Tag Archives: War

Islamic State readies for close combat in alleyways of west Mosul

US army forces in Mosul

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State militants are developing a network of passageways and tunnels in the narrow alleys of west Mosul that will enable them to hide and fight among the civilian population when Iraqi forces launch an attack that is expected any day now.

Residents said the fighters have been opening passages in the walls between houses to allow them to move from block to block undetected, disappear after hit-and-run operations and track government troop movements.

They have also opened sniper holes in buildings overlooking the Tigris river bisecting the city into east and west, they said.

“They opened these holes and threatened us not to close them,” one resident told Reuters by telephone, asking not to be identified by name or location because Islamic State executes anyone caught communicating with the outside world.

The militants are essentially under siege in western Mosul, along with an estimated 650,000 civilians, after U.S.-backed forces surrounding the city dislodged them from the east in the first phase of an offensive that concluded four weeks ago.

The westward road that links the city to Syria was cut at the end of November. The militants are still in charge of the road that links Mosul to Tal Afar, a town they control 60 km (40 miles) to the west, however.

Coalition aircraft and artillery have been bombarding selected targets in the west, included workshops in the eastern industrial zone where Islamic State is thought to build car bombs and booby traps. Ground forces have paused to redeploy and build new fortifications and staging posts along Mosul’s western flank, as well as rest and repair damaged hardware.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told a meeting of the armed forces commanders on Thursday that the offensive could start “very soon”.

MORE DIFFICULT IN THE WEST

Commanders expect the battle in the west to be more difficult than in the east because, among other things, tanks and armored vehicles cannot pass through its narrow streets and alleyways.

Western Mosul contains the old city center, with its ancient souks, Grand Mosque and most government administrative buildings. The city’s airport is also located there.

“The narrow alleys and densely populated districts, along with the defensive tunnels built by Daesh — all this is definitely going to make the battle tough and complicated,” said Colonel Sattar Karim of the Iraqi army’s 9th Division, using an Arabic acronym of Islamic State.

It was from the pulpit of the Mosul Grand Mosque that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” over parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014.

The city — Iraq’s second biggest — is the largest urban center captured by Islamic State in both countries and its de facto capital in Iraq. Raqqa is its capital in Syria.

The Sunni group imposed a radical version of Islam in Mosul, banning cigarettes, televisions and radios, and forcing men to grow beards and women to cover from head to toe. Citizens who failed to comply risked death.

Capturing the city would effectively end the militants’ ambitions for territorial rule in Iraq. They are expected to continue to wage an insurgency, however, carrying out suicide bombings and inspiring lone-wolf actions abroad.

OVERWHELMING FORCE

Islamic State was thought to have up to 6,000 fighters in Mosul when the government’s offensive started in mid-October. Of those, more than one thousand have been killed, according to Iraqi estimates.

The remainder now face a 100,000-strong force made up of Iraqi armed forces, including elite paratroopers and police, Kurdish forces and Iranian-trained Shi’ite paramilitary groups.

The United States, which has deployed more than 5,000 troops in the fighting, leads an international coalition providing critical air and ground support, including artillery fire, to the Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

In the next phase, the Iraqi military’s plan is to wear down the fighters and overwhelm them by moving on all fronts.

“Daesh will not be able to stand against thousands of attacking troops with air and artillery cover,” said federal police captain Haider Radhi.

The police’s target will be to capture the airport, located on Mosul’s southern limits, and secure it for army engineers who will quickly rehabilitate the runway and the other facilities so that it can be used as a close support base for troops, he said.

Intelligence gathering and the cooperation of the civilian population will be key for advancing troops to avoid booby traps and to find weapons caches placed across the city as part of Islamic State’s urban warfare plan, said Baghdad-based analyst and former army general Jasim al-Bahadli.

However, the narrowness of the streets will limit the militants’ ability to attack advancing troops with suicide car bombs, one of the group’s most effective weapons, along with mortar and sniper fire.

“Car bombs will be used in some areas of the western side where the streets are wide enough,” said Bahadli. “In the others, we can expect the group to send walking bombers” who will run or walk toward the troops and detonate explosive belts.

Karim, the army colonel, said the militants are using churches, schools, hospitals and homes as weapon caches to avoid airstrikes.

“The job will not be easy to determine who’s an enemy and who’s a friend,” he said.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Turkey says almost taken Syria’s Bab, war monitor cites heavy toll

rebel fighter on outskirts of al-Bab Syria

By Tulay Karadeniz and Angus McDowall

ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Turkey’s military said on Friday it was close to taking Syria’s al-Bab from Islamic State, but a war monitor said the jihadists still controlled 90 percent of the town itself and that shelling and air strikes had killed dozens of civilians in recent days.

Al-Bab, an Islamic State stronghold 30 km (20 miles) from the Turkish border, has been a prime target since Turkey launched an incursion last August to push the jihadists from its frontier and prevent gains by a Kurdish militia also fighting them.

Taking control of the town would deepen Turkish influence in an area of Syria where it has already effectively created a buffer zone and allow Turkish forces to press on towards Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria.

“The operation to gain complete control of the al-Bab region has neared its end and the resistance of the Daesh terror group has largely been broken,” the Turkish military statement said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that monitors the war using a network of contacts, said Turkey’s “Euphrates Shield” forces had not made much progress.

Islamic State still controls 90 percent of al-Bab town itself and Turkish shelling and air strikes had killed 45 civilians, including 18 children, during the past 48 hours, the Observatory said.

Turkish officials have repeatedly said that the al-Bab operation was taking longer than anticipated because of numbers of civilians still in the town and the care being taken not to harm them. It dropped leaflets on the town as long ago as December urging civilians to seek shelter.

Turkey believes a string of Islamic State gun and bomb attacks, including a mass shooting at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Eve, were planned from al-Bab and Raqqa, and has said clearing the town of militants is a national security priority.

STRAINED ALLIANCE

The military statement came as U.S. Marine Corps General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Joseph Dunford visited the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, used by the U.S.-led coalition in the fight against Islamic State.

Turkey is part of that coalition but relations with NATO ally Washington have been strained by U.S. support for the Kurdish YPG militia in the fight against Islamic State.

Turkey views the YPG as a hostile force and an extension of the PKK, a Kurdish militant group that has waged an armed insurgency against the Turkish state for over three decades.

“It is time the U.S. leadership made clear who they are cooperating with in their Syria policy,” a senior Turkish government official told Reuters, when asked about the possibility of U.S. combat troops being deployed to Syria under President Donald Trump.

“U.S. soldiers are present in Syrian territory, and we saw the results. They trained the PKK-YPG, which we call a terrorist organization, gave them weapons and supported terrorist groups.”

President Tayyip Erdogan has said the next target for the Turkish offensive should be Raqqa but that Arab forces, not the YPG, should be involved.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance dominated by the YPG, is in the middle of a multi-phased operation to encircle Raqqa, backed by air strikes and special ground forces from the U.S.-led coalition.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun and Ece Toksabay; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Daren Butler and Angus MacSwan)

In Mosul orphanage, Islamic State groomed child soldiers

Math and English textbooks found in Islamic State facility that trained children

By Stephen Kalin

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – When the boys first arrived at the Islamic State training facility in eastern Mosul they would cry and ask about their parents, who went missing when the militants rampaged through northern Iraq in 2014.

But as the weeks passed they appeared to absorb the group’s ultra-hardline ideology, according to a worker at the former orphanage where they were housed.

The children, aged from three to 16 and mostly Shi’ite Muslims or minority Yazidis, began referring to their own families as apostates after they were schooled in Sunni Islam by the militant fighters, he said.

The boys were separated from the girls and infants, undergoing indoctrination and training to become “cubs of the caliphate – a network of child informers and fighters used by the jihadists to support their military operations.

The complex in Mosul’s Zuhur district, which had been home to local orphans until they were kicked out by Islamic State, was one of several sites the jihadists used across the city.

It is now shuttered, its doors sealed with padlocks by Iraqi security forces.

Islamic State withdrew before Iraqi forces launched a U.S.-backed offensive in October to retake the city, but during a Reuters visit last month there were still reminders of the group’s attempt to brainwash dozens of children.

A saying attributed to the Prophet Mohammed is painted in black on one wall, urging children to learn to swim, shoot and ride horses. Inside the building is a swimming pool, now dry and full of rubbish.

‘A’ FOR APPLE, ‘B’ FOR BOMB

In another room sits a stack of textbooks Islamic State had amended to fit its brutal ethos.

Arithmetic problems in a fourth grade maths book use imagery of warfare, while the cover bears a rifle made up of equations. History books focus exclusively on the early years of Islam and emphasize martial events.

Another textbook entitled “English for the Islamic State” includes ordinary words like apple and ant beside army, bomb and sniper. Martyr, spy and mortar also appear alongside zebra crossing, yawn, and X-box.

The word “woman” is depicted by a formless black figure wearing the full niqab covering. All faces in the books – even those of animals – are blurred, in keeping with an Islamic proscription against such images.

The orphanage worker, who was cowed into staying on after the militants took over in 2014, said girls who were brought to the center were often married off to the group’s commanders.

The man asked not to be named for fear of reprisals by Islamic State, which still controls the entire western half of Mosul. He was shot in the leg during recent clashes.

He said the militants, mostly Iraqis, taught the Shi’ite children how to pray in the tradition of Sunni Islam and forced the Yazidis to convert.

They memorized the Koran, were taught to treat outsiders as infidels and conducted physical exercise in the yard, which has since grown over.

OLD ENOUGH TO FIGHT

A pair of colorful plastic slides and swing sets now sit untouched amid shattered glass, casings from a grenade launcher and a suicide bomber’s charred remains – signs of the militants’ fierce resistance as they retreated late last year.

Reuters could not independently verify the orphanage worker’s comments. But local residents gave similar accounts, and Islamic State has published numerous videos showing how it trains young fighters and even makes them execute prisoners.

New batches of children arrived at the Zuhur orphanage every few weeks from outside Mosul, including a few from neighboring Syria, while older boys were sent to the town of Tel Afar west of Mosul for intensive military training for duties including with Islamic State’s courts or vice squad, residents said.

“After six months at the camps, some of the boys came back to spend a weekend with their younger brothers. They were wearing uniforms and carrying weapons,” the orphanage worker said, fingering black and yellow prayer beads.

One of the boys, Mohammed, was killed last summer during the battle in the city of Falluja, west of Baghdad, he said, recounting how the other children wept upon learning the news.

A few weeks before the Mosul offensive began, Islamic State canceled lessons and sent the boys to guard an airfield near Tel Afar which pro-government forces later seized, he said.

“I told them, ‘If you see the army, drop your weapons and tell them you are orphans. Maybe they will spare your lives'”.

(Editing by Dominic Evans)

Turkey says U.S. not insisting on Kurdish role in Raqqa operation

Syrian Forces

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s defense minister said on Thursday the new U.S. administration has a more flexible approach to Syria and is not insisting on the Kurdish YPG militia being involved in the operation to drive Islamic State from its Raqqa stronghold.

U.S. support for the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance dominated by the YPG, has caused tensions with NATO ally Turkey, which views the Kurdish militia as an extension of militants fighting on its own soil.

“If we want the Raqqa operation to be successful, then it should be carried out with Arab forces in the region and not the YPG,” Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik told reporters in Brussels.

“The new U.S. administration has a different approach to the issue. They are not insisting anymore that the operation should definitely be carried out with the YPG. They haven’t yet made up their minds,” he said in comments broadcast live.

The SDF alliance, which includes Arab and other groups in Syria’s north as well as the YPG, has taken territory along the Syria-Turkey border as they push back Islamic State.

With air strikes and special ground forces from the U.S.-led coalition, the SDF is in the middle of a multi-phased operation to encircle Raqqa, Islamic State’s base of operations in Syria.

A key decision for the Trump administration will be whether to provide weapons to the YPG despite Turkish objections. The U.S. says weapons provided to the SDF are so far limited to its Arab elements.

“We are working with the U.S. on the withdrawal of the YPG from Manbij by the time the al-Bab operation is completed,” Isik said, referring to a town currently under SDF control.

Isik added that Turkey’s priority after al-Bab would be advancing towards Manbij and Raqqa. He also said U.S. chief of staff Joseph Dunford would visit Turkey on Friday.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Nick Tattersall)

Nearly 15,000 lost children seek parents in chaos of South Sudan’s war

South Sudan mother reunited with her children

By Siegfried Modola

BENTIU (Reuters) – In the chaos of South Sudan’s civil war, it took three years for Nyagonga Machul to find her lost children.

Machul had traveled from her village to the capital when President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, fired his deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, in 2013. The dismissal triggered a civil war in the world’s newest nation that has increasingly been fought along ethnic lines.

Machul found herself cut off from her son Nhial, now aged 14 and the protector of the family; 10-year-old Ruai and 8-year-old Machiey, brothers who love board games and swimming; 6-year-old Nyameer with her shy smile; and Nyawan, now four but then the much-loved baby.

For years, Machul prayed for news. In December, she heard her children were alive – but far away in Bentiu, the northern gateway to the nation’s oil fields. More than a thousand 1,000 km (620 miles) of battlefield stretched between them.

Machul had left the children with their grandmother, but one night gunmen had attacked their village.

“I was in bed sleeping. All of a sudden I heard the sound of gunshots, then people shouting, screaming,” said Nhial.

The panicked children scattered and hid near the river Nile. Wandering back, they found each other, but not their grandmother. They decided to flee.

They walked through swamps, in chest-deep water infested with snakes and crocodiles. They begged food from families with little to spare.

Then a former neighbor, Nyabika Temdor, took them in, camping with them on a tiny island in the Nile. But gunmen struck again and they ran.

“I had to pay someone to carry the little ones, as they couldn’t walk,” Temdor said.

After four days, they reached a camp for displaced families in Bentiu. The sprawling settlement of 120,000 people is bordered by barbed wire and watchtowers.

That is where CINA found them. A local organization supported by UNICEF, case workers painstakingly trace separated families. They enter the names of lost children into a UNICEF supported database that holds nearly 15,000 names.

Having a parent vastly improves the long-term chances of a child’s survival, said Marianna Zaichykova, a spokeswoman for UNICEF. But the program is chronically underfunded.

Last year, reunifications dropped by 50 percent because there was not enough money to trace families, Zaichykova said.

Machul was lucky. UNICEF arranged for the children to fly to Juba this week. Their mother waited for them, in a tent made of sticks and plastic that looked just like the one they left in Bentiu.

She dappled drops of water on her children’s faces in a traditional blessing. Her friends began to sing. And then she opened her arms for her children.

“God has answered my prayers,” she said. “I am so happy.”

For a Wider Image photo essay of the story, click http://reut.rs/2kVBzp0

(Additional reporting by Katharine Houreld; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Alison Williams)

U.N. warns of catastrophic dam failure in Syria battle

Euphrates River at sunset in Syria

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations is warning of catastrophic flooding in Syria from the Tabqa dam, which is at risk from high water levels, deliberate sabotage by Islamic State (IS) and further damage from air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition.

The earth-filled dam holds back the Euphrates River 40 km (25 miles) upstream of the IS stronghold of Raqqa and has been controlled by IS since 2014.

Water levels on the river have risen by about 10 meters since Jan. 24, due partly to heavy rainfall and snow and partly to IS opening three turbines of the dam, flooding riverside areas downstream, according to a U.N. report seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

“As per local experts, any further rise of the water level would submerge huge swathes of agricultural land along the river and could potentially damage the Tabqa Dam, which would have catastrophic humanitarian implications in all areas downstream,” it said.

The entrance to the dam was already damaged by airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, it said.

“For example, on 16 January 2017, airstrikes on the western countryside of Ar-Raqqa impacted the entrance of the Euphrates Dam, which, if further damaged, could lead to massive scale flooding across Ar-Raqqa and as far away as Deir-ez-Zor.”

The town of Deir-ez-Zor, or Deir al-Zor, is a further 140 km downstream from Raqqa, and is besieged by IS. The U.N. estimates that 93,500 civilians are trapped in the town, and it has been airdropping food to them for a year.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are undertaking a multiphased operation to encircle Raqqa, and have advanced to within a few kilometers of the dam. The SDF has previously said air strikes are not being used against IS near the dam to avoid damaging it.

As IS, also known as ISIL, retreats, its fighters have deliberately destroyed vital infrastructure, including three water stations and five water towers in the first three weeks of January, the U.N. report said.

“ISIL has reportedly mined water pumping stations on the Euphrates River which hinders the pumping of water and residents are resorting to untreated water from the Euphrates River.”

The U.N. has also warned of the danger of a collapse of the Mosul dam on the Tigris River in Iraq, which could affect 20 million people. The dam was briefly captured by IS in 2014, but remains at risk, with constant repairs needed to avoid disaster.

Last month Lise Grande, the top U.N. humanitarian official in Iraq and a trained hydrologist who is an expert on the Mosul dam, said a catastrophic burst could have “Biblical” consequences. The U.N. is preparing an international response in case the Mosul dam collapses.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Tunisia PM, in Germany, dismisses criticism over asylum deportations

Tunisia PM and Germany Chancellor to discuss refugee/migrant issue

BERLIN (Reuters) – Tunisia’s prime minister, in Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, rejected criticism on Tuesday that his country had been slow to take back failed asylum seekers from Europe, including Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri.

Youssef Chahed also rejected the idea of Tunisia setting up its own asylum centers to ease the burden on Europe.

Shortcomings in the system were exposed in December by the failure to deport Tunisian Islamic State supporter Amri, who was on a watch list and had been denied asylum six months before he killed 12 people by driving a truck through the market.

In an interview in Bild, Chahed said cooperation with Germany on asylum seekers was functioning well.

“The biggest problem for Europe is refugees who go from Libya to Italy,” he said, adding that German authorities needed to provide the correct paperwork to be able to send back failed asylum seekers to Tunisia.

It was largely a delay in getting the right documents, including identity papers, that prevented Amri from being repatriated. He was shot dead by Italian police in Milan on Dec. 23.

“Illegal immigrants who use false papers sometimes make things difficult and prolong the process,” he said.

Asked about the possibility of Tunisia building refugee centers with European help, Chahed said:

“Tunisia is a very young democracy, I don’t think that it can function or that we have capacity to create refugee camps,” he said, adding that the main focus should be finding a solution with Libya.

Merkel has been weakened by her open-door migrant policy which allowed more than a million refugees into Germany in the last two years. She is now trying to show voters she is beefing up security and cracking down on illegal migrants before a national election due in September.

Merkel needs the cooperation of countries like Tunisia to speed up deportations. She also plans to give police greater powers to detain rejected asylum seekers seen as a terrorist threat and to set up ‘federal departure centers’ near airports to house rejected applicants ahead of their deportation.

Chahed visited the site of the December attack by Amri in western Berlin and laid flowers there.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Islamic State shifts to Libya’s desert valleys after Sirte defeat

Libyan man checking building used by Islamic State

By Aidan Lewis

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – Islamic State militants have shifted to desert valleys and inland hills southeast of Tripoli as they seek to exploit Libya’s political divisions after defeat in their former stronghold of Sirte, security officials say.

The militants, believed to number several hundred and described as “remnants” of Islamic State’s Libya operation, are trying to foment chaos by cutting power and water supplies and to identify receptive local communities, the officials said.

They are being monitored through aerial surveillance and on-the-ground intelligence, but Libyan officials said they cannot easily be targeted without advanced air power of the kind used by the United States on Jan. 19, when B-2 bombers killed more than 80 militants in a strike southwest of Sirte.

For more than a year, Islamic State exercised total control over Sirte, building its primary North African base in the coastal city. But it struggled to keep a footing elsewhere in Libya and by December was forced out of Sirte after a six-month campaign led by brigades from the western city of Misrata and backed by U.S. air strikes.

The jihadist group lost many of its fighters in the battle and now has no territory in Libya, but fugitive militants and sleeper cells are seen to pose a threat in a country that has been deeply fractured and largely lawless since the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

The threat is focused south of the coastal strip between Misrata and Tripoli, arcing to the southeast around the town of Bani Walid and into the desert south of Sirte, said Ismail Shukri, head of military intelligence in Misrata.

One group of 60-80 militants is operating around Girza, 170 km (105 miles) west of Sirte, another group of about 100 is based around Zalla and Mabrouk oil field, about 300 km southeast of Sirte, and there are reports of a third group present in Al-Uwaynat, close the Algerian border, he said.

Some fighters were based outside Sirte before last year’s campaign, some fled during the battle and some have arrived from eastern Libya where they have been largely defeated by rival armed factions.

“They work and move around in small groups. They only use two or three vehicles at a time and they move at night to avoid detection,” said Mohamed Gnaidy, an intelligence official with forces that conducted the campaign in Sirte.

Those forces published pictures in the wake of last month’s U.S. strike showing hideouts dug into the sand, temporary shelters camouflaged with plastic sheeting and branches, stocks of weapons and satellite phones.

“This area is very difficult so it’s hard for our forces to deal with them,” said Shukri, pointing to satellite images of steep rocky banks and tracks in the sand southwest of Sirte. “The only solution to eliminate them in this area is through air strikes.”

ATTACKS ON INFRASTRUCTURE

Mohamed Gnounou, a Misrata-based air force spokesman, said the militants had been monitored for 45 days ahead of the U.S. strike. “It confirmed a large number of individuals who were preparing something new in this place, as well as developing a strategy to head to new areas.” The areas included rural districts near the coastal cities of Al Khoms and Zliten, between Misrata and Tripoli, and the region around the southern city of Sabha, he said.

Islamic State fighters had received logistical help from civilians and had paid some of them to help cut off power and water supplies, including by sabotaging a water link to Tripoli in the Great Man-made River system built by Gaddafi, and attacking electricity infrastructure near the southern city of Sabha, where there have been long blackouts in recent weeks, said Gnounou.

“Daesh (Islamic State) destroyed more than 150km of electricity pylons in the south between Jufra and Sabha. These acts fuel crisis and frustration in Libya, as well as giving an opportunity for gold diggers who smuggle through the open borders and make easy money from Daesh,” he said.

Sirte suffered extensive damage during the battle against Islamic State. Military officials from Misrata say they have the city secured and some residents have begun to return to central neighborhoods.

But they also complain about a lack of support from the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli and are nervous about military advances by forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Haftar to the east and south of Sirte.

Haftar, who has rejected the GNA, was on the opposite side to Misrata’s brigades in a conflict that flared up across Libya in 2014, just as Islamic State was gaining strength.

Both sides accuse the other of using Islamic State to their advantage, while waging separate campaigns against jihadists.

“The support we are getting is not equivalent to the risk we face or the sacrifice we have made,” said Shukri. “We need the political authorities, the (GNA) to continue the next step.”

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Russia halted Syrian army, rebel clash in northern Syria: sources

rebel fighters gather around truck carrying food

By Laila Bassam and Humeyra Pamuk

BEIRUT/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Russia intervened to halt a clash between Syrian government forces and Turkey-backed Syrian rebels in northern Syria, sources on both sides said on Friday, the first confrontation between them as both sides fight Islamic State in the area.

Islamic State is under attack from separate campaigns in northern Syria by Russian-backed government forces and Turkey-backed rebels. The clash on Thursday near the IS-held city of al-Bab underlined the risk of the parallel offensives igniting new fighting between the government and its rebel enemies.

Russia and Turkey have backed opposing sides in the war but recently started cooperating over Syria, brokering a truce between government forces and rebels and working together to try to revive peace talks.

Rebel officials said the clash took place in a village southwest of al-Bab. An official in a military alliance fighting in support of the Syrian government confirmed a clash had taken place. “The Russians intervened to control the situation,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

President Bashar al-Assad is supported in the war by the Russian military and an array of Iranian-backed militias.

Two rebel officials accused the government forces of provoking the incident. One of them said the government forces had moved towards their positions in tanks. “Rebels shot to warn them not to get any closer, but the tank responded and a clash erupted,” said the first rebel official.

“Later on Russia intervened to calm down the situation,” said the rebel official. “This whole incident felt like a test.”

A second rebel official, a commander in the al-Bab area, added: “They opened fire. Fire was returned.”

Both rebel officials said an armored vehicle had been captured from the government forces.

There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Russian air strikes accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers on Thursday in northern Syria. It was not immediately clear whether the confrontation described by the sources had taken place in the same area as the air strike.

Turkey and its FSA rebel allies have carved out a de facto buffer zone in northern Syria in territory captured from Islamic State since August in their “Euphrates Shield” operation. They have been battling to capture al-Bab since December, but escalated their attack this week, seizing the city’s outskirts.

The Syrian army meanwhile mounted its own, rapid advance towards the city in the last few weeks, advancing to within a few kilometers (miles) of its southern outskirts.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said earlier this week that clashes with the Syrian forces had been avoided thanks to international coordination, including between Turkey and Russia.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had called Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and expressed his condolences over the air strike, blaming the incident on poor coordination between Moscow and Ankara.

The Kremlin spokesman said on Friday the air strikes were based on coordinates provided to Russia by the Turkish military..

(Writing and additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Turkish-led forces advance into outskirts of Syrian city

Syrian forces gather to fight Islamic State

By Humeyra Pamuk and Tom Perry

ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels backed by the Turkish military have captured the outskirts of the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab in northern Syria, the Turkish government and rebel sources said on Wednesday.

The advance threatens an important Islamic State stronghold, whose fall would deepen Turkish influence in an area of northern Syria where it has created a de facto buffer zone.

Syrian government forces have also advanced on al-Bab from the south, bringing them close to their Turkish and rebel enemies in one of the most complex battlefields of the six-year-old conflict.

But Turkey said international coordination was under way to prevent clashes with the Syrian forces.

“The al-Bab operation must be completed immediately in the period ahead … In recent days our special forces and the Free Syrian Army (rebels) have made serious progress,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference.

In a sign of Turkish momentum and confidence, the government said its next target would be the Syrian city of Raqqa, de facto capital of the embattled Islamic State group which has also been partly dislodged from its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.

The U.S. military, which is leading an international coalition against Islamic State, said it expected Raqqa to be “completely isolated” in the next few weeks.

COORDINATION WITH RUSSIA

Al-Bab has been a major target of a Turkish offensive launched in northern Syria last August to drive Islamic State away from the border and prevent further gains by U.S.-backed Kurdish militia that are also fighting the jihadist group. The city is just 30 km (20 miles) from the Turkish border.

A Free Syrian Army rebel commander speaking to Reuters from the southeastern outskirts of al-Bab said Syrian government planes and helicopters were visible to the west of his position, saying there was now an “indirect frontline” between the sides.

But an official in a military alliance backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the city was being left to Turkish control, in what appeared to be part of a de facto deal with Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said clashes with the Syrian forces had been avoided.

“As a result of coordination between coalition forces, the Turkish air force and Russia, necessary measures are being taken to prevent any unpleasant incidents or clashes,” Yildirim said.

Assad has been backed in the war by the Russian air force and an array of Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias. The Syrian army advance towards al-Bab is aimed at preventing deeper Turkish advances and safeguarding the city of Aleppo, 50 km (30 miles) to the southwest.

“PROGRESS IS FAST”

The Turkish military said in a statement that 58 Islamic State militants had been killed in air strikes, artillery fire and clashes. Four Turkish soldiers had been killed and at least a dozen wounded. The advancing forces had captured strategic hilltops around al-Bab, the army said.

A Syrian rebel fighter reached by Reuters said he was speaking from inside al-Bab where he said Islamic State lines were collapsing. “Praise God, the progress is fast,” he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization that reports on the war, cautioned that it was not yet clear if Islamic State had collapsed entirely in the city. It said at least six people had been killed and 12 more wounded in the latest shelling there.

The organization says Turkish bombardment has killed scores of people since December. Turkey says it has been careful to avoid civilian casualties.

Islamic State is being fought by three separate military alliances in northern Syria, including the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces which incorporate the Kurdish YPG militia.

U.S. support for the YPG has angered Turkey, which views it as an extension of a Kurdish militia that is waging an insurgency in Turkey.

A spokesman for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey had presented a detailed plan to drive Islamic State out of Raqqa and discussions on the issue were under way.

Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told broadcaster NTV there had been better coordination with the U.S.-led coalition on air strikes in the last 10 days and Ankara’s priority was to establish a safe zone between the Syrian towns of Azaz and Jarablus, which are just over the border.

The safe zone is an important goal for Ankara because it would mean that civilians displaced by the conflict could be provided for in Syria, rather than crossing into Turkey.

Turkish sources said Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed in a phone call overnight to act jointly against Islamic State in al-Bab and Raqqa.

The White House said in a statement that Trump spoke about the two countries’ “shared commitment to combating terrorism in all its forms” and welcomed Turkey’s contributions to the fight against Islamic State, but it gave no further details.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam, Suleiman al-Khalidi, Nevzat Devranoglu, Gulsen Solaker, Ece Toksabay and Orhan Coskun; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Dominic Evans)