Tag Archives: War

Iraqi troops seize main bridge, advance on mosque in battle for Mosul

Members of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) sit in a military vehicle during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, in the city of Mosul, Iraq March 15, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Patrick Markey and John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces battling Islamic State for Mosul took control of a main bridge over the Tigris river on Wednesday and advanced towards the mosque where the group’s leader declared a caliphate in 2014, federal police said.

The seizure of the Iron Bridge, linking eastern Mosul with the militant-held Old City on the west side, means the government holds three of the five bridges over the Tigris and bolsters Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s assertion that the battle is reaching its final stages.

The bridge, which was damaged in fighting late last year, was captured by federal police and Interior Ministry Rapid Response units, a police statement said.

The gains were made in heavy fighting in which troops fought street-by-street against an enemy using suicide car bombs, mortar and sniper fire, and grenade-dropping drones to defend what was once their main stronghold.

“Our troops are making a steady advance … and we are now less than 800 meters from the mosque,” a federal police spokesman said.

Losing the city would be a huge blow to Islamic State as it has served as the group’s de facto capital since its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself head of a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria from the Nuri Mosque in July 2014.

The capture of the mosque would thus be a huge symbolic victory as well as a concrete gain. But many hard days of fighting could still lie ahead as government forces try to make headway in the streets and narrow alleyways of the Old City.

Islamic State fighters have booby-trapped houses, and government forces will also be fighting amongst civilians, ruling out the extensive use of air and artillery support.

Heavy fighting was also reported on Wednesday around the Mosul museum by journalists and combatants. An Islamic State suicide car bomb exploded near the museum. Helicopters strafed the ground with machinegun fire and missiles.

DECISIVE STAGE

The intense combat marked a decisive stage in the battle for Mosul which started on Oct. 17 last year, and in the wider struggle against Islamic State.

In neighboring Syria, three separate forces are advancing on the city of Raqqa, the main Syrian city under Islamic State control.

As well as waging jihad in Iraq and Syria, the militants have inspired attacks in cities in Europe, Africa and elsewhere that have killed hundreds of civilians.

In Baghdad, Abadi said: “Daesh (Islamic State) become day after day surrounded inside a tight area and they are in their final days.”

In a news conference on Tuesday night, he warned the insurgents that they must surrender or face death.

“We will preserve families of Daesh who are civilians but we will punish the terrorists and bring them to justice if they surrender,” he said. “They are cornered and if they will not surrender. They will definitely get killed.”Iraqi officers said cloudy weather hampered air cover on Wednesday morning. Police commander Younes Jabouri said troops were moving forward but it was not easy because of the weather.

“We’re on the edge of the Old City. There are lots of shops, garages and markets and a lot of residents and small streets and alleyways. It takes time because there are a lot of civilians and Daesh uses them as human shields, they don’t let them leave,” he said.

Residents have streamed out of western neighborhoods recaptured by the government, many desperately hungry and traumatized by living under Islamic State’s harsh rule.

Haider Ibrahim Rohawi, a market trader, was fleeing Lagedat district with his family, pushing his possessions in a handcart.

“Yesterday afternoon the army came. Just a day before Daesh were in our houses with us. There was a lot of fighting. They shot one of the Daesh right in front of me. Everyone is threatened by Daesh, that’s why we leave. The area is freed. We have no power, no fuel, nothing.”

As many as 600,000 civilians are still trapped with the militants inside Mosul. The Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday that in recent days, almost 13,000 displaced people from western Mosul had been given assistance and temporary accommodation each day, adding to the 200,000 already displaced.

Staff Brigadier Falah al-Obeidi of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) told Reuters his troops on Wednesday took control over the Dor al-Sikak and al-Nafut areas, site of the militants’ main weapons stores in Mosul just west of the Old City.

“Yesterday resistance was very strong in that area. It’s where their stores are, and the people living there, both men and women, are with them (supporters or members),” he said.

Aerial surveillance photos showed women carrying guns, Obeidi said.

CTS troops also brought in a Russian-made missile and two warheads. They had found 40 more such missiles stored in homes in Dor al-Sikak.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil; Editing by Louise Ireland and Dominic Evans)

Syria’s unaccompanied children biggest victims of war: UNICEF

Geert Cappelaere, Unicef regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Beirut, Lebanon March 15, 2017. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Children have suffered the most in Syria’s six-year war, and among them the most vulnerable are those separated from their families, a senior Unicef official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Furthemore, as well as the large number of direct casualties from warfare, many more children have died or suffered from indirect consequences of the crisis including a collapse in healthcare.

“For unaccompanied and separated children the situation is even harsher than for other children, and for children in general it’s already a very, very difficult situation,” said Geert Cappelaere, Unicef regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Unicef, the United Nation’s agency focusing on children, issued a report on Monday on the war in Syria, which began after protests six years ago against President Bashar al-Assad.

In its report, Unicef said it had documented the deaths of 652 children last year, 20 percent more than in 2015. But Cappelaere said that represented only a small proportion of the real number of deaths.

“In 2016 every six hours a child dying or severely injured in Syria … dramatic figures. But these are only the figures we have been able to verify. We do assume that indeed the number of child casualties is really much higher,” he said.

Documenting the real impact of the war is “an impossible task,” he added.

Cappelaere returned on Tuesday from a three-day visit to Damascus, Homs and Aleppo, a city that suffered massive destruction in siege-and-bombardment fighting that culminated late last year when the army overran a last rebel-held pocket.

He was speaking to Reuters in an interview in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, where more than a million Syrians have sought refuge from the war, including many who now live in informal, makeshift camps with few services.

Cappelaere said that in the Jibreen shelter for displaced people in Aleppo on Tuesday, each of the three newly arrived families he spoke to was carrying a child separated from its family – a measure of the extent of the problem.

“Many of these children are also undocumented. They don’t have their paper…. The problem is not only for tracing (their families), but also for registering in the shelter, the problem of registering them in the schools,” he said.

Even more than other children in Syria’s war, those separated from their families are vulnerable to exploitation.

Already about three-quarters of children in Syria are working and there is what Cappelaere called a “very rapid” rise in the number of early marriages, particularly among girls, because families cannot afford to feed and look after them.

However, there are still signs of hope amid the devastation, Cappelaere said.

“We were driving out of Aleppo yesterday – 15 minutes of driving in the midst of rubble – and suddenly we see two, three, four children with their backpacks on the way to school,” he said.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Dozens killed in double suicide attack in Syrian capital

Security personnel stand near a damaged entrance after a suicide blast at the Palace of Justice in Damascus, Syria March 15, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Two suicide bomb attacks killed at least 31 people and wounded dozens more in Damascus on Wednesday, state media reported, in the second such spate of bombings in the Syrian capital in five days.

The first suicide bomber targeted the Palace of Justice, the main courthouse in central Damascus near the Old City. Justice Minister Najem al-Ahmad told reporters the initial death toll was 31, mostly civilians.

The second suicide blast struck a restaurant in the al-Rabweh area of Damascus to the west of the first attack causing several casualties, state media reported.

The courthouse bomber set off his explosive device at 1:20 p.m. (1120 GMT) as the police tried to search him and stop him from entering the building, state television cited the Damascus police chief as saying.

Syrian state television broadcast footage from inside the courthouse showing blood splattered on a floor littered with papers, a shoe and broken tiles and stones. Images from a hospital showed a man in a suit on a stretcher with blood on his clothes.

The explosion hit the courthouse “at a time when the area is crowded” with lawyers, judges and civilians, harming a large number of people, Ahmed al-Sayyid, a senior state legal official told state-run al-Ikhbariya TV.

He later added that 45 people had been wounded. No further details were immediately available.

“RETALIATION”

“The attack came as a retaliation against the latest victories of the Syrian army and the political victories in Geneva and Astana,” Ahmad said, referring to recent peace talks in Switzerland and Kazakhstan.

State media reported that the second bomber had entered the restaurant and detonated the device after having been chased by security forces.

On Saturday scores of people, most of them Iraqi Shi’ite pilgrims, were killed in a double suicide attack in Damascus claimed by an alliance of jihadist groups known as Tahrir al-Sham.

In late February an attack in central Homs killed dozens of people with coordinated shootings and suicide bombs that targeted two security headquarters and led to the death of a senior official.

That attack was also claimed by Tahrir al-Sham, which includes the Fateh al-Sham group that was formerly known as the Nusra Front until it formally broke ties with al Qaeda last year.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut and Kinda Makieh in Damascus; Writing by Tom Perry and Angus McDowall; Editing by Ken Ferris and Gareth Jones)

Ukraine halts all cargo traffic with rebel-held territory

FILE PHOTO: Activists walk along carriages loaded with coal from the occupied territories which they blocked at Kryvyi Torets station in the village of Shcherbivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine, February 14, 2017. REUTERS/Konstantin Chernichkin/File Photo

By Pavel Polityuk and Alexei Kalmykov

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian authorities on Wednesday halted all cargo traffic with rebel-held territory in the east of the country, formalizing an existing rail blockade by Ukrainian activists that has fueled the worst political crisis in nearly a year.

In a standoff that is hurting the economies of both sides, separatists have seized control of some Ukrainian businesses in their territory after having their coal and steel shipments halted in the rail blockade.

Tensions have escalated in recent days, leading to clashes between law enforcement agencies and the activists, who have been joined by some members of parliament.

The blockade posed a dilemma for President Petro Poroshenko: breaking it up by force could provoke a major domestic backlash, but allowing it to proceed unilaterally risked undermining the state’s authority.

Poroshenko’s Security and Defense Council introduced the state-led cargo ban to counter what he described as the political and social threat posed by the unofficial blockade.

The decision “is dictated by the necessity to prevent the destabilizing of the situation in the country, which is being undermined by political operators,” he told the council.

“Our wish is to prevent social strife,” he said.

The suspension will remain until rebels hand back control of a number of Ukraine-registered businesses and comply with a 2015 peace agreement, according to the Security Council.

The asset seizures have mostly affected businesses in the financial and industrial group owned by Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov.

On Wednesday, Akhmetov’s DTEK Energy said its main mining assets in rebel-held territory, already idling because of the blockade, had been taken under separatist control. On the international debt market, its 2024 dollar bond fell 1.6 cents to a two-week low on the news.

The crisis has put pressure on Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman’s government just as it is about to lose its year-long immunity from facing any vote of no confidence. It was appointed last April by a fragile coalition that includes Poroshenko’s party, after the previous government fell.

Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said Ukraine’s decision had nothing to do with the separatists, saying it was instead “evidence of an internal power struggle in Kiev.”

The suspension will further squeeze the Ukrainian economy, already facing potential rolling blackouts and monthly economic losses of up to 4 billion hryvnias ($150 million) from the existing blockade, according to the government.

The central bank says expected economic growth could nearly halve this year to 1.5 percent if rail traffic does not resume.

Poroshenko expects the government on Thursday to come up with fresh forecasts for the impact of the broader ban on the economy, energy security and currency stability.

The trade squeeze has highlighted the complicated economic relationship between the two sides and represents a new phase in a stand-off that has killed more than 10,000 people.

Germany, which has taken a leading role in trying to end the conflict, said it was seriously concerned about “increasing partitionist tendencies” in eastern Ukraine.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told a government news conference: “The danger of a military escalation is far from over.”

He said Berlin was urging Ukraine and Russia to live up to agreements made as part of the 2015 Minsk peace process, citing troubling actions by both sides, including the rebel asset seizures and the government’s decision to cut off trade.

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Berlin; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Matthias Williams and Mark Trevelyan)

No famine in Yemen but over half on the brink: U.N.-backed report

A malnourished boy lies on a bed outside his family's hut in al-Tuhaita district of the Red Sea province of Hodaida, Yemen September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – A U.N.-backed report on Yemen has found no full-blown famine in the country but said 60 percent of Yemenis, or 17 million people, are in “crisis” or “emergency” food situations, 20 percent more than in June.

The World Food Programme said in a statement on Wednesday that the governorates of Taiz and Hodeidah along the Red Sea risked slipping into famine if they did not receive more aid. Both have long traditions as food-producing regions.

The crisis follows two years of civil war pitting the Iran-allied Houthi group against a Saudi-backed coalition, which has caused economic collapse and severely restricted the food and fuel imports on which Yemen depends.

“If humanitarian actors do not access all the people in need by the coming months, the situation may deteriorate dramatically,” the report said.

Taiz and Hodeidah governorates, home to important Yemeni ports, “have the highest rates of global acute malnutrition in the country, ranging from 17 percent in Taiz City to 25 percent in Hodeidah,” the WFP said.

“The emergency threshold set by the World Health Organization is 15 percent,” it added.

The report was written by an expert team using the globally recognized IPC methodology. The IPC, or Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, is a system of analyzing food security on a five-point scale, where five is “famine”.

The report, drawing on analysis from 69 experts from Yemen’s government and regions, the United Nations and non-governmental institutions, said 10.2 million people were at phase three, or “crisis”, and 6.8 million at phase four, or “emergency”.

The worst affected governorates – those in the emergency phase – were Lahej, Taiz, Abyan, Sa’ada, Hajjah, Hodeidah and Shabwah, it said. Taiz, where heavy fighting looks likely to continue, has seen its biggest spike in livestock and commodity prices since the war escalated in 2015.

Yemen is one of four current famine or near-famine situations, along with South Sudan, northeast Nigeria and Somalia, with more than 20 million people at risk of starvation in the next six months.

Last month the U.N. said more than $4 billion was needed by the end of March to stave off starvation in the four countries on the brink of starvation.

U.N. officials say that once a famine is officially declared, it is usually too late because large numbers of people have already died.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

WFP head says ‘race against time’ under way to prevent Yemen famine

Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, speaks during a news conference discussing the latest challenges the agency is facing in Yemen, in ?Amman, Jordan, March 13, 2017. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – Aid workers are in a “race against time” to prevent famine threatening millions of people in Yemen, a senior U.N. official said in Monday.

“We have about three months of food stored inside the country today,” Ertharin Cousin, executive director of the World Food Programme, told reporters in Amman after a three-day visit to the war-torn country.

“We do not have enough food to support the scale-up that is required to ensure that we can avoid a famine.”

After almost two years of war between a Saudi-led Arab coalition and the Iran-allied Houthi movement, 7.3 million Yemenis are classed by the U.N. as “severely food insecure”.

“It is a race against time, and if we do not scale up assistance to reach those who are severely food insecure, we will see famine-like conditions in some of the worst-hit and inaccessible areas which means that people will die,” Cousin said.

WFP was able to reach a record 4.9 million needy people in Yemen last month. But Cousin said inadequate funding meant it was forced to reduce food rations to stretch assistance to more people.

“What we have been doing is taking a limited amounts of food that we have in the country, and spreading it as far as possible, which means that we have been giving 35 percent rations on most months, we need to get to 100 percent rations,” she added.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said last month Yemen’s estimated supplies of wheat would run out at the end of March.

The U.N. has said it will need around $2 billion this year for humanitarian work in Yemen and calls the country the “largest food security emergency in the world”.

(Additional reporting by Bushra Shakhshir; editing by Andrew Roche)

IS Mosul commander killed, government forces battle for bridge

A tank of Iraqi rapid response forces fire against Islamic State militants at the Bab al-Tob area in Mosul, Iraq, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ari Jalal

By Patrick Markey and Abdelaziz Boumzar

MOSUL, Iraq, (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces killed the Islamic State commander of Mosul’s Old City on Tuesday as the battle for the militants’ last stronghold in Iraq focused on a bridge crossing the Tigris river.

As fighting intensified on Tuesday after the previous day’s heavy rains, civilians streamed out of western neighborhoods recaptured by the government, cold and hungry but relieved to be free of the militants’ grip.

IS snipers were slowing the advance of Interior Ministry Rapid Response units on the Iron Bridge linking western and eastern Mosul but the elite forces were still inching forward, officers said.

Government forces also pushed into areas of western Mosul, Islamic State’s last redoubt in the city that has been the de facto capital of their self-declared caliphate.

Federal police killed the military commander of the Old City, Abu Abdul Rahman al-Ansary, during operations to clear Bab al-Tob district, a federal police officer said. With many IS leaders having already retreated from Mosul, Ansary’s death comes as blow to the militants as they defend their shrinking area of control street-by-street and house-by-house.

Capturing the Iron Bridge would mean Iraqi forces hold three of the five bridges in Mosul that span the Tigris, all of which have been damaged by the militants and U.S.-led air strikes. The southernmost two have already been retaken.

“We are still moving toward the Iron Bridge. We are taking out snipers hiding in the surrounding building, we are still pushing for the Iron Bridge,” Brigadier General Mahdi Abbas Abdullah of the Rapid Response force told Reuters.

Near the Mosul Museum, Iraq forces used armored vehicles and tanks to attack snipers pinning down troops clearing areas around the bridge.

An air strike targeting one Islamic State position hit a building, engulfing nearby troops in smoke and dust.

Since starting the offensive in October, Iraqi forces with U.S.-led coalition support have retaken eastern Mosul and about 30 percent of the west from the militants, who are outnumbered but fiercely defending their last stronghold in Iraq.

For much of Tuesday, the troops were within 100m (330 feet) of the bridge.

“It’s very key for our forces to secure the riverside and prevent Daesh militants from turning around our advancing forces,” a Rapid Response spokesman said in the morning, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.

They expected to gain control of the Iron Bridge and the nearby area by the end of the day, he said.

“Seizing the bridge will help further tighten the noose around Daesh fighters entrenched inside the old city,” he said.

HEAVY SHELLING

The boom of shelling and heavy machinegun fire could be heard from the center of Mosul and helicopter gunships strafed the ground from above on Tuesday morning.

Amid the combat, a steady stream of refugees trudged out of the western districts, carrying suitcases, bottles of water and other possessions. Some pushed children and sick elderly relatives in handcarts and wheelbarrows.

Soldiers packed them into trucks on the Mosul-Baghdad highway to be taken to processing areas. Most left in the dark early morning hours or after the army recaptured their neighborhoods. Food had been scarce, they said.

“We fled at 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) after the army had arrived. There has been a lot of shelling by Daesh,” said Hamid Hadi, a teacher. “Mostly we’ve been eating water mixed with tomatoes.”

Ashraf Ali, a nurse who escaped with his wife and two children, said mortar rounds were falling as they fled. They took advantage of the army retaking their district to get out.

“Daesh wanted us to move to their areas but we escaped when the army arrived,” he said.

As many as 600,000 civilians are caught with the militants inside Mosul, which Iraqi forces have effectively sealed off from the remaining territory that Islamic State controls in Iraq and Syria. The Iraqi forces include army, special forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi’ite militias.

More than 200,000 Mosul residents have been displaced since the start of the campaign in October. The Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday that in recent days, almost 13,000 displaced people from western Mosul had been received seeking assistance and temporary accommodation each day.

“Whenever we advance there are more people coming out,” said one Iraqi officer directing refugee transport. “There are more people on this side of the city and people are trying to leave because there is no food and no supplies in their area.”

Losing Mosul would be a major strike against Islamic State. It is by far the largest city the militants have held since their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself leader of a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria from a mosque in Mosul in the summer of 2014.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil, Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Assad says yet to see real steps on Islamic State by Trump, U.S. forces ‘invaders’

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Chinese TV station Phoenix in Damascus, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on March 11, 2017. SANA/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THIS IMAGE. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he had yet to see “anything concrete” from U.S. President Donald Trump over his vow to defeat Islamic State and called U.S. forces in Syria “invaders” because they were there without government permission.

Assad, in an interview with Chinese TV station Phoenix, said “in theory” he still saw scope for cooperation with Trump though practically nothing had happened in this regard.

Assad said Trump’s campaign pledge to prioritize the defeat of Islamic State had been “a promising approach” but added: “We haven’t seen anything concrete yet regarding this rhetoric.”

Assad dismissed the U.S.-backed military campaign against Islamic State in Syria as “only a few raids” he said had been conducted locally. “We have hopes that this administration … is going to implement what we have heard,” he added.

Asked about a deployment of U.S. forces near the northern city of Manbij, Assad said: “Any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation … are invaders.”

“We don’t think this is going to help”.

The U.S.-led coalition has been attacking Islamic State in Syria for more than two years. It is currently backing a campaign by Syrian militia allies to encircle and ultimately capture Raqqa, Islamic State’s base of operations in Syria.

Assad noted that the Russian-backed Syrian army was now “very close” to Raqqa city after advancing to the western banks of the Euphrates River.

He said Raqqa was “a priority for us”, but indicated that there could also be a parallel attack by the army towards Deir al-Zor in the east, near the Iraqi border. Deir al-Zor province is almost completely in the control of IS, also known as ISIS.

The Deir al-Zor region had been “used by ISIS as a route for logistics support between ISIS in Iraq and ISIS in Syria, so whether you attack the stronghold or you attack the route that ISIS uses, it (has) the same result”, Assad said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Islamic State frees Mosul prisoners as grip on last major city slips

Iraqi rapid response members are seen as they try to avoid being hit by Islamic State snipers in western Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State has released dozens of prisoners held in jails in the districts of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that remain under its control, residents said on Saturday.

The release of the prisoners on Friday is another sign that the militants are being overwhelmed by the U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive that started on Oct. 17 to dislodge them from Mosul, their last major city stronghold in Iraq.

Islamic State has lost most cities it captured in Iraq in 2014 and 2015. It declared a caliphate that also spanned parts of Syria from Mosul in 2014.

Among those released were people who had been caught selling cigarettes, violating a smoking ban, or in possession of a mobile phone and therefore suspected of communicating with the outside world, the residents said.

Iraqi forces dislodged Islamic State from the eastern side of Mosul in January, and on Feb. 19 launched the offensive on the districts located west of the Tigris river.

State-run TV on Friday said about half western Mosul has been taken back from the militants who are besieged in the old city center and districts to the north.

One of the men released on Friday said two militants got him out of a basement where he was held captive with other people, blindfolded the group and drove them away in a bus.

“After driving a distance, we stopped and they told us to remove the blindfolds and then they said ‘go, you are free,'” he said by phone, adding that about 25 prisoners were on the bus.

The man, who requested not to be identified, indicated that had spent two weeks in prison for selling cigarettes.

One Mosul resident said his brother had suddenly reappeared at the house on Friday after spending a month in captivity for possessing a mobile phone.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Alexander Smith)

U.S.-backed SDF says it can capture Syrian city of Raqqa

A Syrian Democratic Forces fighter watches a convoy of his forces advancing in the north of Raqqa city, Syria. REUTERS/Rodi Said

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Syrian militias said on Thursday they have enough forces to capture the city of Raqqa from Islamic State with support from the U.S.-led coalition, underlining their opposition to any Turkish role in the attack.

Raqqa is Islamic State’s main base of operations in Syria and the U.S.-backed campaign to capture it has been boosted with the arrival of a Marines artillery unit.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which includes the Kurdish YPG militia and Arab groups, have in recent days cut the road from the Raqqa to Islamic State’s stronghold in Deir al-Zor province – the last main road out of the city.

Deeply worried by the YPG’s influence, Ankara is pressing Washington to take part in the final assault on Raqqa.

The SDF says it ruled out any Turkish role during meetings with U.S. officials last month, though Turkey said on Thursday no decision had been made yet and the U.S.-led coalition said a possible Turkish role remained a point of discussion.

“The number of our forces is now increasing, particularly from among the people of the area, and we have enough strength to liberate Raqqa with support from the coalition forces,” Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, an SDF spokeswoman, said.

Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish government.

An SDF spokesman told Reuters on Thursday he expected the forces to reach the outskirts of the city within a few weeks. Its forces began the operation to encircle Raqqa in November.

“We have information that the enemy is moving part of its leadership outside the city, as it is also digging tunnels under the ground. We expect they will fortify the city and the terrorist group will depend on street warfare,” Ahmed said.

The SDF and YPG have been the main partners for Washington in its campaign against Islamic State in Syria. The U.S.-led coalition has been providing air support and deployed special forces in Syria to help in the campaign against Islamic State.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Gareth Jones, Julia Glover)