Tag Archives: War

Lebanese PM says army to carry out operation at Syrian border

FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri arrives with Army Commander General Joseph Aoun (L) at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) headquarters in Naqoura, near the Lebanese-Israeli border, southern Lebanon April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said on Tuesday the army would carry out an operation in an area of the border with Syria that has been a base of operations for militants including jihadist groups.

Speaking in parliament, Hariri described the operation planned for the Juroud Arsal area as carefully studied, the National News Agency reported. The government had given the army the “freedom” to act, he added.

Juroud Arsal, a barren area in the mountains between Syria and Lebanon, has been a base of operations for insurgents fighting in the Syrian civil war, including jihadists from Islamic State and the group formerly known as the Nusra Front.

Speculation has been building that the powerful Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Syrian military are set to mount a major operation against the insurgents on the Syrian side of the frontier.

Earlier this month, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said time was running out for Syrian militants along the border near Arsal to reach deals with Syrian authorities, saying it was “high time to end the threat of militant groups in Arsal”.

Hariri however said “there is no coordination between the Lebanese and Syrian armies”.

A security source said the Lebanese army, a recipient of U.S. and British military aid, had increased its deployment in the Arsal area in the last 24 hours.

The source said the militants in the Juroud Arsal area were estimated to number around 3,000, two-thirds of them belonging to Islamic State or the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, and the remainder members of other rebel groups.

In 2014, the Arsal area was the scene of one of the most serious spillovers of the Syrian war into Lebanon, when jihadists briefly overran the town of Arsal.

The Iran-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah has provided Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with crucial military support in the war, a role that has drawn heavy criticism from its Lebanese opponents including Hariri.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Russia sees growing acceptance of Assad as key to Syria talks

FILE PHOTO - Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview in Damascus, in this handout photograph distributed by Syria's national news agency SANA on September 26, 2013. SANA/Handout via Reuters/File Photo

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – U.N.-led Syria talks have a chance of making progress because demands for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad have receded, Russia’s ambassador in Geneva, Alexei Borodavkin, told reporters on Saturday.

The seventh round of talks, which ended on Friday, had produced positive results, especially a “correction” in the approach of the main opposition delegation, the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee, he said.

“The essence of this correction is that during this round the opposition never once demanded the immediate resignation of President Bashar al-Assad and the legitimate Syrian government.”

The HNC and its backers in Western and Gulf capitals had realized that peace needed to come first, and then political reforms could be negotiated, he said.

“Assad must go” was long the mantra of the HNC and its international backers, a call flatly rejected by Russia, which is widely seen as holding the balance of power in Syria because of its military involvement and alliance with Assad.

But over the past year the opposition suffered military defeats at the hands of forces loyal to Assad, and neither U.S. President Donald Trump nor French President Emmanuel Macron is calling for his immediate ouster.

Assad’s negotiators at the U.N. talks have avoided discussion of any kind of political transition, preferring to focus on the fight against terrorism.

They have not yet had to negotiate directly with the opposition because there is no unified delegation to meet them, since the HNC and two other groups, known as the Cairo and Moscow platforms, all claim to represent the opposition.

In the seven rounds so far, U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura has met each side separately, a laboriously choreographed negotiation that has succeeded only in deciding what to discuss: a new constitution, reformed governance, fresh elections and fighting terrorism.

The three opposition delegations’ leaders have been meeting to try to find common ground, raising hopes of direct talks at the next round in September.

Borodavkin said the success of such a unified delegation would depend on its willingness to compromise with Assad’s team.

“If they will be ready to make deals with the government delegation, that is one thing. If they again slide into… ultimatums and preconditions that are not realistic, then this will not fly. This will lead the negotiations, be it direct or indirect, into a deadlock.”

He also called for wider opposition representation, citing the Kurds as a striking example, since they were Syrian citizens with their own political and military influence.

But he said it was up to de Mistura to decide how and when to incorporate them in the peace process.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Ros Russell)

Traumatized civilians fleeing Syria’s Raqqa in droves: U.N. official

FILE PHOTO: Children walk at a camp for people displaced from fighting in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, in Ain Issa, Syria June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Scores of civilians are fleeing Syria’s Raqqa traumatized, with families torn apart and conditions worsening as the battle to oust Islamic State intensifies, a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.

The number of people escaping has risen rapidly in recent weeks, Sajjad Malik, the U.N. refugee agency’s representative in Syria, told Reuters.

“They’re coming out really weak, thirsty, and frightened,” he said, after visiting several camps for the displaced in northeast Syria.

Under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias is fighting to seize Islamic State’s base in Syria.

With air strikes and special forces from the U.S.-led coalition, the SDF pushed into Raqqa in June after advancing on the city for months.

Fighting since late last year has displaced more than 240,000 people in the wider Raqqa province, most of them only in the last few weeks, Malik said.

“They’re traumatized (by) what they’ve seen,” he said.

“Dead bodies all over the place. In some more destroyed neighborhoods, bodies still in that heat rotting on the street and in debris.”

Recent advances along the Euphrates river, which borders the city from the south, have allowed the Kurdish-led SDF to completely encircle Islamic State inside Raqqa.

“Some places do not even have enough drinking water anymore,” Malik said, after residents lost access to the river.

An estimated 30,000-50,000 people remain trapped in the city with Islamic State holding people there against their will, Malik said. Witnesses say the militants have shot at those trying to escape.

“Those who are coming out now are paying enormous amounts of money, basically their lifelong savings, to smugglers to get them out,” he said. “They’ve left family members behind.”

Many do not have enough money or could not bring elderly parents and sick relatives with them.

“There is a conflict going on to eradicate ISIS but in the process we should try to protect (civilians),” Malik said, stressing the importance of getting them safe passage out.

Even after the “military endgame” in Raqqa, he added, people will have to grapple with a humanitarian crisis and severe trauma. Many children now fear the sound of aircraft.

“This will take much longer … to bring them back to some kind of normalcy,” Malik said.

The U.S.-led coalition says it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

Ahead of the attack on the city, the U.N. human rights office raised concerns about increasing reports of civilian deaths. In a May report, it said there had been “massive civilian casualties … and serious infrastructure destruction.”

The U.N. refugee agency is expanding its work in northeast Syria as people begin to flee the province of Deir al-Zor. A camp south of the Kurdish-controlled city of Hasakah has already taken in 2,000 displaced people, Malik said.

“Already, hundreds of them are coming out in trucks and buses,” Malik said.

Islamic State militants still control swathes of Syria’s eastern desert bordering Iraq and most of Deir al-Zor, which would be its last major foothold in Syria after losing Raqqa.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Iraq faces pockets of Islamic State resistance in Mosul’s Old City

FILE PHOTO: Military vehicles of Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) personnel are pictured in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL (Reuters) – Iraqi forces faced further pockets of resistance from Islamic State militants in Mosul’s Old City on Friday, four days after the prime minister declared victory.

Iraqi army helicopters flew overhead and explosions could be heard, residents said, while videos of alleged revenge attacks against people detained during the retaking of Mosul underlined future security challenges.

“Three mortars landed on our district,” a resident of Faysaliya, in east Mosul, just across the Tigris river, said by telephone.

A few hundred Islamic State insurgents swept into Mosul three years ago, imposed a reign of terror after the Iraqi army collapsed and declared a caliphate spanning Iraqi and Syrian territory seized in a shock offensive.

The victory of U.S.-backed Iraq forces in Mosul marked the biggest defeat for Islamic State, which is under siege in the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, its operational base.

Even though the Sunni Muslim group’s caliphate is now crumbling, it is expected to revert to an insurgency and keep carrying out attacks in the Middle East and West.

Securing long-term peace in Iraq will not be easy.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi faces the challenge of preventing revenge killings that could create more instability, along with sectarian tensions and ethnic strife that have dogged Iraq since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric, urged Iraqis to avoid violence and sectarianism in his first Friday sermon since the proclamation of victory in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch said it had used satellite imagery to verify that a video published on Facebook on Tuesday, showing armed men in military uniforms beating a detainee before throwing him from a height and then shooting at him, had been filmed in west Mosul.

The footage shows the men shooting at the body of another man already lying at the bottom of the perch. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

Iraq’s joint operations command said the allegations were being looked at closely and if any violations were found, those responsible would be held accountable. It also said that the videos could have been fabricated.

Three other videos posted this week by the same account appear to show members of various Iraqi security forces beating men wearing ordinary clothes. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Refugees return to Syria from Lebanon in Hezbollah-mediated deal

Syrian Refugees seen at Lebanon's border region of Arsal, Lebanon July 12, 2017. REUTERS/Hassan Abdallah

By Hassan Abdullah

ARSAL, Lebanon (Reuters) – A convoy of refugees began leaving the Lebanese border region for Syria on Wednesday, a security source said, the second group to return under an agreement brokered by the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah.

The Lebanese army escorted around 250 people out of the border town of Arsal. The refugees headed for the Syrian town of Asal al-Ward across the border, northeast of Damascus.

A military media unit run by Damascus ally Hezbollah said the buses carried 60 families. An estimated 60,000 refugees are in Arsal.

It was the second batch of people to leave for their hometown across the border Arsal under the agreement, which Hezbollah arranged in indirect talks with the Syrian rebel group Saraya Ahl al-Sham, said an official in the alliance fighting in support of the Damascus government.

Hezbollah also coordinated with the Lebanese military and with the Syrian government separately, securing crossings for refugees who want to leave, the official said.

Several refugees told a Reuters photographer before a checkpoint manned by Hezbollah fighters they were eager to go back to their hometown after several years in squalid, makeshift camps in the border town of Arsal.

“It’s been three years and we haven’t seen our families and relatives, said Abeer Mahmoud al Haj, in a van with her family members around her. “May God return everyone to his country, there is no better than Syria,”

Since early in the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah has backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, along with Iran and Russia, sending thousands of men to fight the mostly Sunni Syrian rebels.

The U.N. refugee body said it was not involved in the deal. A spokeswoman said it was not encouraging large-scale return of refugees to a country where conflict is still raging.

“The UNHCR is not at a stage where it’s promoting return because the conditions are not conducive,” Dana Sleiman said.

Two refugees in Arsal who refused to give their names said many in the camps were unwilling to return because of fears their young men would be drafted into the army. Many had also lost their livelihoods and their villages had been ransacked.

“RECONCILIATION DEALS”

More than 1 million registered Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon, now making up a quarter of its population, the United Nations refugee agency says. The number is widely put at closer to 1.5 million.

They are scattered across Lebanon, mostly in makeshift camps and often in severe poverty, and face the risk of arrest because of restrictions on legal residence and work.

The group of refugees returned on Wednesday as part of a local deal, not a broader agreement. Politicians are deeply divided over whether Lebanon should work directly with the Syrian government over the return of refugees, which Hezbollah and its allies advocate.

Others, including Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, are strongly opposed, questioning the safety of the refugees once they return. Hariri has called for secure areas to be set up on the Syrian side of the border to which refugees could voluntarily return under United Nations supervision.

In a televised speech on Tuesday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that time was running out for Syrian militants along the border near Arsal to reach deals with Syrian authorities.

“It’s high time to end the threat of militant groups in Arsal and little time is left to reach certain reconciliation deals,” Nasrallah said. “There are terrorists and planners of attacks in Arsal and this needs a solution.”

Nasrallah praised the security campaign the Lebanese army has been waging in recent weeks against suspected militants.

The Lebanese army says it regularly stages operations in the hills near the northeastern border against Islamic State and militants formerly linked to al Qaeda.

In late June, authorities arrested several hundred people in raids on Syrian refugee camps in Arsal. A Lebanese military prosecutor has ordered forensic examinations on the bodies of four of them who died in army custody, after rights groups called for an investigation.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam and Suleiman al Khalidi in Beirut; writing by Ellen Francis; editing by Andrew Roche)

Iraq strikes Islamic State in Mosul days after declaring victory

Destroyed buildings from clashes are seen in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces clashed with Islamic State militants holding out in Mosul’s Old City on Wednesday, more than 36 hours after Baghdad declared victory over the jihadists in what they had made the de facto Iraqi capital of their self-declared caliphate.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s victory announcement signaled the biggest defeat for the hardline Sunni group since its lightning sweep through northern Iraq three years ago. But pockets of Mosul remain insecure and the city has been heavily damaged by nearly nine months of grueling urban combat.

About 900,000 people fled the fighting, with more than a third sheltered in camps outside Iraq’s second largest city and the rest living with family and friends in other neighborhoods.

Civilian activity has quickly returned to much of Mosul and work to repair damaged homes and infrastructure is underway, but authorities have not prepared a post-battle plan for governance and security in the city, officials say.

Iraqi forces exchanged gunfire with the militants in their final Mosul redoubt just before midnight and into the morning hours, three residents living just across the Tigris River from the area told Reuters.

Army helicopters strafed the Old City and columns of smoke rose into the air, though it was unclear if these came from controlled explosions or from bombs set off by Islamic State, the residents said by phone.

“We still live in an atmosphere of war despite the victory announcement two days ago,” said Fahd Ghanim, 45. Another resident said the blasts shook the ground around half a kilometer away.

An Iraqi military official attributed the activity to “clearing operations”.

“There are Daesh (fighters) hiding in different places,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State. “They disappear here and pop up there, then we target them.”

Media access to the area has been heavily restricted since Abadi claimed victory on Monday, hailing “the collapse of the terrorist state”.

Footage released by the Islamic State news agency Amaq entitled “Fighting till the last gasp” and allegedly filmed in Mosul’s Maydan district showed militants mixed in with civilians and unidentified corpses lying amid the rubble of an urban battlefield. Reuters could not authenticate the video.

ASYMMETRIC ATTACKS

The Iraqi official declined to estimate the number of militants or civilians remaining in the Old City, but the top U.S. general in Iraq said on Tuesday that as many as a couple of hundred IS insurgents could still be in Mosul.

“There are bypassed holdouts. We haven’t cleared every building in this city the size of Philadelphia. That’s going to have to be done, and there are also hidden IEDs (improvised explosive devices),” Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend told reporters. “There are still going to be losses from the Iraqi security forces as they continue to secure Mosul.”

The U.S.-led coalition said it had conducted three air strikes on IS in the Mosul area on Tuesday, targeting militants, machine-gun emplacements and rocket-propelled grenade systems.

South of the city, Iraqi security forces repelled an IS attack launched from western desert areas on the village of al-Jaran, a tribal fighter said.

Reinforcements also arrived to help government forces oustmilitants armed with machine guns and mortars from the village of Imam Gharbi, further to the south. IS had taken around 75 percent of the village since storming it last week.

These are the kind of asymmetric, guerrilla-style strikes Islamic State is expected to concentrate on now as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces regain control over cities the group captured during its shock 2014 offensive.

Another attack on a border guard convoy in western Anbar province, near the Syrian border, killed two soldiers and wounded four on Tuesday, military sources said.

Separately, 28 Sunni Muslim civilians were kidnapped in the Iskandariya district south of Baghdad this week and 20 of them were found dead later, a police officer told Reuters.

Suspects detained by the authorities said they belonged to the Shi’ite Muslim Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia. A Baghdad-based spokesman for the group, whose fighters are taking part in the Shi’ite-led government’s campaign against Islamic State, said he had no knowledge of the incident.

The government’s victory in Mosul may rekindle revenge attacks and fresh violence between Sunnis and Shi’ites, a sectarian divide that tipped Iraq into civil war after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin; editing by Michael Georgy and Mark Heinrich)

Iran: U.S.-Russia ceasefire deal should be expanded to cover all Syria

A Free Syrian Army fighter carries a weapon as he walks past damaged buildings in a rebel-held part of the southern city of Deraa, Syria July 9, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Faqir

LONDON (Reuters) – A partial ceasefire in southwestern Syria agreed between the United States and Russia should be expanded to all of Syria if it is to be successful, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday.

The United States, Russia and Jordan announced a ceasefire and “de-escalation agreement” for the southwest on Friday and starting on Sunday after a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg.

“The agreement can be fruitful if it is expanded to all of Syria and includes all the area that we discussed in Astana talks for de-escalating the tension,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

In Astana peace talks, Russia, Turkey and Iran tried to finalize an agreement on creating four de-escalation zones in Syria but failed to reach an agreement.

Russia and Iran are the main international backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Washington supports some of the rebel groups fighting to topple him.

“Iran is seeking Syria’s sovereignty and security so a ceasefire cannot be limited to a certain location…No agreement would be successful without taking the realities on the ground into account,” Qasemi added.

Previous similar ceasefires have failed to hold for long and it was not clear how much the actual combatants — Assad’s government forces and the main Syrian rebel armies in the southwest — are committed to this latest effort.

Qasemi said Iran has been fully informed by the Russians on the ceasefire agreement but added that they see some “ambiguities in the deal mainly related to the American recent measures in Syria”.

 

 

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

 

Islamic State tightens grip on village near Mosul after defeat

Iraqi Federal Police celebrate in the Old City of Mosul. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

By Ghazwan Hassan

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State has captured most of a village south of Mosul despite losing control of its stronghold in the city, an Iraqi army officer and residents said, deploying guerrilla-style tactics as its self-proclaimed caliphate crumbles.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over Islamic State in Mosul on Monday, marking the biggest defeat for the hardline Sunni group since its lightning sweep through northern Iraq three years ago.

But the militants, armed with machine guns and mortars, have now seized more than 75 percent of Imam Gharbi, a village on the western bank of the Tigris river some 70 km (44 miles) south of Mosul, and reinforcements are expected, the Iraqi army officer said.

Islamic State launched its attack on Imam Gharbi last week, in the kind of strike it is expected to deploy now as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces regain control over cities the group captured during its shock 2014 offensive.

Mosul resident Hind Mahmoud said by telephone that she had heard exchanges of gunfire in the Old City and seen an Iraqi army helicopter firing on Islamic State militants on Tuesday.

Stripped of Mosul, Islamic State’s dominion in Iraq will be reduced to mainly rural, desert areas west and south of the city.

Islamic State also faces pressure in its operational base in the Syrian city of Raqqa, where U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish and Arab forces have seized territory on three sides of the city.

The campaign to retake Mosul from the militants was launched last October by a 100,000-strong alliance of Iraqi government units, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shi’ite militias, with a U.S.-led coalition providing key air and ground support.

Abadi’s government in Iraq now faces a difficult task managing the sectarian tensions which enabled Islamic State to gain supporters in the country among fellow Sunnis, who say they were marginalized by the Shi’ite-led government.

The U.S.-led coalition warned that victory in Mosul did not mark the end of the group’s global threat.

“Now it is time for all Iraqis to unite to ensure ISIS (Islamic State) is defeated across the rest of Iraq and that the conditions that led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq are not allowed to return again,” Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend said in a statement.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Iraqi PM declares victory over Islamic State in Mosul

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (C) holds an Iraqi flag as he announces victory over Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, July 10, 2017. Iraqi Prime Minister Media Office/Handout via REUTERS

By Isabel Coles and Stephen Kalin

MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq’s prime minister declared victory over Islamic State in Mosul on Monday, three years after the militants seized the city and made it the stronghold of a “caliphate” they said would take over the world.

“I announce from here the end and the failure and the collapse of the terrorist state of falsehood and terrorism which the terrorist Daesh announced from Mosul,” Haider al-Abadi said in a speech shown on state television, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

A 100,000-strong alliance of Iraqi government units, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shi’ite militias launched the offensive to recapture the northern city from the militants in October, with key air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition.

Abadi, wearing a black military uniform and flanked by commanders from the security forces, thanked troops and the coalition. But he warned that more challenges lay ahead.

“We have another mission ahead of us, to create stability, to build and clear Daesh cells, and that requires an intelligence and security effort, and the unity which enabled us to fight Daesh,” he said before raising an Iraqi flag.

Iraq declared a week-long holiday to mark the victory. People celebrated in the streets of the capital Baghdad and southern cities.

Abadi arrived in Mosul on Sunday to congratulate military commanders who have waged a nearly nine-month battle to recapture the city, many parts of which were reduced to rubble.

Gunfire and explosions could be heard earlier in the day as the last few Islamic State positions were pounded.

The coalition said in a statement Iraqi forces were in “firm control” of Mosul, but some areas still needed to be cleared of explosive devices and possible Islamic State fighters in hiding.

Around the time of Abadi’s announcement, Islamic State released a statement claiming to have mounted an attack on Iraqi forces in Mosul. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Abadi had been meeting military and political officials in Mosul in an atmosphere of celebration that contrasts with the fear that spread after a few hundred Islamic State militants seized the city and the Iraqi army crumbled in July 2014.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi shocked the Middle East and Western powers three years ago by appearing at the pulpit of Mosul’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque to declare the caliphate and himself the leader of the world’s Muslims.

A reign of terror followed which eventually alienated even many of those Sunni Muslims who had supported the group as allies against Iraq’s Shi’ite majority. Opponents of Islamic State were executed and such crimes as smoking a cigarette were punishable by public whipping.

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the Shi’ites have been politically dominant in Iraq but the country has been racked by ethnic conflict.

REVENGE

In the aftermath of victory in Mosul, Abadi’s government faces the task of managing the sectarian tensions there and elsewhere that enabled Islamic State to win support, and the threat of a wave of revenge violence in the city.

The coalition warned that victory in Mosul did not mark the end of the group’s global threat.

“Now it is time for all Iraqis to unite to ensure ISIS (Islamic State) is defeated across the rest of Iraq and that the conditions that led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq are not allowed to return again,” Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend said in a statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated Iraq and said Islamic State’s days were numbered. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the victory “a critical milestone” in the war against Islamic State.

Baghdadi has fled the city and his whereabouts are unknown. Reports have circulated that he is dead but Iraqi and Western officials say they cannot corroborate this.

His death or capture would not be the end of Islamic State, which still controls areas south and west of Mosul and which is now expected to take to the desert or mountains to wage an insurgency.

The militants are likely to keep trying to launch attacks on the West and inspiring violence by “lone wolves” or small groups of the kind mounted recently in Britain, France and elsewhere.

But the loss of Iraq’s second-largest city is a grave body blow to Islamic State.

Islamic State is also under heavy pressure in its operational headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa. But a concern shared by the United States and its coalition allies is that Iran could fill the vacuum left by the Sunni militants to expand in both Iraq and Syria.

Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, the extraterritorial branch of Shi’ite Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said on Monday Iran had sent “thousands of tonnes” of arms and fighter jets to Iraq to help it fight Islamic State, Iranian media reported.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

The stench of corpses along Mosul’s streets was a reminder of the gruelling urban warfare required to dislodge Islamic State.

Much of the city of 1.5 million has been destroyed in the fighting, its centuries-old stone buildings flattened by air strikes and other explosions. One of Islamic State’s last acts was to blow up the historic al-Nuri mosque and its famous leaning minaret.

Thousands of people have been killed. The United Nations says 920,000 civilians have fled their homes since the military campaign began in October. Close to 700,000 people are still displaced.

“It’s a relief to know that the military campaign in Mosul is ending. The fighting may be over, but the humanitarian crisis is not,” said U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Lise Grande.”Many of the people who have fled have lost everything. They need shelter, food, health care, water, sanitation and emergency kits. The levels of trauma we are seeing are some of the highest anywhere. What people have experienced is nearly unimaginable.”

Iraqi soldiers relaxed. Some swam in the Tigris river which runs through the city. One wiped the sweat from his face with an Islamic State flag.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Old City bears the brunt of Islamic State’s last stand in Mosul

An old bridge destroyed by clashes is seen in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Piles of concrete and metal rubble reach up to the second story of surrounding buildings in parts of the historic quarter where Islamic State is making its last stand in Mosul.

Soldiers passing through the narrow alleyways and abandoned homes of the Old City on Sunday scrambled over stone blocks, reinforced steel poles and sheets of aluminum to inspect the military’s latest gains while their comrades fought on nearby.

Charred bodies, mostly covered with blankets, lay amid the rubble. A man’s hand stuck out from under one cover, another’s dusty feet extended from another. Some were clearly militants but others looked like civilians, including a woman and a child.

As the nearly nine-month U.S.-backed offensive to retake Mosul draws to an end, the Old City has been among the hardest hit areas by the house-to-house fighting backed by air strikes, artillery and heavy machine guns to uproot the insurgents who have resisted with suicide bomb attacks.

The riverside district, whose mosques, churches and markets date to the Medieval Ages and even earlier, were long neglected before Islamic State took over in 2014.

The insurgents have blown up several landmarks there including the iconic Hadba minaret and its adjoining Grand Nuri Mosque, where leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a modern-day “caliphate” three years ago.

Several hundred militants were holed up in the Old City among tens of thousands of civilians when Iraqi forces breached the area last month.

Those numbers have dwindled, with a few dozen militants maintaining resistance as Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi traveled to Mosul to declare victory.

Moments before his arrival on Sunday, a half dozen air strikes pounded the last pocket of the city where the insurgents are gathered. The blasts sent unidentified fragments toward the sky including what appeared to be an Islamic State flag.

The explosions, mixed with sporadic gunfire, continued on Monday as Abadi met with local officials.

 

CLEARING RUBBLE

Soldiers combing the ruins passed a hole knocked into the side of a building, revealing a relatively intact living room, with cushioned chairs and a couch covered in dust.

Another small room was furnished with foam sleeping mats and scattered with food scraps, indicating it was recently inhabited by retreating insurgents or advancing soldiers, or possibly both in quick succession.

The soldiers walked through a burnt-out elementary school and an outdoor basketball court where a mural painted on one wall bears the adage: “Cleanliness is part of faith”.

A bulldozer was already clearing rubble in an open area nearby. In another section of the Old City with broader streets and taller buildings, federal police dot a moonscape scene.

Storefronts were gutted, a six-storey apartment block had collapsed in on itself and a two-storey home was knocked off its foundations and leaned on its side.

Smoke rises from clashes in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier

Smoke rises from clashes in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

The police showed off explosive vests they found alongside the militants, who they said were of Asian origin. They said they still had to clear tunnels running underneath the Old City to make sure Islamic State fighters were not hiding there.

While some Mosul districts were only lightly affected by the battle, nearly a third of western neighborhood have been heavily damaged according to the United Nations, which estimates it will take more than $1 billion and at least a year just to repair restore basic services to the entire city.

A soldier returning from the front on Sunday unfurled a black Islamic State flag, holding it upside down and posing for pictures. He boasted it is the last of its kind in Mosul.

In reality, military officials say Islamic State has set up sleeper cells across the city and that they are working to prevent a new wave of guerrilla-style attacks as the group goes to ground.

 

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)