islamic State, whose stronghold of Falluja near the capital is surrounded by Iraqi forces which are now advancing on the city.

The ultra-hardline Sunni insurgents said one attack was carried out with a car laden with explosives and the second with an explosive vest.

Iraqi forces began an offensive against Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, on May 23 after a series of deadly bombings hit Shi’ite districts of the capital. The troops yesterday began advancing against the militants inside the city, after completing its encirclement last week.

A police officer said a suicide car bomb had targeted a commercial street of Baghdad al-Jadeeda (New Baghdad), in the east of the capital, killing 17 people and wounding over 50.

A man wearing an explosive belt blew himself up at checkpoint near the barracks of Taji, just north of Baghdad, killing seven soldiers and wounding more than 20, he said.

Islamic State “has a long experience in establishing small multiple networks that have the ability to operate independently from each other,” said Baghdad-based analyst and former army general Jasim al-Bahadli.

Falluja is a historic bastion of the Sunni insurgency, first against the U.S. occupation of Iraq, in 2003, and then against the Shi’ite-led authorities that took over the country.

Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari last week he expected that the recovery of Falluja would take time as the militants had dug tunnels and planted explosive devices in roads and houses to impede the military advance.

(Reporting by Kareem Hameed and Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Alison Williams)

Libyan brigades edge closer to Islamic State stronghold

Still image of soldiers from a force aligned with Libya's new unity government fire along a road during an advance on the eastern and southern outskirts of the Islamic State stronghold of Sirte

RIPOLI (Reuters) – Forces aligned with Libya’s new unity government advanced on the eastern and southern outskirts of the Islamic State stronghold of Sirte on Wednesday, taking control of at least one military camp, security sources said.

The brigades, who are based in the western city of Misrata, launched their counter-offensive against Islamic State last month, pushing the militants back along the coastal road to the west of Sirte and saying they intended to recapture the city.

The brigades are aligned with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which has been trying to establish its authority over Libya’s competing political and armed factions since arriving in Tripoli in March.

After a lull in fighting at the start of the week, clashes resumed in Sirte on Wednesday and the brigades edged forward, capturing the Taqrift military camp, security sources said.

The brigades’ media office said in statements on social media that they had also captured the Al-Jalet military camp and the Au Hadi roundabout immediately south of Sirte, though this could not immediately be confirmed.

A hospital spokesman in Misrata said at least six brigade members had been killed and 30 wounded in the clashes.

Libya slid into chaos after veteran ruler Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in an uprising five years ago, allowing Islamic State to set up its most important base outside Syria and Iraq.

The GNA is designed to replace two competing administrations that were set up in Tripoli and the east in 2014 with the backing of rival alliances of armed groups.

Western powers see the GNA as the best hope for defeating Islamic State in Libya.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elumami and Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones)

U.S. Navy boosts presence in Mediterranean

he US Navy aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman transits the Suez Canal, Egypt towards the Mediterranean Sea

By Andrea Shalal

ABOARD USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (Reuters) – The U.S. military will have two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea this month ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw, as Washington seeks to balance Russia’s military activities and accelerate its fight against Islamic State militants.

The USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier will hand off to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower when it arrives en route to the Gulf, allowing the Truman to head back to the United States after an extended eight-month deployment, Navy officials on board the Truman said.

The move coincides with NATO military exercises across eastern Europe and Turkey which are likely to raise tensions with Russia. U.S. officials say Russia is operating warships and submarines in the Mediterranean and plans its own exercises in coming weeks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday the NATO exercises did not contribute to an atmosphere of trust and security.

Captain Ryan Scholl, commanding officer of the Truman, said there had been no interactions with Russian warships and U.S. and Russian pilots were largely abiding by the rules of engagement for air operations aimed at avoiding the potential for miscalculation.

“The extension of Truman and movement into the European Command theater, plus the overlap with the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group enables the continued degradation of ISIL and a host of operational benefits,” said Captain Danny Hernandez, spokesman for U.S. European Command, referring to the Islamic State militant group.

He said the overlapping carrier deployments were also intended to enable missions such as Operation Atlantic Resolve, aimed at reassuring U.S. allies in Europe after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

The Truman has used the 72 warplanes on board to drop 1,481 smart bombs and pamphlets on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since last December when it arrived in the Gulf, the Navy said on Wednesday.

It said jets based on the Truman had launched 68 raids over Iraq and Syria and delivered 52 precision weapons since moving to the Mediterranean from the Gulf last Friday.

Islamic State has lost 45 percent of its territory in Iraq and its oil revenues have been halved in Syria, said Rear Admiral Bret Batchelder, commander of the Truman strike group.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Islamic State withdraws from northwest Syria frontlines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Falluja refugees say Islamic State uses food to enlist fighters

Civilians who fled their homes due to clashes gather at the Iraqi army's Camp Tariq, south Falluja

By Saif Hameed

GARMA, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqis who fled Islamic State-held Falluja as government and allied forces advanced on the city said they had survived on stale dates and the militants were using food to enlist fighters whose relatives were going hungry.

The ultra-hardline Sunni fighters have kept a close guard on food storage in the besieged city near Baghdad that they captured in January 2014, six months before they declared a caliphate across large parts of Iraq and Syria.

The militants visited families regularly after food ran short with offers of supplies for those who enlisted, said 23-year-old Hanaa Mahdi Fayadh from Sijir on the northeastern outskirts of Falluja.

“They told our neighbor they would give him a sack of flour if his son joined them; he refused and when they had gone, he fled with his family,” she said.

“We left because there was no food or wood to make fires, besides, the shelling was very close to our house.”

She and others interviewed in a school transformed into a refugee center in Garma, a town under government control east of Falluja, said they had no money to buy food from the group.

The Iraqi government stopped paying the salaries of employees there and in other cities under Islamic State control a year ago to stop the group seizing the funds.

Fayadh escaped Sijir on May 27, four days after the government offensive on Falluja began, with a group of 15 relatives and neighbors, walking through farmland brandishing white flags.

Most of the 1,500 displaced people who found refuge in the school in Garma were women and children, because the army takes men for screening over possible ties with Islamic State. Fayadh said she was waiting for news of her two brothers who were being investigated.

HUMAN SHIELDS

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said last week the offensive had slowed to protect tens of thousands of civilians trapped in Falluja with limited access to water, food and electricity.

Fayadh said the situation in the city was very difficult. “The only thing remaining in the few shops open was dates, old, stale dates and even those were very expensive,” she said.

Azhar Nazar Hadi, 45, said the militants had asked her family to move from Sijir into Falluja itself, a clear attempt to use them as human shields.

“We hid,” she said. “There was shooting, mortars and clashes, we stayed hidden until the forces came in” and escorted them out to the refugee center.

The militants took hundreds of people, along with their cattle, with them into Falluja, Hadi said.

“Life was difficult, very hard, especially when we stopped receiving salaries and retirement pensions.

“The last seven months we ran out of everything and had to survive on dates, and water,” she said. “Flour, rice and cooking oil were no longer available at an affordable price.”

A 50 kg (110 lb) sack of flour cost 500,000 dinars ($428.45), almost half an average Iraqi employee’s month salary.

Abadi ordered the offensive on Falluja, which lies 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, after a series of bombings claimed by Islamic State hit Shi’ite districts of the capital, causing the worst death toll this year.

Between 500 and 700 militants are in Falluja, according to a U.S. military estimate. The Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia coalition that is supporting the Iraqi army offensive on the city says the number of IS fighters there is closer to 2,500.

The United Nations says about 50,000 civilians remain trapped in Falluja, which has been under siege since December, when the Iraqi army recaptured Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province to the west.

When Hadi was asked what Islamic State militants had been telling civilians in Falluja, it was her six-year old child who answered, reciting the Koranic verse: “Be patient, God is with those who are patient.”

(writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

U.S. backed force in Syria closes in on Islamic State held city

Men, who the Democratic Forces of Syria fighters claimed were Islamic State fighters, walk as they are taken prisoners after SDF advanced in the southern rural area of Manbij

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Syrian fighters have surrounded the Islamic State-held city of Manbij from three sides as they press an offensive against the jihadists near the Turkish border, a spokesman for the fighters said on Monday.

The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), including the powerful Kurdish YPG militia and Arab allies, launched the attack last week with the ultimate aim of dislodging Islamic State from its last foothold at the Syrian-Turkish frontier.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that reports on the war, said the U.S.-backed forces had cut the road north from Manbij to Islamic State-held Jarabulus at the Turkish border, which is also expected to be targeted.

Sharfan Darwish, spokesman for the Manbij Military Council, said the U.S.-backed alliance had advanced to within 6 km (4 miles) of Manbij, and the attack backed by U.S. special forces was going to plan. Over 150 jihadists had been killed, with 50 of the bodies in SDF hands, he said.

“If we had wanted to reach (Manbij) before this time, or if we wanted to arrive directly, we could have, but as you know the area is vast and there are a large number of civilians,” he said. “Our forces are surrounding Manbij from three directions.”

He said there were dead among the SDF and the number would be announced later. They included the commander of one of the groups, Faysal Abu Layla of the Sun of the North Battalions. He had died of wounds caused by a mortar bomb.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacking forces were less than 4 km from Manbij at the closest point. Its director, Rami Abdulrahman, said 56 IS members had been killed so far, and 19 SDF fighters had died.

He said IS fighters had sent their families out of Manbij, but disputed Darwish’s account that IS fighters had also left the city. Darwish said many homes being used by IS members were now empty as they had left with their families. “They took everything they could and left the city,” he said.

Reuters could not independently confirm the account.

“Manbij will fall, but the time frame is linked to events and developments,” Darwish said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alison Williams and Anna Willard)