Tag Archives: Islamic State

Islamic State urges attacks on German chancellery, Bonn airport: SITE group

Konrad Adenauer Airport

BERLIN (Reuters) – Islamic State posted pictures on the Internet calling on German Muslims to carry out Brussels-style attacks in Germany, singling out Chancellor Angela Merkel’s offices and the Cologne-Bonn airport as targets, the SITE intelligence group reported.

Western Europe is on high security alert after last week’s Islamic State suicide bombings in the Belgian capital that killed 32 people at its airport and in a metro station. On Wednesday, France said it was investigating a man on suspicion of planning an imminent act of “extreme violence”.

The Islamic State images and graphics, widely published by German media on Thursday, included slogans in German inciting Muslims to commit violence against the “enemy of Allah.”

Germany’s BKA federal police, who monitor suspected militants with German passports returning from stints fighting in Syria and Iraq, said it knew of the images but that their publication did not necessitate extra security measures.

“We are aware of this material and our experts are checking it,” a BKA spokeswoman said. “It is clear that Germany is the focus of international terrorism and that attacks could happen, but this material doesn’t change our security assessment.”

Federal police chief Holger Muench said after the March 22 attacks in Brussels that Islamic State appeared eager to carry out further “spectacular” attacks in Europe as it was suffering setbacks on battlefields in Iraq and Syria.

One of the disseminated Islamic State images features a militant in combat fatigues standing in a field and gazing at Cologne-Bonn airport with a caption reading: “What your brothers in Belgium were able to do, you can do too.”

Another shows the German chancellery building in Berlin on fire with an Islamic State fighter and a tank standing outside the structure. The headline reads: “Germany is a battlefield.”

Germany joined the U.S.-led air strike campaign against Islamic State in Syria last year, though limiting its role to reconnaissance and refueling missions, after the jihadist group killed 130 people in shooting and bombing attacks in Paris.

A third graphic featured a military jet, which German media identified as a Tornado used by the German air force, against the backdrop of a mountainous area juxtaposed with the bloodied faces of women and children – apparently meant to represent civilians who Islamic State says have been killed by air strikes on areas it controls.

The caption under this image says: “Will you continue to grieve or will you finally act?”

All five pictures circulated on social media on Wednesday bore the logo of Furat Media, an Islamic State affiliate, according to SITE.

German media also published an Islamic State video celebrating the attacks in Brussels that featured a three-second shot of Frankfurt Airport, apparently taken from German television news footage.

The BKA spokeswoman said police were aware of that video as well and current security measures were sufficient.

(Reporting by Joseph Nasr and Tina Bellon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Obama could decide on increase of U.S. Forces in Iraq

President Obama Salutes Military

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will have the chance to decide on whether to increase the number of U.S. forces in Iraq in the “coming weeks,” the top U.S. general said on Wednesday.

The extra troops would bolster the capabilities of Iraqi forces preparing for a major offensive against the Islamic State militant group in Mosul, U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news briefing.

U.S. and Iraqi military officials have been discussing a plan to retake Mosul, which fell to Islamic State in June 2014, and how U.S. forces could support their efforts, Dunford said.

“Those recommendations are being made and the president will have an opportunity to make some decisions here in the coming weeks,” Dunford said. “I brought it to the secretary (Defense Secretary Ash Carter). The secretary will engage with the president.”

Dunford said last week he expected an increase in the level of U.S. forces in Iraq from the current 3,800, but that those decisions had not been finalized.

U.S. officials have said they hope to capitalize on recent battlefield successes against Islamic State, such as the retaking of Ramadi by Iraqi forces late last year.

“The timing really now is focused on the next phase of the campaign, which is towards Mosul, and maintaining the kind of momentum that we had in Ramadi,” Dunford said.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Islamic State claims central Baghdad bombing

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The hardline Sunni militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on Tuesday morning in central Baghdad that police said killed three people and wounded 27.

The blast occurred near a gathering of workers in Tayaran Square, about a kilometer from a sit-in held by supporters of influential Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to demand political reforms.

Islamic State, which claimed responsibility in an online statement, also claimed a suicide bombing last Friday that killed 26 people at an amateur soccer game in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad.

At least 60 people were killed earlier this month in an attack further south, in Hilla, when an explosives-laden fuel tanker slammed into an Iraqi security checkpoint.

An apparent escalation of bombings targeting areas outside Islamic State’s primary control in northern and western Iraq suggests that Iraqi government forces may be stretched thin after recent gains against the group.

Analysts in Europe have interpreted recent attacks there, such as last week’s bombings in Brussels or the killings in Paris last November, as a sign that Islamic State was expanding its field of action in response to setbacks in Iraq and Syria.

But Baghdad analysts say the group has long staged indiscriminate suicide bombings and see these attacks as a continuation of that tactic.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Syrian forces pursue campaign against Islamic State after retaking Palmyra

Mideast Crisis Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces backed by Russian air strikes battled Islamic State insurgents around Palmyra on Monday, trying to extend their gains after taking back control of a city whose ancient temples were dynamited by the ultra-radical militants.

The loss of Palmyra on Sunday is one of the biggest setbacks for the jihadist group since it declared a caliphate in 2014 across large parts of Syria and Iraq. It is also a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad and ally Russia, casting them as critical to the international fight against Islamic State.

The Syrian army said the city, home to some of the most extensive ruins of the Roman Empire, would become a “launchpad” for operations against Islamic State strongholds in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, further east across a vast expanse of desert.

Syrian state media said on Monday Palmyra’s military airport was now open to air traffic after the army cleared the surrounding area of Islamic State fighters.

“Now there is a convergence of interests worldwide about the fact that ISIS (Islamic State) really needs to be confronted. It is a strategic defeat for ISIS and by default a strategic victory for Assad and Putin,” said Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics. “It feeds into Assad’s narrative about Syria being a bulwark against Islamic State.”

Clashes continued northeast of Palmyra between Islamic State and forces allied to the government, supported by Syrian and Russian air strikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based body which monitors the war.

Air strikes, believed to be Russian, also targeted the road running east out of Palmyra towards Deir al-Zor, and there was fighting around the Islamic State-held town of Qaryatain on Monday, 100 km (60 miles) west of Palmyra, the Observatory said. The Syrian government has been trying to retake Qaryatain since Islamic State seized it last August.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking in Amman, said he was “encouraged” that Syrian government forces had been able to drive Islamic State out of Palmyra and that the city’s ancient heritage could now be preserved.

But the Syrian opposition said it feared Assad’s forces were using a fragile cessation of hostilities in the wider conflict to make territorial gains.

“I fear one thing: that the period of the truce will allow the Assad regime to gobble up what remains of Syria by liberating areas that are controlled by Daesh (Islamic State) and Nusra,” Riad Nassan Agha, a member of the opposition High Negotiations Committee, told Reuters by telephone.

The truce, accepted by Assad’s government and most of his foes, is the first of its kind since the war began five years ago and has been accompanied by the first peace talks attended by the warring sides. It does not apply to areas held by Islamic State or the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda.

NEGOTIATING POSITION

The Syrian government is likely to use its success in Palmyra to bolster its negotiating position at the peace talks in Geneva, underlining that it is a necessary partner in the fight against Islamic State.

The United States is leading an international campaign of air strikes against Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq. It says it does not cooperate with Assad’s government, but reported carrying out air strikes around Palmyra at least once last week while Damascus was making its advance.

Bashar Ja’afari, the Syrian envoy to the Geneva talks, said in an interview with Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen TV that it was time for powers including Washington to join Moscow in working with Damascus.

“We are for the creation of an international coalition against terrorism, but in coordination with the Syrian government,” he said. “We have no objection to working with America as long as it is done in coordination with Syria.”

Russia’s intervention in September turned the tide of Syria’s five-year conflict in Assad’s favor. Despite Moscow’s declared withdrawal of most military forces two weeks ago, Russian jets and helicopters carried out dozens of strikes daily over Palmyra as the army thrust into the city.

Russia said it would assist with securing and removing landmines in Palmyra following the campaign, and the Kremlin said on Monday that the Russian air force would continue to help Syrian government forces.

But Russian forces are still showing signs of their partial withdrawal. Three heavy attack helicopters have left Moscow’s Hmeimim air base in Syria for Russia, Russian state TV channel Rossiya-24 reported on Monday.

ISLAMIC STATE DEFEATS

Although most of the Islamic State force fled Palmyra on Sunday, there were still some militants in the city, the Observatory said. Its director Rami Abdulrahman said most residents had fled before the government offensive and the observatory had not heard about any civilian deaths.

He said 417 Islamic State fighters were so far known to have died in the campaign to retake Palmyra, while 194 people were killed on the Syrian government side. The figures could not be independently verified.

Islamic State militants dynamited several monuments last year, and Syrian television broadcast footage from inside Palmyra museum on Sunday showing toppled and damaged statues, as well as several smashed display cases.

Syria’s antiquities chief said other ancient landmarks were still standing and pledged to restore the damaged monuments.

“Palmyra has been liberated. This is the end of the destruction in Palmyra,” Mamoun Abdelkarim told Reuters on Sunday. “How many times did we cry for Palmyra? How many times did we feel despair? But we did not lose hope.”

Islamic State’s ejection from Palmyra came three months after it was driven from Ramadi, a provincial capital in neighboring Iraq. Islamic State has also lost ground elsewhere, including the Iraqi city of Tikrit last year and the Syrian town of al-Shadadi in February, as its enemies try to cut links between its two main power centers, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

On Friday the United States said it believed it had killed several senior Islamic State militants, including Abd ar-Rahman al-Qaduli, described as the group’s top finance official and aide to leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow; Editing by Nick Tattersall, Mark Heinrich and Peter Graff)

U.S. frustration simmers over Belgium’s struggle with militant threat

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Shortly after last November’s attacks on Paris by a Brussels-based Islamic State cell, a top U.S. counter-terrorism official traveling in Europe wanted to visit Brussels to learn more about the investigation.

When the official tried to arrange meetings, however, his Belgian counterparts were not welcoming, according to U.S. officials familiar with the events. The Belgians indicated it was a bad time to speak to foreign officials as they were too busy with the investigation, said the officials, who asked not to be identified.

Belgian officials declined to comment on the incident.

The brush-off was one small sign of mounting U.S. frustration over Brussels’ handling of its worsening Islamic militant threat.

Concern that the small European nation’s security and intelligence officials are overwhelmed — and that its coordination with allies falls short — have again come to the fore following the Islamic State-claimed attacks on Tuesday that killed at least 31 people.

Several U.S. officials say that security cooperation has been hampered by patchy intelligence–sharing by Brussels and wide differences in the willingness of different agencies to work with foreign countries, even close allies.

One U.S. government source said that when American investigators try to contact Belgian agencies for information, they often struggle to find which agency or part of an agency might have relevant information.

Belgium has ordered a sharp increase in security budgets following the Paris attacks, despite being under steady pressure to limit its debt levels under euro zone rules. The government has promised to recruit around 2,500 more federal police, who pursue major crimes, to make up for a shortfall of close to a fifth of the full-strength force of 12,500.

It also says it thwarted a major attack in January 2015, and is eager to cooperate with European and U.S. counterparts.

“These attacks show that more coordination with the United States is clearly desirable,” Guy Rapaille, the president of the committee that provides oversight of Belgium’s security and intelligence services, told Belgium’s state broadcaster RTBF.

“But you have to remember that big powers guard their intelligence very closely.”

U.S. officials acknowledge the recent Belgian efforts to step up funding and recruitment.

Yet they say Belgian security services are outmatched by the threat in a country that, per capita, has supplied the highest number of foreign fighters to Syria of any European nation.

“They’re way behind the ball and they’re paying a terrible price,” Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Reuters.

Asked on Wednesday whether Belgium was too complacent over the threat posed by Islamic militancy, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said:

“I want to stay clear of saying that Belgium was somehow caught by surprise or not aware. You know, we collaborate, we work with Belgium closely.”

Some U.S. counter-terrorism officials say much of the gap between Washington and Belgium — and some other European countries — is cultural. Europeans’ deeper commitment to personal privacy sometimes prevents or delays sharing of information such as travel data — that is taken for granted in the United States.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. government radically reshaped its counter-terrorism agencies. It broke down walls between law enforcement and intelligence authorities, and created new coordinating institutions such as the Director of National Intelligence and National Counterterrorism Center.

Belgium, by contrast, is a patchwork country divided between French and Dutch speakers and with multiple levels of government.

Belgian security chiefs have repeatedly complained that they cannot handle up to 900 home-grown Islamist militants, among the highest per-capita rates in Europe. Belgium does not divulge the exact number of personnel in its security services and military intelligence, but security experts say they appear under-resourced compared to European counterparts.

“Add to that the problem of two languages (French and Flemish), lack of Arabic speakers, and weak coordination between national and local government, you have a huge discrepancy between threat and response,” said former CIA official and White House advisor Bruce Riedel, now at the Brookings Institution.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom and Jonathan Landay in Washington, Robin Emmott and Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Writing by Warren Strobel; editing by Don Durfee and Stuart Grudgings)

Syrian government forces enter Islamic State-held Palmyra

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces fought their way into Palmyra on Thursday as the army backed by Russian air cover sought to recapture the historic city from Islamic State (IS) insurgents, Syrian state TV and a monitoring group said.

The Syrian army earlier this month launched a concerted offensive to retake Palmyra, which the ultra-hardline Islamist militants seized in May 2015, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

Islamic State has blown up ancient temples and tombs since capturing Palmyra, something the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO has called a war crime. The city, located at a crossroads in central Syria, is surrounded mostly by desert.

The state-run news channel Ikhbariya broadcast images from just outside Palmyra on Thursday and said government fighters had taken over a hotel district in the west.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had advanced into the hotel district just to the southwest of the city and reached the start of a residential area, after a rapid advance the day before brought the army and its allies right up to its outskirts.

A soldier interviewed by Ikhbariya said the army and its allies would press forward beyond Palmyra.

“We say to those gunmen, we are advancing to Palmyra, and to what’s beyond Palmyra, and God willing to Raqqa, the center of the Daesh gangs,” he said, referring to Islamic State’s de facto capital in northern Syria.

The state news agency SANA showed warplanes flying overhead, helicopters firing missiles, and soldiers and armored vehicles approaching Palmyra.

Civilians began fleeing after Islamic State fighters told them via loudspeakers to leave the center as fighting drew closer, the Observatory said. The Observatory monitors the war using a network of sources on the ground.

The capture of Palmyra and advances further eastwards into Deir al-Zor would mark the most significant Syrian government gain against Islamic State since the start of Russia’s military intervention last September.

With Russia’s help, Damascus has already taken back some ground from IS, notably east of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and commercial hub before the war.

(Reporting by John Davison, Dominic Evans and Lisa Barrington; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Syria sees impasse broken as EU urges engagement in peace talks

GENEVA (Reuters) – The head of Syria’s delegation in Geneva said EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini had urged his government to engage positively in peace talks on Wednesday, and he believed the round of talks had broken the diplomatic impasse.

Mogherini arrived unexpectedly in Geneva on Wednesday, possibly highlighting concerns that talks on Syria risk getting deadlocked unless headway on the matter of political transition is made soon.

“She passed on a letter of support for the Syrian-Syrian dialogue,” Bashar Ja’afari told reporters. “She came to support us to engage positively in the talks that would lead to an end to the Syrian crisis,” he said after the rare meeting with a senior Western official.

Mogherini earlier held talks with the chief coordinator for the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Riad Hijab.

Ja’afari told her he wanted the European Union to reopen its embassies and lift sanctions on Damascus, but said that while his team would return for a second round of talks in Geneva, he had told U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura they could not come back before Syrian elections on April 13.

Activists and diplomats said de Mistura was finalizing a document for delegates at peace talks that will synthesize common points of convergence, but is likely to stay clear of the divisive issue of political transition.

With a fragile truce in place in Syria, warring sides are more than a week into talks on ending the conflict, but government officials have rejected any discussion on a political transition or the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, who opposition leaders say must go as part of any such plan.

Speaking before the negotiations adjourn on Thursday, Ja’afari said he had received a document from envoy Staffan de Mistura.

“We will respond to it at the beginning of the next round,” he said, declining to take any questions.

The five-year-old conflict between the government and insurgents has killed more than 250,000 people, allowed Islamic State to take control of some eastern areas and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis.

The U.N. envoy said on Tuesday that he aimed to establish if there were any points held in common by the different parties. If successful, he would announce these on Thursday.

Randa Kassis, who heads up a Moscow-backed opposition group, said de Mistura would distribute a document of common points gathered from the various delegates.

Points included creating a future unified Syrian army to fight terrorism or ensuring a democratic and non-sectarian based Syria.

“I don’t think much has happened in this round,” Kassis told Reuters. “We’re waiting for a U.S.-Russian accord to solve the (key) issue once and for all. Until they resolve it this process will drag on.”

Jihad Makdissi, head of the Cairo opposition group, confirmed he was also expecting de Mistura to issue a paper on a potential “common vision” for Syria that he believed was on the right path.

“It covers many points important to the Riyadh platform, the Cairo platform, and the Moscow platforms,” he said, referring to the different opposition groups.

A Western diplomat said he believed de Mistura’s new document was an attempt to synthesize views he had heard from his various interlocutors during the round of talks.

The cessation of hostilities deal, engineered by Washington and Moscow three weeks ago, but not signed by any of the warring parties, remains fragile.

Asaad al-Zoubi, head of the HNC’s delegation, said on Tuesday it was “obvious” there were no points of convergence with the Syrian government and accused it of renewing sieges and barrel bombing campaigns against civilians.

Mogherini’s visit coincides with high-level meetings in Moscow between Russian and U.S. officials.

They aim to give fresh impetus to the talks and assess how Russia envisages a political transition in Syria, in particular the fate of Assad.

(Additional reporting By John Irish and Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by John Irish; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky/Ruth Pitchford)

Brussels airport bombing may have targeted Americans, U.S. lawmaker says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The suicide bombers behind the Brussels attacks may have attempted to target Americans, the top lawmaker on the intelligence committee in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Wednesday.

Representative Devin Nunes of California said the explosion at Brussels airport on Tuesday was close to U.S. airline counters and the metro station targeted was close to the U.S. embassy.

“From my vantage point it does look like an attack on Americans. It looks like it was targeted toward Americans to some degree,” Nunes told reporters.

Nunes, who has been briefed by U.S. intelligence agencies several times since the attacks, said it appeared likely that the bombers were connected to the arrest of a surviving suspect of last November’s attacks in Paris, identified as Salah Abdeslam.

“We don’t want to be definitive, but it appears like this group had connections to the arrest that was made a few days ago,” the Republican lawmaker said.

But he said it was too early to know whether the “good theory” that the plot was accelerated by Abdeslam’s arrest is true. He said he did not believe the cell was contained and that it was much larger than the attackers who have come to light.

Nunes stressed that it is early in the investigation, and too soon to answer questions such as whether Islamic State leaders in Syria had planned the attacks, whether the attackers had relied on encrypted communications or to identify a third attacker believed to be on the loose.

He said U.S. intelligence agencies were working with Belgium.

“It’s a small country. You’ve got a huge influx of radicals who have been moving into there. It’s seen as … safer than the other locations because the police force is small, so we are working with them as are our other allies to improve their capabilities and share intelligence,” Nunes said.

He said a sufficient number of law enforcement personnel were needed to track militant suspects who could number in the hundreds. “It’s easy to lose track if you’re not on top of them.”

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Grant McCool)

Atlanta airport evacuated as U.S. on alert after Brussels attacks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Atlanta’s airport was briefly evacuated on Wednesday over a suspicious package while U.S. law enforcement agencies and travelers were on edge a day after deadly suicide bombings by Islamist militants rocked Brussels.

Passengers were ordered out of public areas of the domestic terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the United States’ busiest by passenger volume, but the site was quickly cleared and operations resumed, airport officials said.

Parts of Denver airport were also evacuated on Tuesday, hours after at least 31 people were killed and 271 wounded in attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train, as airports across the United States tightened security.

U.S. officials were trying to find Americans missing after the attacks, which the officials said injured about a dozen U.S. citizens including three Mormon missionaries, a U.S. Air Force airman, and four members of his family.

Among those missing were U.S. government personnel, a State Department spokesman told reporters in Washington.

“We still have not accounted for every official U.S. government employee or their family members on the ground,” said the spokesman, Mark Toner. “Partly that reflects the size of the mission or three missions: there’s a bilateral mission, there’s a mission to the EU, as well as a mission to NATO.”

The situation, Toner added, remains “very fluid.” He could not confirm whether any Americans were killed.

Representative Devin Nunes of California, chairman of the U.S. House intelligence committee, said the attacks may have been aimed at U.S. citizens, noting that the airport blast struck close to U.S. airline counters and that the metro station hit was near the U.S. embassy.

“It looks like it was targeted toward Americans to some degree,” Nunes told reporters.

Apart from the eight Americans confirmed as wounded, U.S. media reported on Wednesday that relatives of at least four other Americans who had been traveling in Belgium were still trying to track them down.

Husband and wife Justin and Stephanie Shults, originally from Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively, but now living in Belgium, have not been heard from since they dropped a relative at the airport shortly before the blasts, a family member said.

“We haven’t been able to contact them going on 30 hours,” Justin Shults’ brother, Levi Sutton, told Reuters in a Facebook message. “Stephanie’s mom is fine but she was separated from Justin and Stephanie.”

DEATH TOLL COULD RISE

Sister and brother Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski, who had been living in New York, remain unaccounted for, the New York Daily News reported. The Pinczowskis’ citizenship was unclear. A woman who identified herself on social media as Alexander Pinczowski’s girlfriend said she had been unable to contact him since Tuesday morning.

Belgian officials have said the death toll could increase because some victims at the subway station were blown to pieces and hard to identify, and several survivors were in critical condition.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said on Wednesday that one of its missionaries, Richard Norby, 66, was in a medically-induced coma after lengthy surgery to address shrapnel wounds and second-degree burns.

The attacks sent shockwaves across Europe and around the world, with authorities racing to review security at airports and on public transport systems.

Islamic State, which controls areas of Syria and Iraq and has sympathizers worldwide, claimed responsibility for the Brussels bombings, fueling debate and controversy in the United States about how to stop such attacks.

U.S. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said the United States and Europe should take a “harder look” at protocols at airports and other “soft sites” outside security perimeters.

U.S. Republican presidential campaign hopeful Donald Trump has advocated torturing militant suspects to obtain information, while another Republican candidate, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, called for heightened police scrutiny of neighborhoods with large Muslim populations.

President Barack Obama, a Democrat, rejected singling out Muslims and said while on a visit to Argentina that any such approach “is not only wrong and un-American, but it also would be counterproductive because it would reduce the strength, the antibodies that we have to resist the terrorism.”

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden said the United States was offering Belgium all assistance to help bring the bombers to justice. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Belgium on Friday, a State Department spokesman said.

(Additional reporting by Megan Cassella, Amanda Becker and Susan Heavey in Washington, Barbara Goldberg in New York, Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Jeff Mason in Buenos Aires; Writing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Bill Trott and Grant McCool)

United States to press Russia on future of Syria’s Assad

MOSCOW/GENEVA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to press President Vladimir Putin on how Russia sees a future political transition in Syria and the fate of President Bashar al-Assad.

With a fragile truce in place in Syria and warring sides attending peace talks in Geneva, Kerry wants to “get down to brass tacks” on the question of Assad’s future, a State Department official said.

While the United States want Assad to step aside, Russia says only the Syrian people can decide his fate at the ballot box and has bristled at any talk of regime change.

Kerry is holding talks with Putin at the Kremlin on Thursday, in a meeting arranged after the Russian leader’s surprise announcement on March 14 that he was partially withdrawing his forces from Syria.

“The Secretary would like to now really hear where President Putin is in his thinking … on a political transition” in Syria, the official said as Kerry arrived in Moscow.

“Obviously what we are looking for, and what we have been looking for, is how we are going to transition Syria away from Assad’s leadership,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After five years of conflict that has killed over 250,000 people and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis, Washington and Moscow reached a deal three weeks ago for a cessation of hostilities and delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

The State Department official said meetings with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would evaluate the status of the ceasefire and try to “get on the same page” about ending violations and increasing humanitarian assistance.

UNILATERAL THREAT

Russia this week threatened to act unilaterally against those who violate the ceasefire unless it reached a deal with the United States on ways to detect and prevent truce breaches.

The Syrian opposition has accused government forces of renewing sieges and stepping up a campaign of barrel-bombing across the country.

In Geneva, where warring sides are a week into talks on ending the conflict, government officials have rejected any discussion on the fate of Assad, who opposition leaders say must go as part of any transition.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Syria peace talks were always going to be long and difficult, and it was too early to talk about patience running out on any side.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Tuesday he hoped the U.S-Russia meeting would give an impetus to the peace talks where the divisive issue of a political transition is stalling progress.

But the State Department official played down expectations that the meeting would have an immediate impact on the talks, which adjourn on Thursday with the next round expected in early April.

A Syrian activist at the talks, Jihad Makdissi, said de Mistura was planning to issue a paper on a “potential common vision”.

The Syrian government delegation said the U.N. envoy had handed them a document which they would study on their return to Damascus. No details of either paper were disclosed.

However, the United Nations said the Syrian government had given verbal assurances that aid convoys can go into three or four areas that its forces are besieging.

U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said the United Nations had been allowed to enter eight or nine of the 11 areas it had asked to supply with aid, including three or four besieged areas.

But it had not been allowed to go into the town of Daraya, where the World Food Programme has said some people have been reduced to eating grass.

PALMYRA OFFENSIVE

On the battlefield, Syrian government forces and their allies were reported to have pushed forward against Islamic State fighters to reach the outskirts of the historic city of Palmyra on Wednesday.

State news agency SANA quoted a military source who said the army and allied militia advanced in the hills outside Palmyra and toward a road junction “after eliminating the last terrorist Daesh groups there”, referring to Islamic State fighters. Islamic State is not covered by the truce agreement.

The Syrian army is trying to recapture Palmyra, which Islamic State seized in May, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

Clashes raged around Palmyra after government forces took control of most of a nearby hill with air cover from Syrian and Russian warplanes, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Russia has withdrawn around half of its air force in Syria, according to Reuters calculations based on state TV footage, some of which was not broadcast.

But Moscow has maintained a group of Su-24 bombers at its Latakia air base and deployed a number of advanced attack helicopters, meaning it is able to continue a reduced number of air strikes in the country.

Operating from Russia’s Shayrat air base southeast of Homs, the helicopter force will be used to secure territory gains around Aleppo and support the Syrian army offensive against Islamic State in Palmyra, Western officials said.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov, Jack Stubbs, John Davison, Dominic Evans, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles; Writing by Giles Elgood, editing by Peter Millership)