Tag Archives: Syria

U.S., Turkey discuss Qatar row, Syria on phone call: sources

FILE PHOTO: A view shows buildings in Doha, Qatar, June 9, 2017. REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon

ANKARA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu discussed developments in Syria and in the row between Qatar and its fellow Arab states on a phone call late on Saturday, Turkish foreign ministry sources said.

The call, held at Tillerson’s request, came after Tillerson on Friday urged Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to ease their blockade of Qatar, saying it was causing unintended humanitarian consequences and affecting the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State.

No further details of the call were immediately available.

Referring to Tillerson’s comments on the blockade, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech at a Ramadan fast-breaking dinner in Istanbul on Friday: “I say it should be lifted completely”.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt severed relations with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their adversary Iran – allegations Qatar says are baseless. Several countries followed suit.

Erdogan vowed to keep supporting Qatar after his rapid approval of legislation on deploying Turkish troops there. On Saturday, he told Bahrain’s foreign minister that the dispute should be resolved by the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Erdogan on Thursday also approved an accord between Turkey and Qatar on military training cooperation. Both bills were drawn up before the dispute between Qatar and others erupted. Turkey has also pledged to provide food and water supplies to Qatar.

Turkey has maintained good relations with Qatar as well as several of its Gulf Arab neighbors. Turkey and Qatar have both provided support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and backed rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey and fellow NATO member the United States have also been at loggerheads regarding U.S. support the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade-long insurgency on its soil.

The United States said last week it had started supplying arms to the YPG for an assault on the Syrian town of Raqqa, deepening Turkey’s anger. The YPG’s role in the Raqqa campaign has strained ties between the United States and Turkey, which fears growing Kurdish ascendancy along its border.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; editing by Jason Neely)

Islamic State calls for attacks in United States, Russia, Middle East, Asia during Ramadan

CAIRO (Reuters) – An audio message purporting to come from the spokesman of Islamic State called on followers to launch attacks in the United States, Europe, Russia, Australia, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and the Philippines during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which began in late May.

The audio clip was distributed on Monday on Islamic State’s channel on Telegram, an encrypted messaging application. It was attributed to the militant group’s official spokesman, Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer.

The authenticity of the recording could not be independently verified, but the voice was the same as a previous audio message purported to be from the spokesman.

“O lions of Mosul, Raqqa, and Tal Afar, God bless those pure arms and bright faces, charge against the rejectionists and the apostates and fight them with the strength of one man,” said al-Muhajer. Rejectionist is a derogatory term used to refer to Shi’ite Muslims.

“To the brethren of faith and belief in Europe, America, Russia, Australia, and others. Your brothers in your land have done well so take them as role models and do as they have done.”

(Reporting by Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Alison Williams)

U.S., Russia discuss de-escalation zone for southwest Syria: diplomats

A Free Syrian Army fighter takes a position in the eastern part of the rebel-held town of Dael in Deraa Governorate, Syria, June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Faqir

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – The United States and Russia are quietly holding talks on creating a “de-escalation zone” in southwestern Syria, Western diplomats and regional officials said, but could face fierce opposition from Iran.

The Russian and U.S. special envoys for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev and Michael Ratney, and other officials have met at least twice in the Jordanian capital Amman in the past two weeks and will talk again soon, the officials and diplomats said.

The talks are at an early stage of discussing the boundaries of the proposed de-escalation zone in Deraa province, on the border with Jordan, and Quneitra, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, they said.

Diplomats say the talks could represent a major new attempt by Washington and Moscow, Syria’s main foreign backer, to reach an understanding on how to end six years of conflict which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, estimates has killed close to half a million people.

Iran, Russia and Turkey brokered a deal in the Kazakh capital, Astana, in May to create four de-escalation zones in Syria. But the United States wants no role in the southwest, Russia’s ally in the war, the diplomats said.

Washington has misgivings about the Astana talks and wants to forge a bilateral understanding with Moscow in an area of strategic interest to the United States and its allies, Jordan and Israel.

“The Americans are talking to the Russians and proposing a deconfliction zone outside the Astana process without the Iranians and their proxies,” said one senior diplomat.

The United States is proposing a de-escalation zone covering areas held by both rebel and government forces that could eventually turn into a safe area, the envoys and officials said.

“The two sides are in the process of drafting its borders… and which outside forces will be on the ground. But there are many flaws on how to implement it,” said a regional intelligence official who is familiar with the talks but is not authorized to speak publicly.

Time may be of the essence. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, is expanding its foothold in the southwest and dozens of raids this week by the Syrian army and new troop deployments by Hezbollah in Deraa city were intended to pre-empt or wreck any agreement, a Western intelligence source said.

The Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A U.S. State Department official said: “We have nothing to announce regarding reports of discussions about southern Syria. The United States remains committed to supporting a diplomatic resolution to the Syrian conflict, one which can bring about a more representative and peaceful Syria, free of terrorism.”

U.S. MISTRUST OF IRAN

Under the Astana accord, de-escalation was envisaged as the halt of hostilities between government forces and opposition groups and the creation of conditions for humanitarian access, medical assistance, the return of displaced civilians to their homes and restoration of damaged infrastructure.

Safe zones should be guaranteed by all parties to a conflict.

U.S. officials have told the Russian negotiators that the Syrian army and Iranian-backed troops are exploiting the Astana agreement to free up additional troops for other battles, the source familiar with the negotiations said.

The United States has taken a tough stance against Tehran under President Donald Trump. But Iran and allied militias are integral to groups supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Although Trump has voiced support for safe zones in Syria, Washington opposes Iran’s involvement as a guarantor of the de-escalation zones set out in the Astana accord, and regards Assad’s track record in upholding previous agreements as poor.

In the talks with Moscow, Washington has proposed a halt in military offensives by Western-vetted rebels who control swathes of Deraa and Quneitra, a regional intelligence official said. Jordan’s role in the deal is important because of its leverage over rebels in that area.

Deraa and Quneitra are home to tens of thousands of people and form a center of the insurgency against Assad. They are a potential launchpad for rebel attacks on the Syrian capital Damascus, 40 miles (64 km) to the north.

U.S. enthusiasm to push the deal depends on Russia forcing the Iran-backed militias to leave the area. “Iran and its proxies have to be out of this zone. This is key to the deal being proposed,” he said.

Regional tensions are on the rise and the warfare in southern Syria has worsened, pitting Western-backed rebels around the Tanf base near the border with Iraq against Syria’s army and militias backed by Iran.

There are doubts in the West that Russia can rein in the growing involvement in the region of Iran and its allies, two senior diplomats familiar with the talks said.

There are other difficulties. Jordan wants a deal that keeps the Deraa front quiet and eases the plight of civilians under the threat of army bombardment. But it has rejected a Russian proposal for its troops to police the proposed de-confliction zone, another regional source said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Polio outbreak in Syria poses vaccination dilemma for WHO

A health worker administers polio vaccination to a child in Raqqa, eastern Syria November 18, 2013. REUTERS/Nour Fourat

GENEVA (Reuters) – Vaccinating too few children in Syria against polio because the six-year-old war there makes it difficult to reach them risks causing more cases in the future, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, posing a dilemma after a recent outbreak.

Two children have been paralyzed in the last few months in Islamic State-held Deir al-Zor in the first polio cases in Syria since 2014 and in the same eastern province bordering Iraq where a different strain caused 36 cases in 2013-2014.

Vaccinating even 50 percent of the estimated 90,000 children aged under 5 in the Mayadin area of Deir al-Zor would probably not be enough to stop the outbreak and might actually sow the seeds for the next outbreak, WHO’s Oliver Rosenbauer said.

Immunisation rates need to be closer to 80 percent to have maximum effect and protect a population, he told a briefing.

“Are we concerned that we’re in fact going to be seeding further future polio vaccine-derived outbreaks? … Absolutely, that is a concern. And that is why this vaccine must be used judiciously and to try to ensure the highest level of coverage,” Rosenbauer said.

“This is kind of what has become known as the OPV, the oral polio vaccine paradox,” he said.

The new cases are a vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2, a rare type which can emerge in under-immunised communities after mutating from strains contained in the oral polio vaccine.

“Such vaccine-derived strains tend to be less dangerous than wild polio virus strains, they tend to cause less cases, they tend not to travel so easily geographically. That’s all kind of the silver lining and should play in our favor operationally,” he said.

All polio strains can paralyze within hours.

Syria is one of the last remaining pockets of the virus worldwide. The virus remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Fighters move cautiously into Islamic State-held Raqqa

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) female fighters gather at the eastern outskirts of Raqqa city, Syria June 7, 2017. Picture taken June 7, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said

RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) – At Raqqa’s eastern edge, a handful of Syrian fighters cross a river by foot and car, all the while relaying their coordinates to the U.S.-led coalition so they don’t fall victim to friendly fire.

This is their only way into al-Mishlab, the first district the Kurdish and Arab militias have swept into, in what the coalition says will be a long and difficult battle for Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto “capital” in Syria.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched their assault to capture the city this week.

As artillery and coalition aircraft pounded targets in the city, SDF fighters moved in small groups into the district during a media trip organized by the SDF.

“The comrades are advancing and Daesh forces are collapsing in front of us, but there are snipers obstructing our movements, and they are also shelling our positions with mortars,” said an SDF fighter who gave his name as Khalil.

For months, air strikes and special forces from the U.S.-led coalition have helped them encircle Raqqa, which Islamic State seized in 2014 and has used as a base to plan attacks abroad.

In a statement sent to Reuters, coalition spokesman Colonel Joseph Scrocca said the militants’ resistance had been “minimal” outside the city and that they were retreating “to protect their fortifications inside the city”.

A few civilians left farmland near Raqqa on Wednesday, waving white flags to SDF fighters heading toward al-Mishlab on a road littered with blown-up vehicles.

At the gates of the city, a bridge lay collapsed, testament to the air strikes that have left Islamic State with no way in or out except by boat across the Euphrates river.

Large plumes of smoke rose nearby. SDF fighters crossed the river into the district through pathways made of piles of rocks, soil and pipes.

A field commander who gave her name as Clara said fighting continued in some parts of the district. Islamic State militants had drawn on mines, car bombs, and suicide attackers as they sought to defend the district in recent days, she said.

The SDF fighters moved in units of five or less, waiting in bombed-out buildings or trenches for air strikes to clear the way for further advances, they said. With every movement, the unit commander relayed their GPS coordinates for pilots to pinpoint SDF and enemy positions.

Away from the frontlines, fighters in green camouflage uniform, some with colourful scarves wrapped around their heads, unloaded crates of weapons from trucks.

An SDF field commander said the coalition had recently delivered the weapons, including mortar bombs.

“These weapons recently arrived to us because we had sent our fighters for training by coalition forces,” said Ankiza Mahmoud, the commander of an SDF unit, one of many Kurdish female fighters taking part in the attack.

Some of the fighters unloading weapons wore the shoulder patch of the Kurdish YPG militia, the SDF’s most powerful component. Its role in the Raqqa campaign has strained ties between the United States and NATO ally Turkey, which fears growing Kurdish ascendancy along its border.

The United States said last week it had started supplying arms to the YPG for the Raqqa assault, deepening Turkey’s anger. Ankara views the YPG as a part of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency within Turkey.

Yet the militia has emerged as the main U.S. parter in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria.

The shipment of weapons reached the eastern outskirts of Raqqa city on Wednesday, and the newly trained SDF fighters would soon head to the frontlines, they said.

(Writing by Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Tom Perry and Catherine Evans)

U.S.-backed forces seize Raqqa ruins; U.N. sees ‘dire’ situation

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters gather near Raqqa city, Syria June 7, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Lisa Barrington

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Syrian forces aiming to oust Islamic State from its Syrian stronghold Raqqa captured a ruined fortress on the edge of the city on Wednesday and a U.S. coalition official said the attack was set to accelerate.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which includes Arab and Kurdish militias, on Tuesday declared the start of its offensive to seize the northern Syrian city from Islamic State, which overran it in 2014.

With tens of thousands of people uprooted by the fighting, a U.N. official warned of a dire humanitarian situation, with shortages of food and fuel. The YPG militia, which is part of the SDF, called for international humanitarian aid.

“We are receiving reports of air strikes in several locations in Raqqa city,” U.N. aid official Linda Tom told Reuters by phone from Damascus.

By Wednesday, the SDF had moved into the western outskirts of Raqqa and were trying to advance into an eastern neighborhood. Shelling and air strikes from the U.S.-led coalition hit targets around the city’s edges, according to a war monitoring group and the YPG.

West of Raqqa, the SDF cleared Hawi Hawa village and took the more than 1,000-year-old Harqalah fortress ruins, YPG militia spokesman Nouri Mahmoud told Reuters by phone.

To the east, there were clashes in the al-Mishlab district, the first quarter the SDF entered on Tuesday, Mahmoud and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

The Raqqa assault overlaps with the final stages of the U.S.-backed attack to recapture Islamic State’s capital in Iraq, the city of Mosul.

Brett McGurk, the American envoy to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, said it was significant that the SDF now had a “foothold” in Raqqa.

The Islamists are “down to their last neighborhood in Mosul and they have already now lost part of Raqqa. The Raqqa campaign from here will only accelerate,” McGurk said in Baghdad on Wednesday.

But he said the coalition and SDF were prepared for “a difficult and a long-term battle”.

Islamic State has been forced into retreat across much of Syria. Its biggest remaining foothold is in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, which borders Iraq.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

The U.N.’s Tom said an estimated 50,000-100,000 people were trapped inside Raqqa, far fewer than its population before the Syrian war erupted in 2011. Many have fled to camps elsewhere in Syria.

In some areas around Raqqa, where the SDF has recently taken control, people had started returning home, said Tom, but yet more were still being uprooted and the situation was very fluid.

YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud told Reuters displaced people were coming from all edges of the city after finding their own routes out.

He said when refugees arrived at SDF positions they were being given tents and upplies, but much more humanitarian support was needed to cope with the large numbers.

“Their situation is tragic, it is difficult. There isn’t much support for them,” Mahmoud said.

McGurk said the coalition was working with the SDF on a humanitarian response.

Now in its seventh year, the Syrian conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven more than 11 million people from their homes.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Tom Perry and Andrew Roche)

Iran attackers fought for Islamic State in Syria, Iraq: ministry

Members of Iranian forces take position during an attack on the Iranian parliament in central Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017. Omid Vahabzadeh/TIMA

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran said on Thursday that gunmen and bombers who attacked Tehran were Iranian members of Islamic State who had fought in the militants’ strongholds in Syria and Iraq – deepening the regional ramifications of the assaults.

The attackers raided Iran’s parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini’s mausoleum on Wednesday morning, in a rare strike at the heart of the Islamic Republic. Authorities said the death count had risen to 17 and scores were wounded.

Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards have also said regional rival Saudi Arabia was involved, further fuelling tensions between Sunni Muslim power Riyadh and Shi’ite power Tehran as they vie for influence in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia dismissed the accusation.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said on Thursday five of the attackers who died in the assault had been identified as Iranians who had joined the hardline Sunni Muslim militants of Islamic State on its main battlegrounds in Iraq and Syria.

“They earlier left Iran and were involved in the crimes of the terrorist group in Raqqa and Mosul,” the ministry said, referring to Islamic State’s effective capital in Syria and a city it captured in Iraq.

“Last year, they returned to Iran … to carry out terrorist attacks in the holy cities of Iran,” the ministry added in a statement on state news agency IRNA.

The attacks were the first claimed by Islamic State inside the tightly controlled country, one of the powers leading the fight against the militants in neighboring Iraq and beyond that Syria.

Islamic State claimed responsibility and threatened more attacks against Iran’s majority Shi’ite population, seen by the hardline Sunni militants as heretics.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said earlier on Thursday it had arrested more suspects linked to the attacks, on top of six Iranians, including one woman, detained on Wednesday.

Militant attacks are rare in Tehran and other major cities although two Sunni militant groups, Jaish al-Adl and Jundallah, have been waging a deadly insurgency, mostly in remote areas, for almost a decade.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

U.S.-backed Syrian force launches battle to capture Raqqa from Islamic State

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman Talal Silo speaks during a press conference in Hukoumiya village in Raqqa, Syria June 6, 2017.REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said and Tom Perry

HUKOUMIYA, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Tuesday it had launched a battle to capture Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto Syrian capital, piling pressure on the jihadists whose self-declared caliphate is in retreat across Syria and Iraq.

SDF spokesman Talal Silo told Reuters the operation started on Monday and the fighting would be “fierce because Daesh (Islamic State) will die to defend their so-called capital”.

The assault overlaps with the final stages of the U.S.-backed attack to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State. It follows months of advances to the north, east and west of Raqqa by the SDF, which includes Arab and Kurdish militias.

Islamic State captured Raqqa from rebel groups in 2014 and has used it as an operations base to plan attacks in the West. Silo said the assault had begun from the north, east and west of the city, which is bordered to the south by the River Euphrates.

The commander of the Raqqa campaign, Rojda Felat, told Reuters SDF fighters were attacking the al-Mishlab district at the city’s southeastern outskirts, confirming an earlier report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“The coalition has a big role in the success of the operations. In addition to warplanes, there are coalition forces working side by side with the SDF,” Silo said by phone from the Hukoumiya farms area, 10 km (6 miles) north of Raqqa, where the SDF later declared the start of the assault.

A Reuters witness at the location could hear the sound of heavy shelling and air strikes in the distance.

An Arab group in the SDF, the Syrian Elite Forces, which was established in February, had entered al-Mishlab with coalition air support, its spokesman Mohammed al-Shaker said by phone.

“The Syrian Elite Forces one or two hours ago entered the first quarter of Raqqa, which is al-Mishlab quarter, via the eastern front,” he said.

The U.S.-led coalition said the fight for Raqqa would be “long and difficult” but would deliver a “decisive blow to the idea of ISIS (Islamic State) as a physical caliphate”.

“It’s hard to convince new recruits that ISIS is a winning cause when they just lost their twin ‘capitals’ in both Iraq and Syria,” a coalition statement cited Lt. Gen Steve Townsend, the coalition commanding general, as saying.

“We all saw the heinous attack in Manchester, England,” said Townsend. “ISIS threatens all of our nations, not just Iraq and Syria, but in our own homelands as well. This cannot stand.”

“Once ISIS is defeated in both Mosul and (Raqqa), there will still be a lot of hard fighting ahead,” he said.

Security officials in the West have warned of increased threat of attacks such as last month’s Manchester suicide bombing and Saturday’s attack in London as Islamic State loses ground in Syria and Iraq. Both attacks were claimed by Islamic State.

AIR STRIKES

The Observatory said the SDF had captured some buildings in the al-Mishlab area, and that Islamic State fighters had withdrawn from parts of the district. The Observatory also said an attack was underway against a military barracks, Division 17, on the northern outskirts of Raqqa.

The U.S.-led coalition has said 3,000-4,000 Islamic State fighters are thought to be holed up in Raqqa city, where they have erected defenses against the anticipated assault. The city is about 90 km (56 miles) from the border with Turkey.

The SDF includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia.

Fighting around Raqqa since late last year has displaced tens of thousands of people, with many flooding camps in the area and others stranded in the desert.

The U.N. human rights office has raised concerns about increasing reports of civilian deaths as air strikes escalate.

The Raqqa campaign has “resulted in massive civilian casualties, displacement and serious infrastructure destruction” so far, it said in a May report. Islamic State militants have also reportedly been preventing civilians from leaving, it said.

The U.S.-led coalition says it tries to avoid civilian casualties in its bombing runs in Syria and Iraq and investigates any allegations.

The Raqqa campaign has been the source of tension between the United States and Turkey, which fears growing Kurdish influence in northern Syria and has lobbied Washington to abandon its Kurdish YPG allies.

The YPG has been the main partner for the United States in its campaign against Islamic State in Syria, where the group is also being fought in separate campaigns waged by the Russian-backed Syrian government and Free Syrian Army rebel groups.

The United States last week said it had started distributing arms to the YPG to help take Raqqa.

The SDF has said it will hand control of Raqqa to a civilian council from the city after its capture, echoing the pattern in other areas the SDF took from Islamic State.

Speaking alongside Silo at the news conference, an official with the Raqqa civilian council said it would take control of the city from the “liberating forces”.

The SDF and YPG control a swathe of northeastern Syria from the Iraqi border to the city of Manbij on the western banks of the Euphrates. The main Kurdish groups and their allies have established autonomous administration in the areas under their control, which they aim to preserve in any peace deal.

(Reporting by Rodi Said in Syria, Tom Perry and Ellen Francis in Beirut; Additional reporting by Mahmoud Mourad in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

United States poised to warn U.N. rights forum of possible withdrawal

An empty seat is pictured before a news conference at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, May 15, 2017.

y Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States is expected to signal on Tuesday that it might withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council unless reforms are ushered in including the removal of what it sees as an “anti-Israel bias”, diplomats and activists said.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, who holds cabinet rank in President Donald Trump’s administration, said last week Washington would decide on whether to withdraw from the Council after its three-week session in Geneva ends this month.

Under Trump, Washington has broken with decades of U.S. foreign policy by turning away from multilateralism. His decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement last week drew criticism from governments around the world.

The Council’s critical stance of Israel has been a major sticking point for its ally the United States. Washington boycotted the body for three years under President George W. Bush before rejoining under Barack Obama in 2009.

Haley, writing in the Washington Post at the weekend, called for the Council to “end its practice of wrongly singling out Israel for criticism.”

The possibility of a U.S. withdrawal has raised alarm bells among Western allies and activists.

Eight groups, including Freedom House and the Jacob Blaustein Institute, wrote to Haley in May saying a withdrawal would be counterproductive since it could lead to the Council “unfairly targeting Israel to an even greater degree.”

In the letter, seen by Reuters, the groups also said that during the period of the U.S. boycott, the Council’s performance suffered “both with respect to addressing the world’s worst violators and with respect to its anti-Israel bias.”

The Council has no powers other than to rebuke governments it deems as violating human rights and to order investigations but plays an important role in international diplomacy.

Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory are a fixed item on the agenda of the 47-member body set up in 2006. Washington, Israel’s main ally, often casts the only vote against the Arab-led resolutions.

“When the council passes more than 70 resolutions against Israel, a country with a strong human rights record, and just seven resolutions against Iran, a country with an abysmal human rights record, you know something is seriously wrong,” wrote Haley.

John Fisher, Geneva director of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, did not appear to fear an immediate withdrawal.

“Our understanding is that it is going to be a message of engagement and reform,” Fisher told reporters.

However, Fisher said Israel’s human rights record did warrant Council scrutiny, but the special focus was “a reasonable concern”.

“It is an anomaly that there is a dedicated agenda item in a way that there isn’t for North Korea or Syria or anything else,” he said.

Haley also challenged the membership of Communist Cuba and Venezuela citing rights violations, proposing “competitive voting to keep the worst human rights abusers from obtaining seats”. She made no mention of Egypt or Saudi Arabia, two U.S. allies elected despite quashing dissent.

The U.S. envoy will host a panel on “Human Rights and Democracy in Venezuela” and address the Graduate Institute in Geneva before heading to Israel.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Kurdish YPG says ‘major operation’ on Syria’s Raqqa to start in days

FILE PHOTO: Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters hold up their weapons in the north of Raqqa city, Syria February 3, 2017. Picture taken February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S.-backed operation by Syrian forces to capture Islamic State’s Syrian “capital” of Raqqa will start in the next “few days”, the spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Saturday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition, has been encircling Raqqa since November in a multi-phased campaign to drive Islamic State from the city where it has planned attacks on the West.

The assault on Raqqa will pile more pressure on Islamic State’s self-declared “caliphate” with the group facing defeat in the Iraqi city of Mosul and being forced into retreat across much of Syria, where Deir al-Zor is its last major foothold.

“The forces reached the outskirts of the city, and the major operation will start … in the coming few days,” YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud told Reuters by phone.

He was confirming a report citing the spokeswoman for the Raqqa campaign, Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, as indicating a new phase to storm Raqqa would start in the “coming few days”. The remarks made in an interview with a local media outlet were circulated by an SDF-run Whatsapp group.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State said it would not comment on the timeline for the next phase of operations to retake the Syrian city, located on the River Euphrates some 90 km (56 miles) from the Turkish border.

The spokesman, Colonel Ryan Dillon, said the SDF were “advancing closer and closer every day”, having moved to within 3 km (less than two miles) of Raqqa to the north and east.

To the west, the SDF were less than 10 km (six miles) away, he said in an email interview.

The United States said on Tuesday it had started distributing arms to the YPG to help take Raqqa, part of a plan that has angered NATO-ally Turkey, which is worried by growing Kurdish influence in northern Syria.

Turkey views the YPG as the Syrian extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey since 1984 and is considered a terrorist group by the United States, Turkey and Europe.

The U.S.-led coalition has said some 3,000 to 4,000 Islamic State fighters are thought to be holed up in Raqqa city, where they have erected defenses against the anticipated assault.

The U.S.-led coalition has provided air support and special forces to help the SDF operations near Raqqa.

“The battle will not be easy,” Mahmoud said. “Of course (IS) has tunnels, mines, car bombs, suicide bombers, and at the same time it is using civilians as human shields.”

Once Raqqa falls, Deir al-Zor province in eastern Syria will be Islamic State’s last major foothold in Syria and Iraq.

“Daesh will resist because Raqqa is its capital and if Raqqa goes that means the entire caliphate is gone,” Mahmoud said.

(Reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Helen Popper)