Tag Archives: War

Civilians trapped in Mosul could face worst catastrophe in Iraq conflict, U.N. warns

A smoke rises as Iraqi forces fight Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Marko Djurica

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – The fighting in the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are trapped, could turn into the worst humanitarian “catastrophe” in the war against the militants, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.

“If there is a siege and hundreds of thousands of people don’t have water and don’t have food, they will be at enormous risk,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Lise Grande told Reuters in a telephone interview.

“We could be facing a humanitarian catastrophe, perhaps the worst in the entire conflict,” she added.

Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, was captured by the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim fighters in mid 2014.

Iraqi government forces have taken back most of it in a U.S.-backed offensive launched in October, including the half that lies east of the Tigris river.

The militants are now surrounded in the northwestern quarter including the historic Old City, using booby traps, sniper and mortar fire against the assailants.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli)

U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis to talk Islamic State, Syria in Middle East

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis is greeted by Saudi Armed Forces Chief of Joint Staff General Abdul Rahman Al Banyan (L) upon his arrival at King Salman Air Base, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – On his first trip as U.S defense secretary to parts of the Middle East and Africa, Jim Mattis will focus on the fight against Islamic State and articulating President Donald Trump’s policy toward Syria, officials and experts say.

His trip may give clarity to adversaries and allies alike about the Trump administration’s tactics in the fight against Islamic State militants and its willingness to use military power more liberally than former President Barack Obama did.

One of the main questions from allies about Syria is whether Washington has formulated a strategy to prevent areas seized from militants from collapsing into ethnic and sectarian feuds or succumbing to a new generation of extremism, as parts of Iraq and Afghanistan have done since the U.S. invaded them.

U.S.-backed forces are fighting to retake the Islamic State strongholds of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, and questions remain about what will happen after that and what role other allies such as Saudi Arabia, can play. There are signs that Trump has given the U.S. military more latitude to use force, including ordering a cruise missile strike against a Syrian air base and cheering the unprecedented use of a monster bomb against an Islamic State target in Afghanistan last week.Administration officials said the U.S. strategy in Syria — to defeat Islamic State while still calling for the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — is unchanged, a message Mattis is expected to reinforce.

Arriving in the region on Tuesday, his stops include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and Israel.

“Particularly with the Saudis and the Israelis, part of the discussion will be clarifying for them what our strategy is towards Syria in light of the strike,” said Christine Wormuth, a former number three at the Pentagon.

Islamic State has lost most of the territory it has held in Iraq since 2014, controlling about 6.8 percent of the nation.

DEEPER INTO YEMEN

The United States also is considering deepening its role in Yemen’s conflict by more directly aiding its Gulf allies that are battling Houthi rebels who have some Iranian support, officials say, potentially relaxing a U.S. policy that limited American support.

“The Saudi concern is strategically Iran… The near-term Saudi concern is how they send a message to the Iranians in Yemen, and they would like full-throated American support,” said Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

The review of possible new U.S. assistance, which includes intelligence support, would come amid evidence that Iran is sending advanced weapons and military advisers to the Houthis.

Congressional sources say the Trump administration is on the verge of notifying Congress of the proposed sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia. Some U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern about civilian casualties in Riyadh’s campaign in Yemen.

Experts say Egyptian officials are likely to seek more support from Mattis, a retired Marine general, for fighting militants in the country’s Sinai peninsula.

Islamic State has waged a low-level war against soldiers and police in the Sinai for years, but increasingly is targeting Christians and broadening its reach to Egypt’s heart.

“They would also like more American support in fighting terrorism in the Sinai peninsula and they like more American confidence that they are doing it the right way,” said Alterman.

Mattis also will be visiting a U.S. military base in Djibouti, at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, where operations in Yemen and Somalia are staged, and just miles from a new Chinese installation.

The White House recently granted the U.S. military broader authority to carry out strikes against al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants in Somalia.

Last week the Pentagon announced that a few dozen U.S. troops had been deployed to Somalia to train members of the Somali National Army.

(Editing by John Walcott and Alistair Bell)

Monitors criticize Turkey referendum; Erdogan denounces ‘crusader mentality’

Supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan celebrate in Istanbul.

By Gulsen Solaker and Daren Butler

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A defiant Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan denounced the West’s “crusader mentality” on Monday after European monitors criticized a referendum to grant him sweeping new powers, which he won with a narrow victory laying bare the nation’s divisions.

Supporters thronged the streets honking horns and waving flags, while opponents banged pots and pans in protest in their homes into the early morning. The main opposition party rejected the result and called for the vote to be annulled.

Election authorities said preliminary results showed 51.4 percent of voters had backed the biggest overhaul of Turkish politics since the founding of the modern republic.

Erdogan says concentrating power in the hands of the president is vital to prevent instability. But the narrowness of his victory could have the opposite effect: adding to volatility in a country that has lately survived an attempted coup, attacks by Islamists, a Kurdish insurgency, civil unrest and war across its Syrian border.

The result laid bare the deep divide between the urban middle classes who see their future as part of a European mainstream, and the pious rural poor who favor Erdogan’s strong hand. Erdogan made clear his intention to steer the country away from Europe, announcing plans to seek to restore the death penalty, which would effectively end Turkey’s decades-long quest to join the EU.

“The crusader mentality in the West and its servants at home have attacked us,” he told flag-waving supporters on arrival in the capital Ankara where he was due to chair a cabinet meeting, in response to the monitors’ assessment.

In the bluntest criticism of a Turkish election by European monitors in memory, a mission of observers from the 47-member Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights body, said the referendum was an uneven contest. Support for a “Yes” vote dominated campaign coverage, and the arrests of journalists and closure of media outlets prevented other views from being heard, the monitors said.

“In general, the referendum did not live up to Council of Europe standards. The legal framework was inadequate for the holding of a genuinely democratic process,” said Cezar Florin Preda, head of the delegation.

While the monitors had no information of actual fraud, a last-minute decision by electoral authorities to allow unstamped ballots to be counted undermined an important safeguard and contradicted electoral law, they said.

DIVISIONS

The bitter campaigning and narrow “Yes” vote exposed deep divisions in Turkey, with the country’s three main cities and mainly Kurdish southeast likely to have voted “No”. Official results are due to be announced in the next 12 days.

Erdogan, a populist with a background in once-banned Islamist parties, has ruled since 2003 with no real rival, while his country emerged as one of the fastest-growing industrial powers in both Europe and the Middle East.

He has also been at the center of global affairs, commanding NATO’s second-biggest military on the border of Middle East war zones, taking in millions of Syrian refugees and controlling their further flow into Europe.

Critics accuse him of steering Turkey towards one-man rule. The two largest opposition parties both challenged Sunday’s referendum, saying it was deeply flawed.

The pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party said it presented complaints about unstamped ballots affecting 3 million voters, more than twice the margin of Erdogan’s victory.

The main secularist opposition People’s Republican Party said it was still unclear how many votes were affected.

“This is why the only decision that will end debate about the legitimacy (of the vote) and ease the people’s legal concerns is the annulment of this election,” deputy party chairman Bulent Tezcan said.

Tezcan said he would if necessary go to Turkey’s constitutional court – one of the institutions that Erdogan would gain firm control over under the constitutional changes, through the appointment of its members.

“ERDOGAN’S RESPONSIBILITY”

The president survived a coup attempt last year and responded with a crackdown, jailing 47,000 people and sacking or suspending more than 120,000 from government jobs such as schoolteachers, soldiers, police, judges or other professionals.

The changes could keep him in power until 2029 or beyond, making him easily the most important figure in Turkish history since state founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk built a modern nation from the ashes of the Ottoman empire after World War One.

Germany, host to some 4 million Turks, said it was up to Erdogan himself to heal the rifts that the vote had exposed.

“The tight referendum result shows how deeply divided Turkish society is, and that means a big responsibility for the Turkish leadership and for President Erdogan personally,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel in a joint statement.

Relations with Europe were strained during the referendum campaign when Germany and the Netherlands barred Turkish ministers from holding rallies. Erdogan provoked a stern German response by comparing those limits to the actions of the Nazis.

Thousands of Erdogan supporters waved flags and blasted horns into the early hours on Monday in celebration of a man who they say has transformed the quality of life for millions of pious Turks marginalized for decades by the secular elite.

There were scattered protests against the result, but these were more sporadic. In some affluent, secular neighborhoods, opponents stayed indoors, banging pots and pans, a sign of dissent that became widespread during anti-Erdogan protests in 2013, when the police crushed demonstrations against him.

The result triggered a two percent rally in the Turkish lira from its close last week.

Under the changes, most of which will only come into effect after the next elections due in 2019, the president will appoint the cabinet and an undefined number of vice-presidents, and be able to select and remove senior civil servants without parliamentary approval.

There has been some speculation that Erdogan could call new elections so that his new powers could take effect right away. However, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek told Reuters there was no such plan, and the elections would still be held in 2019.

Erdogan served as prime minister from 2003 until 2014, when rules were changed to hold direct elections for the office of president, previously a ceremonial role elected by parliament. Since becoming the first directly elected president, he has set about making the post more important, along the lines of the executive presidencies of France, Russia or the United States.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux in Istanbul and Ankara; Writing by Daren Butler, David Dolan and Dominic Evans; Editing by Peter Graff)

For Syrian evacuees, civil war bus bombing a tragic end to a tragic deal

The interior of a damaged bus is seen after an explosion yesterday at insurgent-held al-Rashideen, Aleppo province, Syria

By John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Mothers Noha, a Shi’ite, and Samira, a Sunni, were besieged for nearly two years on each side of Syria’s civil war. At the weekend they finally escaped the suffocating blockades under an evacuation agreement – but their ordeal was not over.

As they waited at two transit points miles apart outside Aleppo, a bomb attack hit Noha’s bus convoy, killing more than 120 people including dozens of children. After ambulances rushed off the wounded, new buses arrived and the two convoys eventually reached their destinations – one in government territory and the other in rebel territory.

In the hours leading up to Saturday’s attacks, the two women spoke to Reuters about what they had left behind, their families being split up, and the likelihood they would never return home.

Reuters was not allowed back past security to try to find Noha after the blast, and lost contact with Samira after speaking to her earlier on another evacuee’s phone.

“We’ve lost everything. We hope to go back one day, but I don’t expect we will,” said Noha, 45, asking not to be identified by her last name.

Noha left al-Foua, one of two Shi’ite villages besieged by Syrian insurgents in Idlib province with her two youngest children and 5,000 other people under a deal between the Syrian government and armed opposition.

In exchange, 2,000 Sunni residents and rebel fighters from the government-besieged town of Madaya near Damascus – Samira’s hometown – were given safe passage out, and bussed to Idlib province, a rebel stronghold, via Aleppo.

Thousands of Syrians have been evacuated from besieged areas in recent months under deals between President Bashar al-Assad’s government and rebels fighting for six years to unseat him.

The deals have mostly affected Sunni Muslims living in rebel-held areas surrounded by government forces and their allies. Damascus calls them reconciliation deals and says it allows services to be restored in the wrecked towns.

Rebels say it amounts to forced displacement of Assad’s opponents from Syria’s main urban centres in the west of the country, and engenders demographic change because most of the opposition, and Syria’s population, are Sunni.

But backed militarily by Russia and Shi’ite regional allies, Assad, a member of Syria’s Alawite minority, has negotiated the deals from a position of strength.

“There was little choice. We had to leave, we were scared,” said Samira, 55, who was traveling with her five adult sons.

She had feared her sons would be arrested or forced to join the Syrian military and fight once troops and officials of the Damascus government moved into the town.

Like Noha, Samira was relieved to have escaped a crushing siege which had caused widespread hunger – and in the case of Madaya, starvation – but had left everything behind, including family.

“We owned three houses, farmland and three shops in Madaya town. Now, we don’t have a single Syrian pound,” she said.

Her daughter, pregnant with a third child, had stayed in Madaya because her husband had vowed to “live and die” there, she said.

Samira has not heard from her own husband for nearly four years after he was arrested by Syrian authorities.

NOWHERE TO LIVE

With nothing left and no place to stay in Idlib other than camps, Samira said she would try to migrate, joining the 5 million Syrian refugees who have left since the war broke out in 2011. More than 6 million are internally displaced.

“I don’t want to be in Idlib, we know no one there. Also you don’t know when or where the jets might bomb,” she said, referring to the heavy bombardment by Russian and Syrian warplanes of rebel-held areas in Idlib – including a recent alleged poison gas attack.

“The plan is to try to get to Turkey, to leave Syria for good.”

Noha was also heading into the unknown.

“I don’t know where we’ll live, whether they (authorities) have anything set up. At the very least, we just want to be safe. The children jump at night from the sound of rockets. We just want security, wherever they take us,” she said.

Her adult son and daughter had stayed in al-Foua but were hoping to leave in the next stage of the evacuation deal. Noha’s husband had been killed, but she did not say how.

Both women said they would never have left their hometowns but for the strangling sieges, which caused severe food and medicine shortages, and the gradual change of control in each area.

Government forces moved into Madaya on Friday. Rebels are also due to leave nearby Zabadani as part of the deal. In al-Foua and Kefraya, hundreds of pro-government fighters were evacuated, and the agreement will pave the way for insurgents to take over.

Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah have helped Assad gain the upper hand against rebels in the west of the country in the last 18 months and he now controls all of Syria’s most populous cities there, although insurgents have made gains in some areas.

But with the war that has killed hundreds of thousands far from over, those displaced in swap deals see return a long way off.

“People have built their houses and worked their whole lives setting themselves up, and now they’ve left, with nothing, zero,” Noha said.

(Additional reporting by Ammar Abdullah; Editing by Anna Willard)

Bombing of Syrian bus convoy kills, wounds dozens outside Aleppo

A still image taken from a video uploaded on social media on April 15, 2017, shows burnt out buses on road, scattered debris lying nearby and injured people being tended to away from buses said to be in Aleppo, Syria. Social Media Website via Reuters TV

By John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A bomb blast hit a bus convoy waiting to cross into government-held Aleppo in Syria on Saturday, killing and wounding dozens of people evacuated from two Shi’ite villages the day before in a deal between warring sides.

The agreement had stalled, leaving thousands of people from both government-besieged and rebel-besieged areas stranded at two transit points on the city’s outskirts, before the explosion occurred.

Pro-Damascus media outlets said a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb and killed at least 22 people. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll was at least 24.

Footage on state TV showed bodies lying next to charred buses with their windows blown out, and vehicles in flames.

The blast hit buses in the Rashidin area on Aleppo’s outskirts. The vehicles had been waiting since Friday to cross from rebel-held territory into the government-controlled city itself.

The convoy was carrying residents and pro-government fighters from the rebel-besieged Shi’ite villages of al-Foua and Kefraya in nearby Idlib province.

They had left under a deal where, in exchange, hundreds of Sunni insurgents and their families were granted safe passage from Madaya, a government-besieged town near Damascus.

But a delay in the agreement had left all those evacuated stuck at transit points on Aleppo’s outskirts since late on Friday.

Residents of al-Foua and Kefraya were waiting in the Rashidin area.

The rebels and residents of Madaya, near Damascus, were waiting at the government-held Ramousah bus garage, a few miles away. They were to be transported to the opposition stronghold of Idlib province.

People waiting in the Ramousah garage heard the blast, and said they feared revenge attacks by pro-government forces. They circulated a statement on social media imploring “international organizations” to intervene so the situation did not escalate.

The evacuation deal is one of several over recent months that has seen President Bashar al-Assad’s government take back control of areas long besieged by his forces and their allies.

The deals are unpopular with the Syrian opposition, who say they amount to forced displacement of Assad’s opponents from Syria’s main urban centers in the west of the country.

They are also causing demographic changes because those who are displaced are usually Sunni Muslims, like most of the opposition. Assad is from the minority Alawite sect and is supported by Shi’ite regional allies.

It was unclear who carried out Saturday’s bombing attack.

The exact reasons for the delay in completing the evacuation deal were also unclear.

The Observatory said the delay was caused by the fact that rebels from Zabadani, another town near Damascus included in the deal, had not yet been granted safe passage out.

‘FORCED DISPLACEMENT’

A pro-opposition activist said insurgents blamed the delay partly on the fact that a smaller number of pro-government fighters had left the Shi’ite villages than was agreed.

Earlier on Saturday, at the transit point where the buses from al-Foua and Kefraya were waiting, one resident said he was not yet sure where he would live.

“After Aleppo I’ll see what the rest of the group is doing, if there are any preparations. My house, land and belongings are all in al-Foua,” Mehdi Tahhan said.

A Madaya resident, speaking from the bus garage inside Aleppo, said people had been waiting there since late on Friday, and were not being allowed to leave.

“There’s no drinking water or food. The bus garage is small so there’s not much space to move around,” Ahmed, 24, said.

“We’re sad and angry about what has happened,” he said. Many people felt that they had been forced to leave,” he said.

“There was no other choice in the end – we were besieged inside a small area in Madaya.”

Other evacuation deals in recent months have included areas of Aleppo and a district in the city of Homs.

Syria’s population is mostly Sunni. Assad’s Alawite religious minority is often considered an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

He has been backed militarily by Russia, and by Shi’ite fighters from Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group in Syria’s six-year-old conflict.

Assad has the military advantage over rebels in the west thanks to Russia’s intervention in 2015, although the insurgents are still fighting back and have made gains in some areas.

(Editing by Andrew Bolton)

Former Afghan president calls decision to drop massive U.S. bomb ‘treason’

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai speaks during an interview in Kabul, Afghanistan September 13, 2016. Picture taken on September 13, 2016.REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

By Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) – Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai accused his successor on Saturday of committing treason by allowing the U.S. military to drop the largest conventional bomb ever used in combat during an operation against Islamic State militants in Afghanistan.

Karzai, who also vowed to “stand against America”, retains considerable influence within Afghanistan’s majority Pashtun ethnic group, to which President Ashraf Ghani also belongs. His strong words could signal a broader political backlash that may endanger the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.

Afghan defense officials have said the 21,600-pound (9,797-kg) GBU-43, dropped late on Thursday in the eastern province of Nangarhar, had killed nearly 100 suspected militants, though they acknowledged this was an estimate and not based on an actual body count.

“How could you permit Americans to bomb your country with a device equal to an atom bomb?” Karzai said at a public event in Kabul, questioning Ghani’s decision. “If the government has permitted them to do this, that was wrong and it has committed a national treason.”

Ghani’s office said the strike had been closely coordinated between Afghan and U.S. forces and replied to Karzai’s charges with a statement saying: “Every Afghan has the right to speak their mind. This is a country of free speech.”

Public reaction to Thursday’s strike has been mixed, with some residents near the blast praising Afghan and U.S. troops for pushing back the Islamic State militants.

While the bomb has been described as one of the largest non-nuclear devices ever used, its destructive power, equivalent to 11 tonnes of TNT, pales in comparison with the relatively small atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, which had blasts equivalent to between 15,000 and 20,000 tonnes of TNT.

A combination of still images taken from a video released by the U.S. Department of Defense on April 14, 2017 shows (clockwise) the explosion of a MOAB, or "mother of all bombs", when it struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan, bordering Pakistan where U.S. officials said a network of tunnels and caves was being used by militants linked to Islamic State. U.S. Department of Defense/Handout via REUTERS

A combination of still images taken from a video released by the U.S. Department of Defense on April 14, 2017 shows (clockwise) the explosion of a MOAB, or “mother of all bombs”, when it struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan, bordering Pakistan where U.S. officials said a network of tunnels and caves was being used by militants linked to Islamic State. U.S. Department of Defense/Handout via REUTERS

“VIOLATION OF OUR SOVEREIGNTY”

During Karzai’s tenure as president, his opposition to airstrikes by foreign military forces helped to sour his relationship with the United States and other Western nations.

As the Kabul government, split between Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah under a U.S.-brokered power-sharing deal, remains fragile, Karzai’s political interventions draw close attention. Ghani has failed to build the kind of domestic following that Karzai still has despite stepping down in 2014.

Karzai said he planned to “stand against America”, a stance he compared to decisions earlier in his life to fight against the Soviets and later the Taliban regime.

“I decided to get America off my soil,” he said. “This bomb wasn’t only a violation of our sovereignty and a disrespect to our soil and environment, but will have bad effects for years.”

While Karzai did not elaborate on how he would oppose the United States, his stance may pose problems for Ghani’s administration, which is heavily reliant on the United States and other foreign donors for aid and military support.

On Friday, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, defended the strike, saying the decision to use the bomb was based on military needs, not political reasons.

Afghan troops, backed by U.S. warplanes and special forces, have been battling militants linked to Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan for years.

The most recent operation began in March and continued until troops hit Islamic State fighters entrenched in booby-trapped tunnels in a remote mountain region, leading commanders to call for the use of the GBU-43 bomb.

(Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Iraqi Christians return to ransacked town with fear and hope

A damaged statue of Jesus Christ is seen inside a church in the town of Qaraqosh, south of Mosul, Iraq, April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Marko Djurica SEARCH

By Ulf Laessing

QARAQOSH, Iraq (Reuters) – With Islamic State expelled, Iraqi Christians are trickling back to the ransacked town of Qaraqosh, beset by anxiety for their security and yet hopeful they can live in friendship with Muslims of all persuasions.

The town, about 20 km (12 miles) from the battlefront with Islamic State in the northern city of Mosul, shows why Christians have mixed feelings about the future of their ancient community.

In the desecrated churches of Qaraqosh, Christians are busy removing graffiti daubed by the Sunni Muslim militants during two and a half years of control – only for new slogans to have appeared, scrawled by Shi’ite members of the Iraqi forces fighting street to street with the jihadists in Mosul.

But nearby a shopkeeper is doing a brisk trade selling Dutch beer, Greek ouzo and several whisky brands to Christians, Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds alike, with this kind of commerce perhaps offering a glimpse of how Iraq’s fractured communities could again live together peacefully.

Encouraged by security checkpoints and patrols by a volunteer force, up to 10 Christian families have returned to what used to be the minority’s biggest community in Iraq until Islamic State seized it in 2014.

Iraqi forces pushed the group out of Qaraqosh in October, part of a six-month offensive to retake Mosul. But residents are worried that the Shi’ite slogans signal a new kind of sectarian division.

“Oh Hussein” is daubed in red on the wall of a church torched earlier by Islamic State, praising the hero of Shi’ite Muslims who was martyred 1,300 years ago.

“We are afraid of this, of tensions,” said Girgis Youssif, a church worker. “We want to live in peace and demand security,” said Youssif, who returned after fleeing to Erbil, about 60 km away in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Shi’ites in the Iraqi government forces and paramilitary groups, mostly from further south in the country, have scribbled such slogans on buildings all over Mosul too.

Soldiers have also hoisted the flag of Ali in the city and on their on military vehicles. Shi’ites regard Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, and the prophet’s grandson Hussein as his true successors.

Two Shi’ite flags also fly over Qaraqosh.

Most Sunnis, who are the dominant community in Mosul, have shrugged off the Shi’ite slogans as the work of a handful of religious zealots but Christians take them as a signal that their future remains uncertain.

“Of course we are afraid of such signs,” said Matti Yashou Hatti, a photographer who still lives in Erbil with his family. “We need international protection.”

Those families who have returned to Qaraqosh – once home to 50,000 people – are trying to revive Christian life dating back two millennia. However, most stay only two or three days at a time to refurbish their looted and burnt homes.

“We want to come back but there is no water and power,” said Mazam Nesin, a Christian who works for a volunteer force based in Qaraqosh but has left his family behind in Erbil.

By contrast, displaced Muslims have been flocking back to markets in eastern Mosul since Islamic State’s ejection from that part of the city, despite the battle raging in the Old City across the Tigris river which is the militants’ last stronghold.

ALCOHOL SHOP

Numbers of Christians in Iraq have fallen from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand since the violence which followed the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein. Many Baghdad residents who could not afford to go abroad went to Qaraqosh and other northern towns where security used to be better than in the capital, rocked by sectarian warfare after the U.S.-led invasion.

But with the arrival of Islamic State, residents abandoned their homes with some applying for asylum in Europe. Germany alone took in 130,000 Iraqis, among them many Christians, in 2015 and 2016. But most ended up in Erbil with relatives or in homes paid for by aid agencies.

Supermarkets and restaurants remain closed in Qaraqosh, with windows smashed and burnt furniture strewn across floors.

One of the few businesses to have reopened is Steve Ibrahim’s alcohol shop in the town center; in the absence of cafes it has become a meeting point for local people. “Business has been good so far. Everybody comes here to stock up,” said Ibrahim, who has just reopened the store with his father.

They lost everything when Islamic State, known by its enemies as Daesh, wrecked their business. Now they have invested about $400 to refurbish the shop – new tiles shine on the walls – and customers are coming from beyond the town and from across the communities.

“I sell drinks to Christians and Muslims alike,” he said. “Many people come from Mosul or other towns.”

Many of Ibrahim’s customers ignore Islam’s forbidding of alcohol consumption. While he was talking, a Sunni Muslim from eastern Mosul drove up to buy a bottle of whisky and four cans of beer, packed in a black plastic bag to hide his purchase from the eyes of more religiously observant Muslims.

“You couldn’t drink during Daesh. I am glad this shop is open again,” said the man who gave his name only as Mohammed, shaking hands with Christians enjoying an afternoon beer. “I still only drink at home.”

Later a Shi’ite from a village south of Mosul arrived to pick up drinks. “I come here twice a week. It’s the only shop in the area,” he said, asking not to be named, before driving off.

Even Ibrahim comes every day from Erbil, bringing by car supplies and fuel for the generator to power the fridges filled with cold beer. Then he drives back at night.

Whether more Christians can live permanently in Qaraqosh depends on whether the security forces win their trust.

Army and police have tried to ease fears by stationing soldiers in front of churches, and even helping Christian volunteers to set up a massive cross at the town’s entrance.

On Palm Sunday last weekend, soldiers escorted a procession in preparation for Easter, Christianity’s most important festival, and provided chairs for worshippers during Mass.

Some Christian policemen joined in, singing “Hallelujah” with civilians. But walking along rows of burnt out homes and supermarkets, others were still afraid.

“The security measures are not sufficient,” said Hatti, the photographer. “We want security to surround the town.”

(Click here, http://reut.rs/2ordbfj for a Photo essay on this story)

(Editing by David Stamp)

Syria’s Assad says Idlib chemical attack ‘fabrication’ – AFP interview

FILE PHOTO: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Croatian newspaper Vecernji List in Damascus, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on April 6, 2017. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said an alleged poison gas attack blamed on his government last week in Idlib province was “100 percent fabrication” used to justify a U.S. air strike, news agency AFP reported on Thursday.

Syria’s military had given up all its chemical weapons in 2013 after an agreement made at the time, and would not have used them anyway, AFP quoted Assad as saying in an interview.

The United States and its allies say the Syrian military carried out the Idlib attack, something Syria has already denied.

The April 4 attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun killed scores of people and prompted the United States to launch a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base in response, its first direct assault on the Assad government in the six-year-old conflict.

Assad said Syria would only allow an “impartial” investigation into the poison gas incident. On Wednesday Damascus ally Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn the attack and push the Syrian government to cooperate with investigators.

Russia said the gas was part of rebel stockpiles, which the rebels have denied.

It was the deadliest such incident since a sarin gas attack killed hundreds of people in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus in 2013, prompting threats of U.S. military action.

Samples taken from Khan Sheikhoun last week tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation at the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW said on Thursday.

(Reporting by John Davison, Michael Georgy, Ellen Francis, additional reporting by Paris bureau, editing by Angus MacSwan)

Chemical weapons experts in Turkey to investigate; UK confirms sarin use

A crater is seen at the site of an airstrike, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

By Anthony Deutsch

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Global chemical weapons investigators have gone to Turkey to collect samples as part of an inquiry into an alleged chemical weapons attack in neighbouring Syria last week that killed 87 people.

The fact-finding mission was sent by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague to gather bio-metric samples and interview survivors, sources told Reuters on Thursday.

The toxic gas attack on April 4, which killed scores of people including children, prompted a U.S. cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base and widened a rift between the United States and Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his conflict with rebels and militants fighting to oust him.

Syrian authorities have repeatedly denied using any chemical weapons. Russian officials said the gas had been released by an air strike on a poison gas storage depot controlled by rebels. Washington said that account was not credible, and rebels have denied it.

Samples taken from the poison gas site in Syria’s Idlib governorate tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation at the OPCW said on Thursday.

“UK scientists have analysed samples taken from Khan Sheikhoun. These have tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance,” the delegation said during a special session on Syria at the OPCW in The Hague.

The UK result confirmed earlier testing by Turkish authorities that concluded that sarin had been used for the first time on a large scale in Syria’s civil war since 2013.

The OPCW mission will determine whether chemical weapons were used, but is not mandated to assign blame. Its findings, expected in 3-4 weeks, will be passed to a joint United Nations-OPCW investigation tasked with identifying individuals or institutions responsible for using chemical weapons.

International investigators have concluded that sarin, chlorine and sulphur mustard gas have been used in Syria’s six-year-old conflict, with government forces using chlorine and Islamic State militants using sulphur mustard.

Last week’s poison gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the rebel-held province of Idlib near the Turkish border was the most lethal since a sarin attack on Aug. 21, 2013 killed hundreds in a rebel-controlled suburb of the capital Damascus.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Tillerson heads to Moscow carrying Western call for Russia to abandon Assad

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson disembarks from a plane upon his arrival at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

By Steve Scherer and Andrew Osborn

LUCCA, Italy/MOSCOW (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson carried a message from world powers to Moscow on Tuesday denouncing Russian support for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, as the Trump administration took on America’s traditional mantle as leader of a unified West.

Tillerson flew on the administration’s first cabinet mission to Russia after meeting foreign ministers from the Group of Seven advanced economies and Middle Eastern allies in Italy. They endorsed a joint call for Russia to abandon Assad.

The administration of President Donald Trump, which came to power in January calling for warmer ties with Russia, was thrust into confrontation with Moscow last week when a poison gas attack in northern Syria killed 87 people.

Western countries blame President Assad for the gas attack, and Trump responded by firing cruise missiles at a Syrian air base. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stood firmly by Moscow’s ally Assad, who denies blame.

“It is clear to us the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end,” Tillerson told reporters in Italy before departing for Moscow. “We hope that the Russian government concludes that they have aligned themselves with an unreliable partner in Bashar Al-Assad.”

He said Russia had failed in its role as sponsor of a 2013 deal under which Assad promised to give up his chemical arsenal.

“These agreements stipulated Russia as the guarantor of a Syria free of chemical weapons,” Tillerson said.

“It is unclear whether Russia failed to take this obligation seriously and whether Russia has been incompetent. But this distinction doesn’t much matter to the dead. We can’t let this happen again.”

Russia says the chemicals that killed civilians belonged to rebels, not to Assad’s government, and has accused the United States of an illegal act of aggression against Syria on a phoney pretext. Putin said on Tuesday he believed Washington planned to launch more missile strikes, and that rebels were planning to stage chemical weapons attacks to provoke them.

“We have information that a similar provocation is being prepared … in other parts of Syria including in the southern Damascus suburbs where they are planning to again plant some substance and accuse the Syrian authorities of using (chemical weapons),” Putin said, standing alongside Italian President Sergio Matarella who was in Moscow for talks.

Putin said Moscow would urgently ask the United Nations chemical weapons watchdog to investigate last week’s incident. Western countries have dismissed Russian suggestions that the poison gas belonged to rebels as beyond credibility.

“Russia’s allegations fit with a pattern of deflecting blame from the (Syrian) regime and attempting to undermine the credibility of its opponents,” a White House official said.

The United States, Britain and France have proposed a revised draft resolution to the 15-member U.N. Security Council that is similar to a text they circulated last week pushing Syria’s government to cooperate with investigators, diplomats said.

TURNING POINT

The secretary of state’s role as messenger for a united G7 position is a turning point for Trump, who in the past alarmed allies by voicing scepticism about the value of U.S. support for traditional friends, while calling for closer ties with Moscow.

Tillerson is a former boss of oil company Exxon Mobil which has gigantic projects in Russia. He was awarded Russia’s “Order of Friendship” by Putin in 2013.

He is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday. The Kremlin has said Tillerson has no meeting scheduled with Putin this trip, although some Russian media have reported such a meeting may nevertheless take place.

On Monday, Trump reached out to traditional NATO allies, discussing Syria by telephone with British Prime Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“I think we have to show a united position and that in these negotiations we should do all we can to get Russia out of Assad’s corner,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said.

Britain floated the idea of tightening sanctions on Russia, initially imposed in 2014 over its annexation of territory from Ukraine, although no such step was agreed at the G7 meeting. France said it was not discussed in depth.

Western countries have been calling for Assad to leave power since 2011, the start of a civil war that has killed at least 400,000 people and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

Assad’s position on the battlefield became far stronger after Russia joined the war to support him in 2015. The United States and its allies are conducting air strikes in Syria against Islamic State, but until last week Washington had avoided targeting forces of Assad’s government directly.

ADDITIONAL STRIKES

The United States said its strike on the Syrian airbase near Homs on Friday was a one-off and not a strategic shift. But the White House has also said Trump could authorize more strikes if Syria uses chemical weapons again.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer suggested on Monday a lower bar for further U.S. action, saying Washington could also retaliate if Syria uses “barrel bombs” – oil drums packed with explosives dropped from aircraft.

“When you watch babies and children being gassed, and suffer under barrel bombs, you are instantaneously moved to action,” he said. “I think this president’s made it very clear that if those actions were to continue, further action will definitely be considered by the United States.”

Retaliating for barrel bombs would require a major shift in U.S. policy since rebels say the weapons are used almost daily.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said Syrian warplanes dropped barrel bombs on rebel-held areas of Hama province on Tuesday.

Syria has always denied using barrel bombs, though their use has been widely recorded by U.N. investigators. A source in the Syrian military denied it used them on Tuesday.

The U.S. missile strike increased expectations that Trump would adopt a tougher stance with respect to Russia, and engage more actively in world affairs instead of following the more isolationist position associated with some of his advisers.

Until the chemical attack, Trump had said Washington would no longer act as the world’s guardian, especially if it was not in the interests of the United States.

Trump’s previous warm words for Russia were an issue at home, where intelligence agencies accuse Moscow of using computer hacking to help him win last year’s presidential election. The FBI is investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded with Moscow, which the White House denies.

On Monday, Tillerson visited the site of a World War Two Nazi massacre in Italy and said Washington would never let such abuses go unchallenged.

“We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” Tillerson told reporters in Sant’Anna di Stazzema.

(writing by Peter Graff, editing by Peter Millership and Tom Heneghan)