Tag Archives: War

Iraqi forces to deploy new tactics in Mosul, civilians flee city

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Angus MacSwan

MOSUL, Iraq/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces are to deploy new tactics in a fresh push against Islamic State in Mosul, military officials said on Friday, after advances slowed recently in the campaign to drive the militants out of their last stronghold in the country.

Elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) forces made some advances against the jihadists in areas of western Mosul later in the day, a defense spokesman said, despite a hold on operations by other units.

Families meanwhile streamed out of the northern Iraqi city in an ongoing exodus of people fleeing in their thousands each day, headed for cold, crowded camps or to stay with relatives.

The U.S.-backed offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, now in its sixth month, has recaptured most of the city. The entire eastern side and around half of the west is under Iraqi control.

But advances have stuttered in the last two weeks as fighting enters the narrow-alleyed Old City, and the militants put up fierce resistance using car bombs, snipers and mortar fire against forces and residents.

“In the next few days we will surprise Daesh terrorists by targeting and eliminating them using new plans” being discussed by the joint operations command, Iraqi defense ministry spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told state TV.

He did not elaborate on tactics.

Rasool said CTS forces had advanced in tough, building-to-building battles to recapture areas outside the Old City including al-Yabsat.

Islamic State fighters had been positioning car bombs, and forcing residents to move furniture onto the streets which the militants were booby-trapping to slow Iraqi advances, he said.

Reuters could not independently verify new advances by the CTS.

In the Old City, which Iraq’s elite Rapid Response forces, an interior ministry unit, and Federal Police have pushed into, no new advances were reported.

Rapid Response spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammedawi said operations were on hold for the day, but would soon resume, with “new techniques” more suitable to fighting in the Old City.

A Federal Police officer told Reuters new tactics would include deploying additional sniper units against Islamic State sharpshooters. The officer asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of discussing military tactics.

Islamic State fighters have stationed themselves in homes belonging to Mosul residents to fire at Iraqi troops, often drawing air or artillery strikes that have killed civilians.

SNIPER DANGER

They have also launched counter-attacks, sometimes pinning down Iraqi forces on the southern edges of the Old City. Cloud cover and rain in recent weeks have prevented effective air support, military officials say.

One of the next targets of Iraqi forces inside the Old City is the al-Nuri mosque, whose recapture would be a key symbolic victory. It is where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

As the battle continues, more civilians are being killed or displaced.

Local officials and residents said on Thursday dozens of people were buried in collapsed buildings after an air raid against Islamic State triggered a massive explosion last week.

Outside the city on Friday, hundreds of displaced people poured out of Mosul, walking through the mud with suitcases and bags.

One man said that Islamic State snipers had shot at those fleeing, and some had been killed in explosions.

The situation inside the city is worsening with no drinking water or electricity and no food coming in, residents said.

Khaled Khalil, a 36-year-old carpenter whose shop was destroyed in fighting, clutched his three-year-old daughter.

“We’ve been on the move since yesterday. We’re very tired but now we’re safe. Anybody they (Islamic State) catch, they kill. If we have time, we run,” he said.

(Reporting by Baghdad bureau, Angus MacSwan in Mosul, John Davison in Erbil; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Ukraine sees Russian hand in ammo warehouse blasts

Flames shoot into the sky from a warehouse storing tank ammunition at a military base in the town of Balaklia (Balakleya), Kharkiv region, Ukraine, March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Alexander Sadovoy

By Pavel Polityuk

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine suspects the Russian military or its separatist rebel proxies were responsible for blowing up a warehouse storing tank ammunition at an eastern military base early on Thursday morning, Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak said.

Fire and explosions caused the detonation of ammunition in several sites at the base, possibly set off by a drone attack or a radio or timed device, Poltorak told a press conference.

Nobody was hurt but around 20,000 people have been evacuated from the surrounding area in the eastern Kharkiv region. Firefighters have struggled to douse the flames and explosions at the site continue, sending clouds of thick grey smoke into the sky.

“We have a ‘friendly’ country – the Russian Federation,” Poltorak said. “I think that first of all it could be representatives who help the (separatist) groups that carry out combat missions,” he said.

Ukraine did not provide evidence of Russian or rebel involvement. The Russian military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The base, which held about 138,000 tonnes of ammunition, is located in the city of Balaklia, about 100 km (60 miles) from the frontline of Ukraine’s war against Russian-backed separatists.

The warehouse was guarded by around 1,000 people, some of whom heard the sound of an aircraft just before the explosions.

Military spokesman Oleksander Motuzyanyk said security around other bases was being beefed up. Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman was due to fly to the area.

A third of the base is still burning and the airspace above it was closed off, Poltorak said, adding that the attack would not significantly affect Ukraine’s military capacity.

Saboteurs previously tried to destroy the same base using drones in 2015, another military spokesman, Yuzef Venskovich, told the 112 TV channel.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict between Ukraine and the separatist rebels since 2014, and a ceasefire agreed in Minsk in 2015 is routinely violated.

Russia has repeatedly denied sending troops or military equipment to eastern Ukraine.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Matthias Williams)

‘Worst is yet to come’ with 400,000 trapped in west Mosul: U.N.

A displaced Iraqi family flees from clashes during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq March 21, 2017. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

By Stephanie Nebehay and Patrick Markey

GENEVA/MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – About 400,000 Iraqi civilians are trapped in the Islamic State-held Old City of western Mosul, short of food and basic needs as the battle between the militants and government forces rages around them, the United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday.

Many fear fleeing because of Islamic State snipers and landmines. But 157,000 have reached a reception and transit center outside Mosul since the government offensive on the city’s west side began a month ago, said Bruno Geddo, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Iraq.

“The worst is yet to come. Because 400,000 people trapped in the Old City in that situation of panic and penury may inevitably lead to the cork-popping somewhere, sometime, presenting us with a fresh outflow of large-scale proportions,” he said.

Fighting in the past week has focused on the Old City, with government forces reaching as close as 500 meters to the al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014.

The hardline militants are now on the back foot, with their stronghold in Syria also under attack. But they still hold an estimated 40 percent of western Mosul and the campaign to recapture it could yet take weeks.

The government halted offensive operations on Thursday morning due to cloudy weather, which makes it difficult to bring in air support. Later, Federal Police reinforcements moved toward the Old City and the troops were preparing to storm the area and retake the mosque, a police spokesman said.

“Dozens of Daesh (IS) snipers are still positioned on rooftops of the Old City high buildings, posing a threat to our soldiers,” he said.

“We are waiting for the weather to improve so air strikes can compromise Daesh snipers and pave the way for the imminent advance and minimize casualties among our troops.”

A police sergeant named Mohamed, sheltering in an empty villa about 300 meters from the line as sporadic mortar and sniper fire came for IS positions, said: “They are using everything against now”.

Waleed, a displaced man from a district on the edge of the Old City, joined other mud-splattered families being loaded on to trucks for transport to camps.

“Everyone is hungry, there is no food and people are starving. We left last night when the army opened a way for us,” he told Reuters.

COLD NIGHTS, LITTLE FOOD

The UNHCR’s Geddo, speaking at Hamman al-Alil 20km (15 miles) south of Mosul, said the number of civilians streaming out was increasing and an average 8,000-12,000 per day had reached the displaced persons facility.

“We also heard stories of people running away under the cover of early morning fog, running away at night, of trying to run away at prayer time when the vigilance at ISIS checkpoints is lower,” he said, in remarks made public from Geneva.

Food, fuel and electricity are scarce in the Old City.

“People have started to burn furniture, old clothes, plastic, anything they can burn to keep warm at night, because it is still raining heavily and the temperatures at night in particular drop significantly,” Geddo said, adding that more people could be expected to flee.

“The more you go without food, the more you become panicked and the more you want to run away. At the same time it (the outflow) is increasing because the security forces are advancing and therefore more people are in a position to run away where the risk is likely more mitigated.”

The battle for Mosul, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, is now in its sixth month with Iraq forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition, air strikes and advisers now controlling the east side and more than half of the west.

Baghdadi and other IS leaders are believed to have left the city, but IS fighters are resisting with snipers hiding among the population, and using car bombs and suicide trucks to smash into Iraqi positions. U.S. officials estimate around 2,000 fighters remain inside the city.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and; Patrick Markey in Mosul,; Additional reporting by Angus MacSwan in Erbil and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Editing by Ed Osmond)

Fierce clashes persist in Syria ahead of renewed peace talks

People walk at the Abbasiyin area in the east of the capital Damascus, in this handout picture provided by SANA on March 21, 2017, Syria. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Jihadists and other rebel groups made advances against the Syrian army north of Hama on Thursday, a war monitor said, part of their biggest offensive for months, underscoring the bleak prospects for peace talks which resume later in the day.

Since the Hama offensive began late on Tuesday, the rebels have captured about 40 positions from the army including at least 11 villages and towns, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said.

A Syrian military source acknowledged that insurgents had launched a widescale assault in rural parts of Hama by what the source called a large number of terrorists, but said the attack had been contained.

The assault coincides with clashes in the capital Damascus, where rebels and the army are fighting on the edge of the city center in the Jobar district for a fifth day amid heavy bombardment, state media and the war monitor reported.

It seems unlikely to reverse 18 months of steady military gains by the government, culminating in December’s capture of the rebel enclave in Aleppo, but it has shown the army’s difficulty in defending many fronts simultaneously.

Increased fighting, despite a ceasefire brokered in December by Russia and Turkey, casts further doubt on peacemaking efforts in Geneva, where talks resume on Thursday after making no progress towards peace in recent rounds.

“We hope to see some serious partner on the other side of the table,” Salem al-Muslet, spokesman for the opposition’s High Negotiating Committee (HNC), said in Geneva.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi’ite militias, is attending the Geneva talks. Both sides accuse each other of violating the ceasefire.

Near Hama, rebels spearheaded by the jihadist Tahrir al-Sham alliance, but including groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, made new advances overnight and fighting continued on Thursday, the Observatory said.

By Thursday lunchtime they had defeated army forces in about 40 towns, villages and checkpoints, north of Hama, having advanced to within a few kilometers of the city and its military airbase, it said. In one area, the rebels took the village of Shaizer, nearly encircling the army-held town of Moharada.

HAMA AND DAMASCUS

On Wednesday, the Syrian military source said reinforcements were headed to the Hama front.

Tahrir al-Sham’s strongest faction is the former Nusra Front group, al Qaeda’s official affiliate in Syria until they broke formal ties last year.

One of the villages involved in the fighting is inhabited mainly by Christians.

The United States, which has supported some FSA groups during the war along with Turkey and Gulf monarchies, has carried out air strikes targeting Tahrir al-Sham leaders since January.

Samer Alaiwi, an official from the Jaish al-Nasr FSA group, which is fighting near Hama, said on a rebel social media feed that the offensive was aimed at relieving pressure on rebels elsewhere and stopping warplanes from using a nearby airbase.

“After the failure of political conferences and solutions, the military operation is an urgent necessity,” he said.

In Damascus, the intensity of clashes around the industrial zone in Jobar increased after midnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

A military media unit run by the government’s ally Hezbollah reported clashes on Thursday in Jobar and heavy bombardment aimed at rebel positions and movement in the area.

State TV showed a reporter speaking in the capital’s Abassiyin district at morning rush hour, but the road appeared quiet with only one or two cars and a few pedestrians, and with the repeated sound of blasts in the background.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall and Tom Perry; Additional reporting by Issam Abdallah in Geneva; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Yemen orphanage braves nearby air strikes

Boys play football in the yard of The al-Shawkani Foundation for Orphans Care in Sanaa, Yemen, January 24, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

By Khaled Abdullah

SANAA (Reuters) – After two years of war, orphans in the Yemeni capital Sanaa have only one dream – to survive.

The al-Shawkani Foundation for Orphan Care is located around 100 meters (yards) from the al-Nahdain mountain, widely believed to be an arms depot that has been repeatedly bombarded by Saudi-led coalition’s fighter jets.

Bombardment of the explosive-laden peak send huge mushroom clouds erupting into Sanaa’s skies and shake the whole city.

As the war rages on, the orphans suffer through a constant state of fear and trauma.

“We were scared, and every time we hear the plane’s noise, they (orphanage staff) would rush us quickly to the basement fearing for our safety,” said Mousa Saleh Munassar, 14.

“Many of my friends have left the orphanage and returned to their relatives,” he added. “I expect strikes nearby at any time.”

Mousa once dreamt of becoming a doctor, but describes the only dream he and his friends now share: “We want the war to calm down for us to see security and stability come back.”

Orphanage director Muhammad al-Qadhi says it relies on the generosity of private donors and charity groups.

But the war has devastated the economy and unleashed a humanitarian crisis, depleting savings and public resources.

“We are going through a pressing need for aid for these orphans amid the scarcity of resources that used to provide for them due to the ongoing war,” he said.

The foundation used to host around 350 orphans before the conflict began. Now only around one-third remain after most left for the relative safety of living with family members in the countryside.

Yemen’s conflict pits the Iran-allied Houthi movement and elements of the military against the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Saudi-led air strikes have repeatedly hit hospitals, homes and markets, but the kingdom denies targeting civilians.

Largely stalemated in nationwide battlefronts, the war has plunged millions into poverty, displaced millions of others and killed more than 10,000 people.

Children have born the brunt of the country’s collapse.

According to UNICEF, one child dies in Yemen every ten minutes from preventable diseases including malnutrition, respiratory infections and diarrhea.

Nine-year-old Abdulaziz Badr al-Faisari of the orphanage said he and his fellow orphans were terrified when bombs shake the whole building, but appeared resigned to his fate.

“We have had nowhere to flee.”

(Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Syrian rebels launch second Damascus attack in three days

A view shows an empty street near the Abbasiyin area in the east of the capital Damascus, in this handout picture provided by SANA on March 20, 2017, Syria. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels stormed a government-held area in northeastern Damascus on Tuesday for the second time in three days, sources on both sides said, pressing the boldest assault on the capital by opposition fighters in several years.

The spokesman for one of the main insurgent groups involved in the attack told Reuters the new offensive began at 5.00 a.m., targeting an area rebel fighters had seized from government control on Sunday before being forced to retreat.

A Syrian military source told Reuters rebel fighters had entered the area, setting off a car bomb at the start of the attack. The source said a group of rebels that had entered the area had been encircled and were “being dealt with”.

The rebel groups have launched the assault from their Eastern Ghouta stronghold to the east of the capital. Government forces have escalated military operations against Eastern Ghouta in recent weeks, seeking to tighten a siege on the area. The rebel assault aims partly to relieve that pressure.

The fighting has focused around the Abassiyin area of the northeastern Jobar district, some 2 km east of the Old City walls, at a major road junction leading into the capital.

A witness near the area heard explosions from around 5.00 a.m., followed by clashes and the sound of warplanes overhead.

Wael Alwan, the spokesman of rebel group Failaq al Rahman, told Reuters: “We launched the new offensive and we restored all the points we withdrew from on Monday. We have fire control over the Abassiyin garages and began storming it.”

The Syrian military source said: “They entered a narrow pocket – the same area of the (previous) breach – and now this group is being dealt with.”

BOMBARDMENT

The government says the attack is being carried out by fighters of the Nusra Front, a jihadist group that was al Qaeda’s official affiliate in the Syrian war until it declared they had broken off ties last year. The Nusra Front is now part of an Islamist alliance called Tahrir al-Sham.

The intensity of the Syrian army’s counterattack had forced the rebels to retreat from most of the areas they captured in the first attack.

The rebels have lost ground in the nearby areas of Qaboun and Barza.

A rebel commander said the Syrian army was intensifying its shelling on areas they had advanced in Jobar and towns across Eastern Ghouta.

“The bombardment is on all fronts … there is no place that has not been hit … the regime has burnt the area by planes and missiles,” said Abu Abdo a field commander from Failaq al Rahman brigade.

The Syrian government appears to be employing the same strategy it has used to force effective surrender deals on rebels elsewhere around the capital through escalated bombardment and siege tactics.

Rebel fighters have been granted safe passage to insurgent-held areas of northern Syria under such agreements.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said at least 143 air raids were conducted by the Syrian army on rebel held eastern parts of Damascus, mostly targeting Jobar, since the rebels launched their offensive.

President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian army, along with allied Russian, Iranian and Shi’ite militia forces, have the upper hand in the war for western Syria, with a steady succession of military victories over the past 18 months.

For rebels, however, their first such large scale foray in over four years inside the capital has shown they are still able to wage offensive actions despite their string of defeats.

(Reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Tom Perry and Alison Williams)

Iraqi forces try to bring civilians out of east Mosul, U.S. pledges more support

A wounded displaced Iraqi girl and her family who had fled their homes wait to enter Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq March 21, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Patrick Markey

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces attempted to evacuate civilians from Mosul’s Islamic State-held Old City on Tuesday so that troops could clear the area, but militant snipers hampered the effort, Iraqi officers said.

They said the insurgents were also using civilians as human shields as government units edged toward the al-Nuri Mosque, the focus of recent fighting in the five-month-long campaign to crush Islamic State in the city that was once the de facto capital of their self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate.

As many as 600,000 civilians remain in the western sector of Mosul, complicating a battle being fought with artillery and air strikes as well as ground combat. Thousands have escaped in recent days.

“Our forces control around 60 percent of the west now,” Defence Ministry spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told a news conference in eastern Mosul. “It’s the Old City now with small streets and it’s a hard fight with civilians inside. We are trying to evacuate them.

“We are a few hundred meters from the mosque now, we are advancing on al-Nuri. We know it means a lot to Daesh,” he said, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.

The capture of the mosque would be a huge symbolic prize as well as strategic gain for the government as it was there where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al—Baghdadi declared the caliphate in July 2014 after the militants had captured large areas of Iraq and Syria.

Government forces backed by a U.S.-led international coalition retook several cities last year, liberated eastern Mosul in December, and are now closing in on the west, but the militants are putting up fierce resistance from the close-packed houses and narrow streets.

Baghdadi and other leaders have fled the city for the hinterlands, where Islamic State remnants may regroup and wage a new phase of insurgency. At the same time, IS forces in the Syrian city of Raqqa are under attack in a parallel conflict.

Brigadier General Saad Maan said soldiers had killed nine IS snipers on Tuesday and destroyed a bomb factory.

“There are lots of snipers on top of the buildings in the Old City around the al-Nuri Mosque. We need to evacuate the families from inside as they using them as a shield when we are advancing on the mosque,” he told the news conference.

No precise toll of civilian casualties has been given but a prominent Iraqi politician said last week that the number could be as high as 3,500 dead since the attack on western Mosul started in mid-February.

An emergency field hospital set up by the U.S. medical charity Samaritan’s Purse says it has treated more than 1,000 patients, many of them women and children, since January. They suffered wounds from gunfire, land mines, mortar rounds, car bombings and booby-traps.

Reporters at the frontline on Tuesday said clashes took place around the railway station in some areas troops had held a few days earlier. Troops fired rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-guns at militants around the station as families ran across streets to avoid snipers

“We sitting inside our house and bullets were coming through our door” said one woman fleeing to government lines.

U.S. SUPPORT TO INCREASE

Saad Maan also said the bodies of a colonel and two other officers who had gone missing during the battle had been found. The colonel had been shot. But he said the men had not been captured by the insurgents.

An Interior Ministry official told Reuters on Monday that the insurgents had captured a police colonel and eight other officers after they ran out of ammunition during a skirmish. But a Rapid Response units spokesman denied this when asked for comment on Monday night.

The issue is sensitive as Islamic State have a record of torturing, mutilating and killing military and civilian captives, and such an incident could be a blow to troops’ morale.

The number of displaced people from both sides of Mosul since the start of the offensive has reached 355,000, according to government figures. Some 181,000 had poured out of western Mosul since the start of the operations to retake that side.

In Washington, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he had won assurances of greater U.S. support in the war in talks on Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump. But Abadi cautioned that military might alone would not be sufficient.

He told a forum in Washington after his meeting with Trump that he had been told U.S. “support will not only continue but will accelerate.”

“But of course we have to be careful here,” he said. “We are not talking about military confrontation as such. Committing troops is one thing, while fighting terrorism is another thing.”

Abadi, who leads the Shi’ite majority government in Baghdad, said it would be crucial to win over the local population in Sunni-dominated Mosul to achieve lasting peace.

He is in Washington this week ahead of a gathering of world leaders of the coalition fighting Islamic State, who as well as waging war in Iraq and Syria have inspired attacks on civilian targets in Europe, Africa and elsewhere that have killed hundreds of people.

Click http://tmsnrt.rs/2mZWV4j for graphic on Battle for Mosul

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Syrian rebels, civilians begin leaving Homs district in deal with government

Syrian army soldiers (back L) and Russian soldiers (back R) monitor as rebel fighters and their families evacuate the besieged Waer district in the central Syrian city of Homs, after an agreement was reached between rebels and Syria's army, March 18, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

By Ellen Francis

HOMS, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Rebels and their families began leaving their last bastion in the Syrian city of Homs on Saturday, state media and a Reuters witness said, under a Russian-backed deal with the government expected to be among the largest evacuations of its kind.

The agreement underlines Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s upper hand in the war, as more rebel fighters opt to leave areas they have defended for years in deals that amount to negotiated withdrawals to other parts of the country.

Several buses drove out of the al-Waer district in Homs, which was an early center of the popular uprising against Assad.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 rebels and civilians would evacuate in batches over the coming weeks under the deal, according to opposition activists in al-Waer and a war monitor.

Homs governor Talal Barazi told Reuters that he expected 1,500 people, including at least 400 fighters, to depart on Saturday for rebel-held areas northeast of Aleppo, and that most of al-Waer’s residents would stay.

“The preparations and the reality on the ground indicate that things will go well,” Barazi said.

The Syrian government has described such deals as a “workable model” that brings the country closer to peace after six years of conflict. But the opposition decries them as a tactic of forcibly displacing people who oppose Assad after years of bombardment and siege.

Along with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), Russian and Syrian forces were overseeing the evacuation, which would take about six weeks, Barazi said.

FULL EXIT

He said there was communication with other rebel-held areas north of Homs city to reach similar deals, including the towns of al-Rastan and Talbiseh.

“We are optimistic that the full exit of armed (fighters) from this district will pave the way for other reconciliations and settlements,” he said.

The government has increasingly tried to press besieged rebel areas to surrender and accept what it calls reconciliation agreements.

In an interview with Chinese TV station Phoenix last week, Assad said deals brokered locally with rebels were “the real political solutions”. He added that he had not expected anything from Geneva, where U.N.-led peace talks ended this month with no breakthrough.

Broadcasting live from the al-Waer departure area, Syrian state television spoke to a Russian colonel, who said via an interpreter that security would soon return to the district.

“This agreement was reached only under the patronage of the Russian side … and it will be implemented with Russian guarantees,” he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the buses would go to the Jarablus area held by Turkey-backed rebels in the northern Aleppo countryside.

Once completed, it would mark the biggest evacuation during the war out of one Syrian district, which is home to about 40,000 civilians and more than 2,500 fighters, the monitoring group said.

“It’s because there is zero trust in Assad’s government. That’s why the numbers are high,” said the head of the Homs Media Center, run by opposition activists. “For years, it has besieged us…and bombed people’s homes.”

Many did not want to stay out of fear of arrest, and around 15,000 people had signed up to evacuate so far, he said.

“People are going to live in tents, in refugee camps,” the activist said, adding that he also planned to leave in the coming weeks. “They are willing to leave their homes, their land, towards the unknown.”

ON THE BACK FOOT

Dozens of buses stood at a crossing in the morning waiting to leave al-Waer, accompanied by SARC ambulances, a Reuters witness said.

Police officers searched people before the buses drove out, the Homs police chief told Syrian state television.

In the coming weeks, evacuees could be shuttled to other rebel-held areas in northern Syria, including the insurgent stronghold of Idlib province, state TV said.

Under the agreement, fighters could stay in al-Waer if they hand over their weapons and settle their affairs with the government, it said.

State-owned al-Ikhbariya TV cited the Homs governor as saying that 20 buses had left so far and that rebels carried their small arms out with them.

The government would start returning its services to the district with the departure of the last batch of rebels, Barazi said. Allegations of an evacuation of al-Waer’s residents were “devoid of truth”, the channel quoted Barazi as saying.

The deal follows others that were never fully implemented between the government and rebel groups in al-Waer, which has been pounded by air strikes in recent weeks.

A few hundred rebels from the district have previously been allowed safe passage to Idlib in the northwest.

Rebels and civilians have poured into Idlib at an accelerating rate over the last year, bussed out of other parts of western Syria that the government and allied forces recaptured from rebels.

Rebel groups have been on the back foot in Syria, following Russia’s intervention into the war on Assad’s side, bringing its air power to bear in support of his army and its Iranian and Shi’ite militia allies.

The wide array of mostly Sunni rebel factions includes some jihadists as well as some groups supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut; Additional reporting by Marwan Makdisi in Homs; Editing by Dale Hudson and Stephen Powell)

South Sudan government to blame for famine, still buying arms: U.N. report

Women and children wait to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan, February 26, 2017. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – South Sudan’s government is mainly to blame for famine in parts of the war-torn country, yet President Salva Kiir is still boosting his forces using millions of dollars from oil sales, according to a confidential United Nations report.

U.N. sanctions monitors said 97 percent of South Sudan’s known revenue comes from oil sales, a significant portion of which is now forward oil sales, and that at least half of the budget – “likely substantially more” – is devoted to security.

“Revenue from forward oil sales totaled approximately $243 million between late March and late October 2016,” the panel of U.N. monitors said in the report to the U.N. Security Council, seen by Reuters on Thursday.

“Despite the scale and scope of the political, humanitarian, and economic crises, the panel continues to uncover evidence of the ongoing procurement of weapons by the … Government for the SPLA (South Sudanese army), the National Security Service, and other associated forces and militias,” the report said.

The United Nations has declared a famine in some parts of the world’s youngest country, where nearly half its population – some 5.5 million people – face food shortages. A civil war erupted in 2013 when Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, fired his deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, who has fled and is now in South Africa.

“The bulk of evidence suggests that the famine … has resulted from protracted conflict and, in particular, the cumulative toll of military operations undertaken by the SPLM/A in Government in southern Unity state; denial of humanitarian access, primarily by the SPLM/A in Government; and population displacement resulting from the war,” the report said.

The United Nations says at least one quarter of South Sudanese have been displaced since 2013.

‘NOT CORRECT’

South Sudan’s government rejected the report on Friday.

“We have not bought arms for the last of two to three years,” government spokesman Michael Makuei Lueth told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

“We have rights to buy arms for self-protection or self-defense … So this idea of the U.N. saying the government of South Sudan doesn’t care about its people and they are fan of buying arms all the time is not correct,” he said.

The annual report of the sanctions monitors to the 15-member Security Council comes ahead of a ministerial meeting of the body on South Sudan next Thursday, which is due to be chaired by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

While the previous U.S. administration of President Barack Obama was heavily involved in the birth of South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, and led Security Council efforts to try to end the civil war, the policy of new U.S. President Donald Trump toward the African state is unclear.

In December, the Security Council failed to adopt a U.S.-drafted resolution to impose an arms embargo and further sanctions on South Sudan despite warnings by U.N. officials of a possible genocide. The U.N. monitors again recommended in their report that the council impose an arms embargo on South Sudan.

The Security Council set up a targeted sanctions regime for South Sudan in March 2015 and has blacklisted six generals – three from each side of the conflict – by subjecting them to an asset freeze and travel ban.

The U.N. monitors said all parties to the conflict continue to commit widespread human rights violations “with near complete impunity and a lack of any credible effort to prevent these violations or to punish the perpetrators.”

U.N. peacekeepers have been in South Sudan since 2011.

(Additional reporting by Denis Dumo in Juba; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Need to avoid civilian deaths weighs on minds of U.S. forces in Mosul battle

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 18, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Angus MacSwan

QAYYARA WEST AIRFIELD, Iraq (Reuters) – As the battle for Mosul moves to the narrow streets and densely packed houses of the Old City, U.S. artillery gunners and helicopter pilots supporting Iraqi forces face an age-old problem – how to avoid killing civilians.

They place their faith in precision missiles which can hit their target with great accuracy. But human instinct also comes into play against an Islamic State enemy which has used civilians as human shields and hides in houses and mosques.

“Our mission is to find and destroy ISIS. We are not here to kill the wrong people,” said Captain Lucas Gebhart, commander of the 4/6th Cavalry’s Bravo Troop of Apache attack helicopters.

The troop is based at this airfield about 60 kms south of Mosul, as is a rocket battery which fires into west Mosul.

A major site at the height of the U.S. occupation, Islamic State captured Qayyara from Iraqi government forces in 2014 and destroyed it. The Iraqis retook it in July last year, and now the U.S. Army is building it up again as a support base for the Mosul operation.

Gebhart, who wore a U.S. Cavalry hat with a crossed-sabre insignia along with his regular uniform, has been here since December. The troop flies close support for the Iraqi army and escorts medical evacuations. It has had more than 200 engagements with Islamic State fighters in that time, he said.

“We fly every day, weather permitting. We are firing missiles most of the time,” Gebhart told reporters.

The Iraqi army started its offensive on Mosul, Islamic State’s last stronghold in Iraq, in October and retook the east side of the city, bisected by the Tigris river, in January. The west, including the Old City, is much harder going.

“The west side is very congested and it will present new challenges for us. We realize the need to be careful as we go forward,” Gebhart said.

One of those challenges is avoiding civilian casualties in a conflict where fighters are mixed in among the population and sometimes hiding behind them.

“Everyone that flies with me are fathers and husbands, so we are very deliberate to avoid casualties we don’t want. We use guided missiles. The things we shoot from an Apache, they go where we want them to go,” Gebhart said.

Targets are identified and approved by the Iraqi army. But circumstances can change in a moment.

“I have personal experience of human shields. I engaged a target and they pulled a family of women and children out of a house. The missile was already in the air but I was able to move it,” he said.

“You’ve got a little bit of time. If something happens post-missile release, we have procedures to move it.”

Gebhart, aged 32, joined the military as a teenager after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. He served in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq in 2003 before going to West Point and becoming a cavalry officer. He also served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

“I love my job. I don’t lose sleep over it,” he said.

WE LOVE TO FIRE

In another section of the base, the 18th Field Artillery “Odin” battery operates a High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), fired off the back of trucks.

On Friday afternoon, the battery fired 10 rockets, each worth about $100,000, in the space of about 20 minutes. They headed skywards in a cloud of white smoke and a flash of fire as a Bob Marley song played from a platoon tent. They would reach their target in east Mosul in about a minute.

Lieutenant Mary Floyd explained that the rockets were GPS-guided. All fire missions were approved by senior officers at the Combined Joint Operations Center and the coordinates were sent to the battery through computers.

“The rockets go really high so we have to clear airspace -– civilian and military -– along the flight path. We have had to end missions because they saw aviation,” she said.

Although rockets are often aimed at targets in built-up, populated areas, the battery was confident they would hit what they intended. If the rockets are off target, they do not detonate, she said.

“They have very, very low collateral damage, so we like to use them a lot,” Floyd said, using the military term for civilian casualties. “When the rockets hit they land at near a vertical angle. That really confines the blast to one house.”

The battery has fired hundreds of rockets since deploying to Qayyara, she said.

“The tempo changes. We’ll go a couple of days without orders. Then we might be firing all night.”

The issue of civilian casualties has dogged the U.S. military during its long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from shootings at check-points to drone bombings. In the battle for Mosul, Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition war planes have also been pounding parts of the city.

Figures of such casualties are hard to come by. Washington has stressed its forces take every effort to avoid them.

On Tuesday, a prominent Iraqi politician and businessman, Khamis Khanjar, said at least 3,500 civilians have been killed in west Mosul since the offensive closed in on it.

The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that up to March 4, it had assessed that “more likely than not”, at least 220 civilians had been unintentionally killed by coalition strikes since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve.

While the men and women of Odin battery were fully aware of the risk, they believe in their work.

“We love to fire. It makes me very happy,” Floyd said. “At night it is very beautiful.”

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)