MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Iraq on Monday declared « total victory » over the Islamic State group in Mosul, retaking full control of the country’s second-largest city three years after it was seized by extremists bent on building a global caliphate.
« This great feast day crowned the victories of the fighters and the Iraqis for the past three years, » said Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, flanked by his senior military leadership at a small base on the edge of the Old City, where the final battles for Mosul unfolded.
Al-Abadi alluded to the brutality of the battle for Mosul — Iraq’s longest yet in the fight against IS — saying the triumph had been achieved « by the blood of our martyrs. »
While Mosul fell to IS in a matter of days in 2014, the campaign to retake the city lasted nearly nine months. The fight, closely backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, brought an end to the extremists’ so-called territorial caliphate, but has also left thousands dead, entire neighborhoods in ruins and nearly 900,000 displaced from their homes.
Shortly after al-Abadi’s speech, the coalition congratulated him on the victory but noted that parts of the Old City still « must be back-cleared of explosive devices and possible ISIS fighters in hiding. » ISIS, ISIL and Daesh are alternative acronyms for the Islamic State group.
« The victory in Mosul, a city where ISIS once proclaimed its so-called ‘caliphate,’ signals that its days in Iraq and Syria are numbered, » President Donald Trump said in a statement.
Earlier in the day, airstrikes pounded the last IS-held territory on the western edge of the Tigris, Humvees rushed wounded to field hospitals and soldiers hurriedly filled bags with hand grenades to ferry to the front.
Iraqi troops had slowly pushed through the narrow alleys of the Old City during the past week, punching holes through walls and demolishing houses to carve supply routes and fighting positions in a district where many of the buildings date back centuries.
For days, the remaining few hundred militants held an area measuring less than a square kilometer (less than half a square mile), and Iraqi commanders described victory as imminent.
Al-Abadi also visited Mosul on Sunday, congratulating the troops on recent gains but stopping short of declaring an outright victory as clashes continued.
The drawn-out endgame in Iraq’s fight for Mosul highlighted the resilience of the extremists and the continued reliance of Iraqi forces on air support to retake territory.
Iraqi commanders said gains slowed to a crawl in recent days as IS fighters used their families — including women and children — as human shields. As the battle space constricted, the coalition began approving airstrikes dropping bombs of 200 pounds or more on IS targets within 50 meters (yards) of friendly forces.
Plumes of smoke Monday grew larger than the strip of territory under IS control.
« This used to be a beautiful city, tourists used to come here, » said Iraqi army Capt. Marwan Hadi based inside the Old City. The last days of the fight for Mosul were the fiercest, he said.
« All along the front line, there are so many families under the rubble, » he said. « I saved two children and their mother, but one daughter, we couldn’t reach her. »
Reports of civilian casualties spiked as Iraqi forces punched into Mosul’s western half in February. Residents fleeing the fighting reported that entire families sheltering in the basements of their homes were killed by airstrikes targeting small teams of IS fighters.
Thousands of civilians were estimated to have been killed in the fight for Mosul, according to Nineveh’s provincial council. A toll that does not include those still believed buried under collapsed buildings.
Also Monday, the United Nations said there was no end in sight to the humanitarian crisis in Iraq despite the conclusion of the fighting. Of the more than 897,000 people displaced from Mosul, the U.N. said thousands of residents will probably not be able to return to the city because of « extensive damage caused during the conflict. »
The infrastructure in western Mosul, where the fighting was fiercest, has been decimated. Iraq’s civil defense rescue teams — a branch of the Interior Ministry — said about 65 percent of the buildings in the Old City were severely damaged or destroyed. In other western neighborhoods, destruction was estimated to be higher: some 70 percent of all houses, buildings and infrastructure.
« Daesh, when they came to Iraq, their goal was to destroy everything, » said Hisham Hatem, an officer with the federal police stationed at Mosul’s main hospital complex, a series of buildings that was shredded by weeks of artillery and airstrikes. Hatem said IS used tactics to draw out the fight for Mosul to ensure little of the city would be left after the group’s defeat.
Regardless of the victory’s heavy toll, a number of celebrations broke out across Mosul’s east and west as victory appeared imminent.
Iraq’s special forces held a flag-raising ceremony on the Tigris river bank and Iraqi army soldiers danced and sang to patriotic music Sunday.
Muhammad Abdul Abbas, a 20-year-old solider sat on the sidelines of the revelry. He said he was happy the fight was over, but explained that his unit, like many others, suffered significant losses. Over the past nine months, 15 of his close friends were killed fighting for Mosul, he said.
Iraq’s special forces, who largely led many of the assaults in Mosul, faced casualty rates of 40 percent, according to a report in May from the office of the U.S. secretary of defense.
« Honestly, all this death and all this destruction — I don’t believe it was worth it, » Abbas said.
TOPSHOTS Iraqi PM hails victory over ‘brutality and terrorism’ in Mosul
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over « brutality and terrorism » in Mosul on Monday, announcing his forces had ended the Islamic State group’s rule over the country’s second city.
Standing with members of the security forces, Abadi hailed the retaking of Mosul — where IS dealt Iraqi troops a devastating defeat three years ago — as a key moment in the war against the jihadists.
« Our victory today is a victory over darkness, a victory over brutality and terrorism, and I announce here… to the whole world today the end and failure and collapse of the mythical terrorist Daesh state, » Abadi said in a televised address from west Mosul, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
« These operations were carried out by Iraqi planning and success and implementation, » Abadi said, while also thanking « all the countries that stood with Iraq in its war against terrorism. »
Dozens of members of the security forces erupted into cheers after he spoke, dancing and waving flags and their weapons as they celebrated.
The US-led coalition that backed the Mosul offensive and is supporting another assault on IS’s Syrian bastion Raqa hailed the victory, but warned it did not mark the end of the war against the jihadists.
« This victory alone does not eliminate (IS) and there is still a tough fight ahead. But the loss of one of its twin capitals and a jewel of their so-called caliphate is a decisive blow, » said Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of the international anti-IS operation.
« Now it is time for all Iraqis to unite to ensure (IS) is defeated across the rest of Iraq, » Townsend said.
US President Donald Trump also praised the victory, saying it was a signal that IS’s « days in Iraq and Syria are numbered ».
But rebuilding the shattered city of Mosul and helping civilians will be a huge task, and aid groups warn that Iraq’s humanitarian crisis is far from over.
– Devastation in Old City –
Mosul’s Old City in particular has been devastated, with many buildings reduced to little more than concrete shells and rubble littering the streets.
Abadi said that as well as continuing to tackle IS, Iraq had other challenges including « the mission of stabilisation and the mission of building ».
Iraqi forces were earlier on Monday still fighting to eliminate the last pockets of IS resistance in Mosul, with jihadist fighters surrounded in a sliver of territory in Mosul’s Old City.
Soldiers armed with machineguns and sniper rifles fired from atop ruined structures in the Old City, and air strikes sent plumes of smoke rising over Mosul’s historic centre.
Staff Lieutenant General Sami al-Aridhi, a senior commander in the elite Counter-Terrorism Service, said earlier that Iraqi forces were still engaged in « heavy » fighting with the remnants of jihadist forces, but that the battle was near its end.
After Abadi spoke, Aridhi said « searching and clearing » still had to be done, but that major operations were finished.
Iraqi forces launched their campaign in October to retake Mosul, which was seized by the jihadists during the mid-2014 offensive that saw them take control of large parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
Army, police and special forces, backed by waves of US-led air strikes, seized the eastern side of the city in January and launched the battle for its western part the next month.
The fight grew tougher when security forces entered the densely populated Old City on the western bank of the Tigris River, which divides the city, and intense street-to-street fighting followed.
The cost of victory has been enormous: much of Mosul in ruins, thousands dead and wounded and nearly half the city’s population forced from their homes.
The United Nations has said 920,000 people fled their homes during the Mosul operation, and while some have returned the vast majority remain displaced.
– ‘Nothing to go back to’ –
Amnesty International on Tuesday called for a commission to investigate crimes against civilians in Mosul by all sides in the battle to liberate the Iraqi city from jihadists.
« The horrors that the people of Mosul have witnessed and the disregard for human life by all parties to this conflict must not go unpunished, » said Lynn Maalouf, director of Middle East research at Amnesty International.
The UN refugee agency said it could be many months before civilians are able to return to their homes.
« Many have nothing to go back to due to extensive damage caused during the conflict, while key basic services such as water, electricity and other key infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, will need to be rebuilt or repaired, » said the UNHCR.
Twenty-eight aid groups working in Iraq issued a joint call for international support for rebuilding efforts and urged authorities not to press civilians to return.
« Remaining insecurity; lack of basic services; explosive hazards contamination; and damage to homes, businesses and public infrastructure — including schools and hospitals — all continue to pose barriers to return, » said the statement signed by groups including the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam and Save the Children.
IS has lost most of the territory it once controlled, and the coalition is also aiming to oust the jihadists from their Syrian stronghold Raqa, which is under assault by US-backed Arab and Kurdish forces.
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Tough road ahead, even as IS grip on Mosul and Raqqa falters (Adds availability of photos) By Warren Strobel and Fatima Bhojani WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) – With Islamic State all but ejected from one if its former capitals and surrounded in the other, members of a 72-nation coalition meet in Washington this week to try to ensure the battlefield victories do not, once again, evaporate amid new sectarian strife.
Iraq’s prime minister declared victory over Islamic State in Mosul on Monday, three years after the militants seized the city.
In neighboring Syria, U.S.-backed forces have entered Raqqa and are battling Islamic State militants there.
The battlefield advances are a potentially fatal blow to Islamic State’s self-proclaimed « caliphate, » but also bring fresh challenges and risks, according to Western diplomats and U.S. officials.
The key question, they said, is whether U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been leery of foreign assistance and « nation building, » and allies in Europe and the Middle East lead a long-term campaign of physical and political reconstruction.
« I think everyone has learnt the hard way that unless you stick around and get the job done, we?ll be back there again in 10 years? time, » said one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
One concern, the officials and diplomats said in interviews, is that Iran could fill the vacuum left by Islamic State to expand its clout in both Iraq and Syria.
Another is that the region’s Sunni Muslims, if not given a share of political and economic power, could be vulnerable to Islamic State recruitment as the group reverts from one that holds territory to a shadowy, violent insurgency.
Trump’s budget for fiscal year 2018, which begins Oct. 1, would allocate $13 billion for the military fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
« Are we going to spend even a fraction of the amount on reconstruction? » asked Jeremy Konyndyk, who oversaw disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development until January.
When the U.S. military withdrew from Iraq in 2011, U.S. aid budgets and personnel were reduced as well, said Konyndyk, now at the Center for Global Development. « We should not make the same mistake this time (of) taking a really military-centric approach to our engagement and once the military job is done, stripping out most of the other tools. » TWO-TRACK STRATEGY The Washington meetings Tuesday through Thursday will focus on ways to intensify a multi-pronged campaign against Islamic State, according to the State Department. That campaign and the overall military strategy were set under Trump’s predecessor, U.S. President Barack Obama.
Trump’s post-conflict strategy, as described by U.S. officials, follows two tracks.
The United States, they say, will support a robust Iraqi- and United Nations-led effort to stabilize liberated areas in Iraq, where American officials say they have a reliable partner in Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
But amid Syria’s ongoing civil war, Washington is pursuing a more cautious, localized stabilization plan.
Initial stabilization efforts are already underway in eastern Mosul, but officials said the western part of the city, where fighting was more intense, will be the greater challenge.
Nearly 1 million civilians fled the city, according to the United Nations. « This was beyond our worst-case scenario and we?re still one step ahead, » thanks to $1 billion in funding pledged last year, said Lise Grande, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq.
Across Iraq, 1.9 million people have returned home, Grande said, adding « I’m not sure you would have bet on this. » Top Trump aides, including national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, commanded U.S. troops in Iraq and remain committed to the country’s security, diplomats and analysts said.
« The strategy in Iraq will be to prevent an ISIL (Islamic State) recurrence and to prevent an expulsion of the U.S. by Iranian-backed actors. The two issues are viewed as linked, » said Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank.
« There is a lot of Iraq experience inside this administration and it shows in the long-term commitment to Iraqi security that is being offered, » Knights said.
Pushing back against Iranian influence won’t be easy. Tehran wields clout through some Iraqi politicians and Shiite militias, which have recently deployed towards Iraq’s border with Syria.
Syria is even more fraught, officials said, with its multi-sided civil war that has drawn in outside powers including the United States, Russia, Iran and Turkey.
In Syria, « the campaign against ISIS is moving faster than resolution of the underlying political challenges, » a State Department official said, using another acronym for Islamic State. « That has led us to really emphasize the local solutions. » Washington, he said, is backing local civilian councils to provide basic governance in areas U.S.-backed forces have retaken, such as the city of Tabqa and, ultimately, Raqqa.
The U.S.-led military coalition’s focus is on the quick restoration of essential services, « getting the lights back on. We?re not reconstructing Syria, » the official said.
There are also tensions over who should pay for what. U.S. and other Western officials argue that Russia, which intervened to help Syrian President Bashar Assad, should contribute. (Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay, Phil Stewart and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and James Dalgleish)
By the numbers: The fight against Islamic State in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) — Here are some statistics that illustrate the scope of the fight that wrested the northern Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State group and the legacy of the wider war against the militants.
252 — The number of days Iraqi forces have been fighting inside Mosul. U.S. Central Command has described the fight as the most significant urban combat since World War II. Iraqi troops first punched into Mosul’s easternmost neighborhood of Gogjali on Nov. 1, then later pushed west across the Tigris River. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi finally declared victory on July 10 after making similar announcements in prior days despite ongoing clashes.
818,238— The number of people who have fled Mosul, once a city of around 2 million people, and surrounding areas since the assault began in October until July 4, the latest U.N. figures available. Of those, 678,177 fled from western Mosul, the site of the heaviest bombardment and fiercest fighting.
3,351,132 — The number of Iraqis across the country who remained displaced by violence in the fight against IS as of June 30, according to the U.N. migration agency . As Iraqi forces have retaken territory from the militants, more than 1,952,868 people have been able to return home. Of those still displaced, the vast majority are from Nineveh province, where Mosul is located. Some 700,000 are sheltering in camps, while the rest are living with extended family or in rented housing.
14,039 – The number of civilians with injuries treated in hospitals and field clinics on the outskirts of Mosul. The number counts only those who made it to those facilities. Thousands more civilians are estimated to have been treated inside the city. Hundreds are estimated to have been killed in Mosul during the operation, though no exact toll is known.
774 – The number of Iraqi security forces killed in the Mosul operation as of March 2017, according to Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command. He added that the 4,600 Iraqi troops were wounded. Iraq’s military does not release death tolls, but many of the Iraqi units leading the fight have reported attrition rates of 25 percent and higher.
5 – The number of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq since the start of the campaign against IS in 2014. The most recent death was that of 1st Lt. Weston C. Lee with the 82nd Airborne Division. The 25-year-old from Bluffton, Georgia, died in April when a roadside bomb detonated while he was on patrol outside Mosul.
4,354 — The estimate of the number of civilians killed in U.S. coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria from the start of the campaign two years ago until July 4, according to Airwars, a United Kingdom-based research organization that monitors airstrikes. The Pentagon has acknowledged at least 484 civilians killed in airstrikes.
4,356 — The number of residential and commercial buildings in Mosul severely damaged or destroyed as of June 16, according to a survey of satellite imagery by U.N. Habitat. The large majority — more than 3,000 — were in the western sector of the city, where entire blocks were levelled by airstrikes and bombardment. U.N. Habitat notes these numbers cover only the damage visible in satellite imagery.
$50 billion – The amount of money Mosul’s governor says will be needed to remove explosives and rebuild the city over the course of five years. As the Iraqi government struggles with an economic crisis, local Iraqi leadership in provinces retaken from IS are largely relying on money from the United Nations and other international donors.
22,671 – The number of airstrikes the U.S. led coalition has carried out in Iraq and Syria from Aug. 8, 2014 to June 21, according to the Pentagon . Airstrikes proved to be the critical factor in the conventional fight against IS, enabling forces on the ground to slowly retake territory after IS exploded across Iraq and Syria in 2014.
40 percent – The size by which Iraq’s Kurds have increased their territory since 2014, according to HIS Jane’s, a London based research group. The peshmerga fighters of Iraq’s northern Kurdish autonomous region have been snapping up territory from the Islamic State group, and Kurdish officials have said they will keep it, setting the stage for possible future conflict. Among the areas where they seized control is the city of Kirkuk, as well as towns and villages across Nineveh province.
5 Things to know about Iraq’s Mosul
MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Iraq’s prime minister declared victory over the Islamic State group in Mosul after more than eight months of some of the toughest fighting Iraqi forces have faced in the more than 3-year-old war against the extremists.
Iraqi and coalition forces acknowledged from the start that Mosul would be a challenge, but the Iraqi leadership’s initial vows that it would be over by the end of 2016 underestimated the capacity and the resolve of the IS fighters left to fight to the death.
Here are five things to know now that the fight for Mosul is officially over.
THE IMPORTANCE OF MOSUL
Mosul held deep symbolic importance for IS. It was after the Islamic State group overran Mosul in June of 2014 that they declared a caliphate stretching from territory in northern Syria deep into Iraq’s north and west. And it was from Mosul’s al-Nuri mosque that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made his only public appearance when he gave a Friday sermon calling on all Muslims to follow him as « caliph. » He vowed that IS would conquer « Rome, » and the entire world.
Mosul was also the bureaucratic and financial backbone of IS. In the early days of IS growth in Iraq and Syria, former Saddam-era military officers from Mosul made up some of the group’s highest-ranking members and helped garner supporters in Iraq.
Raiding Mosul’s central bank, and taxing and extorting the city’s wealthy inhabitants, made IS the richest terrorist organization in the world in the summer of 2014. Mosul’s vast industrial zones were converted into factories for weapons and explosives.
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HOW U.S.-BACKED IRAQI FORCES WON
Iraq spent more than two years rebuilding its armed forces and preparing for the Mosul offensive. Some 70,000 forces drawn from Iraq’s army, special forces, the federal police, and tribal and militia fighters were mobilized for the fight, according to Iraq’s joint operations command.
Initially, Iraqi forces planned to attack the city simultaneously from multiple fronts — north, east and south. But forces without urban combat experience and limited training quickly proved incapable of leading pushes and instead were moved to act largely as holding forces. Iraq’s special forces and the federal police led most combat operations to retake Mosul, first clearing the city’s east and then the west.
U.S.-led coalition support for Iraqi ground forces in Mosul repeatedly proved to be the critical factor. Iraqi forces repeatedly called in airstrikes to kill just one or two IS fighters armed with light weapons. Iraqi commanders said this approach was adopted to keep military casualties to a minimum.
The final battles for Mosul played out in the Old City, dense terrain measuring just a few square kilometers (miles) where the United Nations estimated IS held more than 100,000 people as human shields.
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THE COST OF VICTORY
The extent of the cost in civilian life is not yet known as many bodies are still believed to be trapped under rubble and Iraq lacks a centralized system for documenting civilian casualties.
But at a minimum hundreds of people are believed to have been killed and thousands more wounded, according to interviews conducted with doctors at field clinics and humanitarian organizations.
Iraq’s military has also suffered high casualty rates. The government does not disclose official death tolls, but many of the units leading assaults in Mosul faced attrition rates of upward of 25 percent when engaged in urban combat. The high casualty rates will likely undermine the forces’ ability to continue the fight against IS in the pockets of territory they still hold in Iraq.
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DESTRUCTION
The levels of destruction are dramatically different between Mosul’s east and west. Complexes in the east used by IS fighters, like the city’s university, were heavily bombed. But many of the east’s residential neighborhoods suffered relatively little damage.
In the west, however, entire city blocks are damaged or destroyed by months of airstrikes and artillery. It was also in western Mosul that a single U.S. airstrike killed more than a hundred civilians sheltering in basement of a single home.
Human rights and aid groups warn that such widespread destruction could undermine the military victory and make it more difficult for the hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled the west to return to their homes.
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THE FIGHT CONTINUES
The operation in Syria to retake the IS group’s de-facto capital, Raqqa, is in full swing, with U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces having retaken a handful of neighborhoods. But the battle for Raqqa is expected to be extended and bloody, and IS still controls a number of other towns in eastern Syria.
IS also continues to carry out insurgent attacks in Iraq, Syria and beyond. Iraqi and coalition officials have said the fight against IS as an insurgent force will likely be more difficult than the fight against the group as a conventional one and that the extremists will continue to pose a threat for years to come.
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Arab states seek to step up pressure on Qatar over 2013 accord DUBAI, July 11 (Reuters) – Four Arab states sought on Monday to pile pressure on Qatar over charges it backs terrorism, saying the publication of a previously secret accord between Riyadh and Doha showed Qatar broke a promise not to meddle in the affairs of Gulf countries.
The text of the 2013 agreement, whose existence was known but whose contents have never before been made public, was first published by CNN on Monday and later released on social media by Saudi officials.
In a joint statement, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt said the publication of the accord, meant to settle a previous dispute between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours, « confirms beyond any doubt Qatar’s failure to meet its commitments and its full violation of its pledges. » In a new round of tension with Qatar, the four states slapped sanctions on Doha on June 5, accusing it of supporting terrorism, cosying up to Iran, backing the Muslim Brotherhood – the world’s oldest Islamist organisation, and interference in their affairs.
The four say Qatar pledged to desist from interfering in its neighbours’ politics in the 2013 agreement.
Qatar has rejected the charges and said the four countries are trying to impose their own views on its foreign policies.
The document surfaced as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in the region to help Washington’s allies hammer out a way out of the crisis that has divided the region.
Qatar officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in a statement to CNN, Qatar accused Saudi Arabia and the UAE of breaking the spirit of the Riyadh agreement and indulging in an « unprovoked attack on Qatar’s sovereignty. » In response to CNN questions, a Qatari spokesman said in a statement that it was Saudi Arabia and the UAE who « have broken the spirit of the agreement. » MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD « A full reading of that text will show that the intent of the 2013/14 agreements was to ensure that sovereign GCC nations be able cooperate within a clear framework, » said Sheikh Saif Bin Ahmed Al-Thani, director of Qatar’s government communication office.
The 2013 agreement, reached at a meeting in Riyadh hosted by the then Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, was signed by the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, while an implementation mechanism was signed by the six GCC foreign ministers.
In the document, the parties agreed to refrain from supporting any « political currents that pose a threat to any member country of the (Gulf Cooperation) Council », and provides for Muslim Brotherhood leaders who are non-GCC citizens to leave the area.
Kuwaiti mediation efforts hit a snag last week when the four Arab states said they were disappointed with Qatar’s response to a list of 13 demands they had presented.
Qatar said the demands, which included ending support for militant groups, the closure of the Al Jazeera satellite channel, shutting down a Turkish military base in Qatar and downgrading ties with Iran, were an infringement of its sovereignty. (Reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Tillerson aims to ease Qatar crisis with shuttle diplomacy
KUWAIT CITY (AP) — The Trump administration tossed aside its aversion to mediating a weeks-long Persian Gulf dispute Monday, as the top U.S. diplomat flew to the region hoping to corral Qatar and its neighbors into negotiation. The new approach isn’t without diplomatic risk, thrusting America into the middle of an Arab squabble at a time President Donald Trump had hoped the U.S. allies would be uniting against terrorism.
On his first foray into shuttle diplomacy since becoming secretary of state, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will hop between Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia from Monday until Thursday, testing ways to break an impasse that has persisted despite Kuwaiti mediation efforts. The crisis has badly damaged ties between several key American partners, including hosts of two major U.S. military bases, threatening counterterrorism efforts.
Tillerson landed in Kuwait City late Monday and was greeted at the airport by the Gulf country’s foreign minister, who chatted with Tillerson in the searing Kuwaiti sun and shared a traditional Arabic coffee. On his first day in the country, Tillerson also met with Kuwait’s ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah.
« We are trying to resolve an issue that concerns not just us but the whole world, » Sheikh Sabah told the visiting U.S. diplomat.
Tillerson, noting that the Kuwaiti ruler would be visiting Washington in September, told his host that Trump looked forward to greeting him personally.
Washington is worried the dispute is hampering Trump’s bid to combat international terrorist financing. U.S. officials said Tillerson doesn’t expect an immediate breakthrough, which they warned could be months away. Rather, they said, he wants to explore possibilities for sparking negotiations.
« We’ve had one round of exchanges and dialogue and didn’t advance the ball, » senior Tillerson adviser R.C. Hammond said.
For the U.S., there are risks in getting so intimately involved in the spat among Gulf neighbors, reflected in Tillerson’s initial reluctance to play a central mediating role. Alienating either side of the conflict could pose broader challenges for U.S. priorities in the region, including the fight against the Islamic State group and other extremists.
Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a Gulf expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the U.S. has had some success in recent years persuading Qatar to take action against terrorist financiers. She said if the U.S. appears to be siding with the Saudis and the others, the Qataris could respond by reverting to old habits.
« If they feel a decrease in support from their neighbors and a bit more challenging relationship with the U.S., will they provide additional support to dangerous actors in the region, as part of their security strategy? » Plotkin Boghardt said.
She added of Tillerson: « He’s putting his reputation as secretary of state on the line. »
Qatar has rejected 13 demands of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to restore diplomatic relations and end a blockade they’ve imposed on the small, gas-rich monarchy since early June. They include Qatar shutting down the media network Al-Jazeera, cutting ties with Islamist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood, limiting ties with Iran and expelling Turkish troops stationed in the country.
Hammond said that the package of demands, as issued by Qatar’s neighbors, was not viable, but said there were individual items on the list « that could work. » Hammond would not elaborate on which demands Qatar could meet, but said concessions from the others would be required.
« This is a two-way street, » he said of a dispute among parties who each have been accused of funding extremists in some way. « There are no clean hands. »
U.S. military interests are at stake, too. Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which patrols Gulf waters with a close eye on Iran. Qatar hosts al-Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East and hub for the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition operations in Iraq and Syria.
The specifics of Tillerson’s shuttle travel, including exact dates for each stop, were still in flux on Monday and not immediately announced.
His mission nevertheless signals a reluctant acceptance of the critical mediation role the United States could play, particularly as some believe Trump may have precipitated the crisis by siding publicly with Saudi Arabia during a visit to Riyadh in May. Trump then pointing out that numerous Arab leaders had complained to him about Qatar.
The administration had been insisting Qatar’s rift with its neighbors was a « family » dispute that should be resolved without a significant U.S. role. Tillerson himself made clear his reluctance to get deeply involved, although he met in Washington with senior officials from the feuding countries.
After no apparent progress, the State Department warned last week that the dispute could drag on for weeks or months and « could possibly even intensify. »
Tillerson looks to defuse Qatar crisis on Gulf tour
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived Monday in Kuwait, the key mediator between Qatar and its Arab neighbours, for talks aimed at defusing the Gulf’s worst crisis in years.
Tillerson will shuttle between Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia until Thursday in what is the first serious intervention by Washington in the Gulf crisis.
He immediately held talks with Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah who is leading the mediation effort between the Gulf states, the official KUNA news agency reported.
Tillerson also met Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Sabah.
British National Security Advisor Mark Sedwill, who was also received by the emir, attended part of the meeting which discussed the Gulf crisis.
The US chief diplomat will travel on Tuesday to Qatar for talks with leaders there before returning to Kuwait later in the day.
The dispute has seen a Saudi-led alliance impose sanctions on Doha over its alleged ties to both Islamist extremist groups and Shiite-dominated Iran.
As they met in Egypt last week, Saudi Arabia and its allies said they planned to tighten sanctions against the gas-rich emirate, after Qatar refused to comply with a list of demands.
A spokesman for Tillerson said ahead of his landing in Kuwait that it remained to be seen « if there’s even a possibility of some outcomes » towards resolving the crisis.
« Right now, after Egypt, we’re months away from what we think would be an actual resolution and that’s very discouraging, » RC Hammond told reporters.
On June 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt abruptly severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, suspending transport links with Doha and ordering all Qataris to repatriate within 14 days.
– Ability to manoeuvre –
The four nations later issued a list of 13 demands to be met to lift the sanctions, including that Qatar shut down broadcaster Al-Jazeera, close a Turkish military base and downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran.
Hammond said that the demands were not viable, at least as a package. « Individually there are things in there that could work. »
« This is a two-way street, » he said of a dispute among parties that each have been accused of funding extremists in some way.
« There are no clean hands. »
Qatar refused to meet the demands last week on the grounds they undermined its national sovereignty. It has also categorically denied having any ties to extremist groups.
The Saudi-led alliance accused Qatar late Monday of failing to meet its commitments under the so-called Riyadh agreement of 2013 and its supplements signed the following year after a diplomatic spat.
The accusation came after CNN showed papers from the Riyadh agreements under which Qatar and other Gulf states had pledged to combat terror funding.
Analysts say Tillerson’s success in the Gulf may be contingent on his ability to manoeuvre regional scepticism over conflicting stances from Washington on the crisis.
US President Donald Trump initially supported longtime US ally Saudi Arabia, but his stance was later contradicted when the US Department of State took a more neutral position.
– ‘Last-ditch effort’ –
Tillerson’s impact largely depends on whether regional officials « believe that the secretary of state is fully backed by President Trump », London-based political analyst Neil Partrick said.
« If Tillerson can convincingly frame his mission as delivering a deal for the United States that is all about defeating terrorism… then he may have some chance, » said Partrick, who focuses on Gulf politics.
But despite strong mediation efforts by Kuwait and others, governments across the region say they may remain deadlocked for the foreseeable future.
« No diplomatic effort or… mediation will succeed without Doha being rational, mature and realistic, » UAE state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted last week.
Tillerson’s visit comes on the heels of a string of official visits to the region, including UN diplomats and the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and Oman.
Despite the deadlock, regional experts say Washington’s interest in finding a solution to the crisis is a welcome step.
« The tour comes after contradictory statements from Washington over the dispute, » said analyst Abdullah al-Shayeji Shayeji, a political science professor at Kuwait University.
« It is a last-ditch effort to rescue the situation and try to resolve the crisis, which is impacting regional stability, the war on terror and the campaign against the Islamic State » jihadist group, Shayeji said.
He said mutual concessions from the feuding states would however be necessary.
The United States and its Western allies have vast economic and political interests in the Gulf, which pumps one fifth of the world’s oil supplies, houses one third of proven global crude reserves and sits on one fifth of the world’s natural gas deposits.
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U.S., UK, Kuwait urge swift negotiated solution to Qatar crisis (Adds details, context, background of dispute) DUBAI, July 11 (Reuters) – The United States, United Kingdom and Kuwait urged all parties to a Gulf Arab diplomatic row over Qatar to resolve their dispute as quickly as possible through dialogue, Kuwait state news agency KUNA reported on Tuesday.
The statement came as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and British National Security Advisor Mark Sedwill visited Kuwait, which is acting as a mediator, in order to patch up the row among the Western-allied countries.
Coming from some of the most influential powers in the dispute, the plea for a negotiated solution may aim at an earlier refusal by Qatar’s adversaries to discuss renewing ties with Doha until it first acquiesced to a list of stiff demands.
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Egypt imposed sanctions last month, accusing Doha of aiding terrorism, something it denies.
The State Department said Tillerson would hold talks with leaders in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh and its allies accuse Qatar of financing extremist groups and allying with Iran, the Gulf Arab states’ arch-foe.
Qatar denies that it supports militant organisations and says the boycott is part of a campaign to rein in Qatar’s independent foreign policy.
The United States worries the crisis could affect its military and counter-terrorism operations and increase the regional influence of Tehran, which has been supporting Qatar by allowing it to use air and sea links through its territory.
Qatar hosts Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East, from which U.S.-led coalition aircraft stage sorties against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed support for Saudi Arabia in the dispute. (Reporting by Ali Abdelatti and Noah Browning; Editing by James Dalgleish)
UN envoy says Syria cease-fire generally holding
GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.’s special envoy for Syrian peace talks on Monday said a U.S. and Russia-brokered cease-fire in the country’s southwest was generally holding despite some « teething problems, » adding he hoped it would contribute positively to talks between the government and opposition.
A new round of indirect talks that began Monday is the seventh so far between Syrian government representatives and opposition leaders to try to wind down the battered country’s 6-year-old civil war.
Staffan de Mistura, speaking at a press conference in Geneva, said he is not expecting any breakthroughs but rather « some incremental developments. »
The start of the talks in Geneva coincided with the first full day of the cease-fire for southern Syria that was brokered last week by the United States, Russia and Jordan.
Opposition activist Ahmad al-Masalmeh said it was quiet in the city of Daraa, near the Jordanian border. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported light shelling and bombardment in the city overnight.
The agreed-on cease-fire covers three provinces in war-torn southern Syria. It’s the first tangible outcome following months of strategy and diplomacy between the new Trump administration and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Moscow.
« We believe that de-escalation will be contributing to not only the talks in Geneva and in Astana of course but will also reassure the Syrian people that while we are talking the people are not going to die because of bombs, » de Mistura said.
He cautioned against de-escalation deals leading to eventual partition, saying they should be an interim measure only until an overall cease-fire and peace settlement can be found.
The Geneva talks are expected to last through the week. De Mistura will be shuttling between the two sides, which have not been face-to-face in the same room except at a ceremony to resume the talks earlier this year.
The U.N.-led diplomatic effort seeks partly to ensure humanitarian aid deliveries to Syria and plan for the day after the war is over. At the press conference, de Mistura avoided questions about any political transition away from President Bashar Assad, saying the talks are focusing on de-escalation and stabilization for now.
The Syrian opposition is determined to achieve a political transition in Damascus, while Assad’s government insists the talks should prioritize « the war on terror. »
Meanwhile, Syrian government forces retook the al-Hail gas field in central Syria from Islamic State militants, the army reported. The government and its Iranian backers have been advancing through Homs province to secure vital resources they lost early in the war. Their declared aim is to relieve Syrian soldiers who have been under IS siege in the city of Deir El-Zour, a regional hub for resource commerce.
Oil and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Ghanem said Syria was producing 10 million cubic meters (13 million cubic yards) of gas a day — roughly half of its pre-war output of 21 million cubic meters (27.5 million cubic yards) a day.
In north Syria, at least one person was killed and several others wounded in a barrage of rocket fire and shelling on areas under the control of a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia. The People’s Protection Units blamed the attack on Turkey. Ankara says the militia is an extension of an outlawed Kurdish insurgent group operating inside its own borders. At least three civilians were killed in shelling on Kurdish villages last week.
And five people were killed in shelling on the nearby city of Aleppo, Syrian state media reported. The government blamed it on rebels encamped outside the city.
Separately, the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee group said on social media it detained 123 IS fighters in northwest Idlib province, a rebel-held corner of the country where the group is largely in control. The Observatory also reported the detentions on Sunday.
Assad’s government has refused to entertain talk of the president’s departure. He inherited power from his father, the late Hafez Assad, in 2000 and has held on despite the devastating civil war. Half of the country’s population has been displaced, and some 400,000 people have been killed in the violence since 2011.
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Fighting persists east of Libya capital, residents displaced -town official (Updates with toll from health ministry) TRIPOLI, July 10 (Reuters) – Clashes between rival Libyan factions east of Tripoli extended into a second day on Monday, keeping the coastal road shut and preventing residents from returning to their homes, a local town council spokesman said.
The fighting began on Sunday when armed groups opposed to the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli tried to approach the capital and met resistance from rival groups that have aligned themselves with the government.
It is the latest in a series of attacks by armed opponents of the Government of National Accord (GNA), which have continued despite the GNA’s attempts to win the cooperation of militias operating in the city and to calm bouts of violence inside or close to the capital.
« At the moment we can hear heavy gunfire, » said Al-Shareef Jaballah, a spokesman for the municipality of Garabulli, about 50 km (30 miles) from Tripoli, speaking to Reuters by telephone shortly after midday.
« The clashes have resulted in severe damage to houses and shops because of indiscriminate shelling, and forced a large number of residents … to flee, » he said.
« The coastal road is still closed. The residents who have fled their homes are trapped because of the closure of the road. » The health ministry later confirmed that at least four people including two foreign workers had been killed and 21 wounded over two days of fighting.
The GNA has struggled to impose its authority since arriving in Tripoli in March last year. It has been rejected by factions that control eastern Libya, where military commander Khalifa Haftar has been consolidating his position and installing military-appointed mayors.
As temperatures have climbed this month, parts of western Libya have once again been suffering from power and water cuts that residents have criticised the GNA for failing to resolve. (Reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones and James Dalgleish)
Failed coup takes toll on Turkey’s foreign policy
The consequences of the failed July 15 coup in Turkey increased Ankara’s international isolation, exposing shortcomings in the government’s sometimes overambitious foreign policy, analysts say.
NATO member and EU membership hopeful Turkey had expected an outpouring of solidarity after the coup attempt one year ago aimed at ousting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which Ankara blames on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.
But ties with Brussels were bruised and Turkey’s long-running EU membership bid set back as the European Union reacted with alarm to the post-coup purge that has seen tens of thousands arrested.
The US presidency of Donald Trump has so far also given no hope that Turkey has seen the end of the rancour that marked ties between Washington and Ankara under Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, the diplomatic crisis in the Gulf risks wrecking Turkey’s efforts to keep a tight strategic alliance with Qatar without upsetting Saudi Arabia.
« Turkey has been somewhat isolated diplomatically since the July 2016 failed coup, both because NATO partners were taken by surprise and because the subsequent purge went far beyond anything that could be expected, » said Marc Pierini, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe.
« The crisis between Saudi Arabia and its allies and Qatar only adds to the host of problems Turkey is facing on the diplomatic front, » he told AFP.
– ‘Ever-increasing disputes’ –
Ankara’s precarious position is a far cry from what it enjoyed a decade ago, when Erdogan was seen as an essential mediator in almost every crisis and was courted by both the European Union and the United States.
For former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey was a centre of the Islamic world and deserved influence from Bosnia to Arabia in lands Constantinople controlled under the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey had high hopes that the Arab Spring uprisings would bring into power Sunni Muslim governments that would be under Turkish influence.
But the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and failure to unseat Syria’s Bashar al-Assad put paid to these goals.
« The picture today is a very different one, » said Kemal Kirisci of the Brookings Institution.
« It is characterised by the ever-increasing disputes that Turkey is having with countries in its neighbourhood and beyond, » he added.
– ‘Not even partially fulfilled’ –
Turkey has sought to join the European Union for the last half century, in an agonisingly slow process where Ankara has watched on enviously as post-Communist states join the bloc with far less fuss.
Erdogan has sometimes made Brussels seem like a strategic enemy rather than partner, with attacks bubbling with venom in the run-up to an April 16 referendum on enhancing his powers.
Victory in that referendum handed Erdogan powers that critics fear will create one-man rule and take Ankara inexorably away from European values.
« The bases for a deeper political alliance through EU membership remain as they have always been. It will be up to Turkey’s leaders, at some point in the future, to return to their earlier ambitions, » said Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Ankara.
Despite the controversies surrounding Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, Turkish officials fell over themselves to welcome the tycoon as US leader, predicting a new page in relations.
But no progress has materialised on the vexed issue of Turkey’s desire to secure the extradition of Gulen, who denies any link to the coup, or US support for a Kurdish militia in Syria which Ankara sees as terrorists.
A much-touted visit by Erdogan to Washington to iron out these issues was overshadowed by a fracas involving his bodyguards that led to arrest warrants for 12 members of his security detail.
« While Ankara was very optimistic about the Trump presidency, none of Turkey’s expectations from the new US administration were even partially fulfilled, » said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
– ‘Severe test’ –
In this context, the Saudi-led move to isolate Qatar over its alleged support for terrorism — claims that both Doha and Ankara reject — was the last thing Turkey needed.
Turkey had to some extent repaired ties with Saudi Arabia after a downturn in relations following Riyadh’s support for the ousting of the pro-Ankara Morsi in Egypt.
But it now finds itself dealing with a new environment in the Gulf, especially after the surprise elevation of the hugely powerful Prince Mohammed bin Salman to be Saudi crown prince.
Qatar has over the last years emerged as possibly Turkey’s number one ally, with Ankara even setting up a military base in the emirate and Erdogan building a strong bond with Emir Tamim bin Hamad.
Kirisci said the crisis was « deeply disturbing for Turkey », with Riyadh snubbing Ankara’s efforts at mediation.
Turkey is increasingly banking on a close relationship with Russia and has made much of a multipolar foreign policy, vastly expanding its diplomatic presence in Africa. But Moscow could prove a rickety crutch on which to rest Turkey’s foreign policy.
« Turkish foreign policy is undergoing a severe test, » said a European diplomatic source. « Things are going better with Russia but this is not a relationship that is founded on confidence. »
Prominent Bahraini activist sentenced to 2 years prison
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — One of Bahrain’s most prominent activists was sentenced Monday to two years in prison in a verdict that rights groups say is the latest in a years-long crackdown on dissent that has seen all political opposition groups disbanded and activists jailed or forced into exile.
Nabeel Rajab was sentenced on charges related to TV interviews he gave in which prosecutors allege he disseminated rumors and false news relating to the situation inside Bahrain in a way « that undermines the prestige of the state, » according to several human rights groups closely monitoring the case.
Rajab’s case drew particular attention because he was a leading figure in the tiny island-nation’s 2011 Arab Spring protests, when tens of thousands of Bahrainis, who are majority Shiite, took to the streets to demand a greater say in government from the Sunni monarchy.
Amnesty International said Rajab’s verdict is « the latest shocking display of zero tolerance for freedom of expression by the Bahraini authorities. »
Rajab has been imprisoned since June of last year, with nine months of that in solitary confinement, according to human rights groups such.
The U.S. State Department has expressed concern over Rajab’s arrest and curbs on freedom of expression in Bahrain.
Bahrain, however, is also a close U.S. ally and hosts the Navy’s 5th Fleet. President Donald Trump has touted Washington’s « wonderful relationship » with Bahrain and his administration notified Congress earlier this year that it planned to approve a multibillion-dollar sale of F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain without the human rights conditions imposed by the State Department under the Obama administration.
Rajab has been hospitalized since April and did not attend the past nine hearings, the Bahrain Institute for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement. The group said that since June, Rajab’s lawyers had also not been attending court sessions to protest hearings being held in absence of the defendant. Diplomatic observers also reportedly walked out of court in June due to these procedures.
Rajab faces another trial and up to 15 years in prison on separate charges related to tweets he wrote about alleged torture in Bahraini prisons. He also criticized on social media the war in Yemen, and the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing of rebels there. Bahrain is a member of that coalition. Those charges include « insulting a statutory body », « spreading false news » and « insulting a neighborly country ».
Bahrain’s government suppressed the 2011 protests with the help of Saudi and Emirati forces. Over the past two years, the Bahraini government has moved to silence all major opposition parties and has stripped dozens of people of their nationality and sentenced others to execution or lengthy prison terms. The government has also tightened the reigns on journalists, including recently banning the country’s independent al-Wasat newspaper, which was forced to lay off all of its employees last month.
The crackdown has spurred low-level unrest and attacks by Shiite militant groups against police. The government has accused these groups of receiving training and material support from Shiite power Iran, which lies across the Persian Gulf waters.
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FEATURE-South Sudan’s women deminers brave danger to change their children’s future By Stefanie Glinski JUBA, July 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Margret has decided that South Sudan is not a place to raise children, but she is changing this for future generations.
That’s why – 10 years ago – the mother of two joined the country’s 400 to 500 deminers, digging up remnants of past and present wars – bombs, unexploded ordnances and landmines.
She’s one of a growing number of women to take up the risky business, most of them mothers wanting to provide safety for their families.
« It’s my way of contributing and making this country better, » she said. « I sent my children to Uganda, but I want them to come back one day. It’s a sacrifice for me, but a gain for those returning when the war is over. » Landmines have a long history in South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation that won independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long and violent liberation struggle. After just two years, a political squabble escalated into renewed civil war in late 2013, fracturing the new nation along ethnic lines.
More than four million mines and explosive devices have been found and destroyed in South Sudan over the last decade, says the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS). While some accidents are recorded, UNMAS believes that at least 90 percent go unreported.
WAR REMNANTS Margret currently works around Kolye village, a 30 minute drive on unpaved bumpy roads from the South Sudanese capital Juba in a lush setting of green fields and mango trees.
The area saw heavy fighting between the Sudanese army and southern rebels during Sudan’s long civil war which ended in 2005, paving the way for the South’s independence.
Deadly anti-personnel fragmentation mines were laid by Khartoum’s forces to protect their barracks.
More than a decade later, they are still killing civilians.
« Soldiers placing mines think carefully about how humans behave, where they go and what they do. That is why mines are found alongside roads, in market places or by water points, » said Jan M?ller Hansen of DanChurchAid’s demining project, the organisation that also employs Margret.
While mines are easy to place, they are hard to remove. After an eight-week training course, Margret has dug out hundreds of them throughout her career and – on a good day – she can cover up to 30 square metres (320 square feet).
« We can use the safe land to build roads, hospitals and schools and that’s what excites me the most, » she smiled.
According to UNMAS’s demining chief, Tim Lardner, it will take at least another 10 years to clear up the whole country that is roughly the size of France.
South Sudan signed the Mine Ban Treaty less than six months after independence in 2011, deeming anti-personnel mines illegal and their removal mandatory.
Renewed war has complicated efforts to remove mines from previous conflicts, while rebel forces, without providing evidence, have accused the government of laying new explosives in violation of the treaty, a charge it denies.
A DEMINER’S DAY Margret works together with her friend Angaika, a mother of four and deminer since 2006. They start at eight in the morning, with a driver taking the 10-person team out to the field.
Their operation area is well equipped with a briefing tent, several medics and an ambulance. But the nearest hospital is 15 km (9 miles) along dire roads, while the threat of ambush or looting by armed groups makes the work even more dangerous.
« Each day we communicate through high frequency radios and satellite phones to find out if conditions are safe. We don’t want to become victims of violence, » said Margret, who did not give her full name.
Finding explosives is hands-on work and, dripping sweat in their thick uniforms, teams clear the area inch by inch with metal detectors, scissors and garden tools to cut down grass and dig out explosive devices.
« My heart still beats faster when my detector beeps. I know that I could be very close to a mine, but I know my work and am not afraid, » said Angaika. « I think about my children in those moments. My work is for them and their future families. That’s what makes me strong. » Once the mine is dug up – it can take up to 30 minutes – a controlled explosion is usually carried out on site.
ONGOING WORK Newly discovered minefields are still registered monthly in South Sudan.
« Local communities often inform us about devices they have seen, » DCA’s M?ller Hansen said. « They recognise them from the awareness training they receive. » Koyle, a once lively community, is now deserted due to the menace of landmines. Farmers have left their green and fertile fields, leaving silence except for birdsong.
After 10 weeks, Margret and Angaika’s team is on its final stretch before a week’s break. They started in mid-May and have since cleared almost the whole field of about an acre.
Ahead of them are red posts and danger signs – marking out their next project.
Israeli minister seeks train across Mideast
JERUSALEM (AP) — A senior Israeli Cabinet minister is pushing a plan to build a region-wide train network that he says could link Israel and the Palestinians to much of the Arab world.
Yisrael Katz, the minister of transportation and intelligence, told foreign reporters Monday that Israel already is pushing forward with plans to extend an existing train line to the Jordanian border and into the West Bank. The projects would give Jordan and the Palestinians greater access to Israel’s Haifa port.
Katz showed a map of a hoped-for rail network stretching through Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the Gulf.
Israel does not have formal relations with Saudi Arabia, but Katz suggested the issue has been quietly raised through back channels. He says the new U.S. administration is « very active » promoting regional « normalization. »
Israel’s Labor party elects newcomer Gabbay as leader
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Labor party elected political newcomer Avi Gabbay as its leader Monday hoping to inject new blood into the movement that steered the country in the decades after independence but has been shut out of power for 16 years.
Labor led the Jewish state for its first three decades, leaving its mark on all aspects of Israeli society through wars, crises and the pursuit of peace. But it has not governed since then Prime Minister Ehud Barak was defeated in 2001 following a failed attempt to reach peace with the Palestinians.
« This is the day hope won, »Gabbay said in his victory speech. « The day of returning to our senses. The day of returning to our values. »
He said his campaign to oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and « replace the government in Israel » starts Tuesday.
Gabbay, 50, won by a small margin in a runoff vote against Amir Peretz, a former party leader and defense minister.
The winner called on Peretz to « join forces, » saying his experience is needed.
Peretz said he phoned Gabbay to congratulate him. He said he will help him and the party « on the journey to replace Netanyahu, which we really hope will become reality. »
Gabbay is relatively unknown in Israeli politics. He served a brief stint as environment minister under Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition. He then resigned in protest last year and joined Labor when Netanyahu ousted Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon in favor of nationalist Avigdor Lieberman.
A former telecom executive, Gabbay stresses his humble beginnings before his rise to prominence in the business world as the seventh of eight children born to immigrants from Morocco.
Labor still has a long way to go before returning to its former glory as the party of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin. The past 16 years have been a downward spiral as the public has grown disillusioned with its dovish message of Middle East peace amid Palestinian violence and regional upheaval.
Labor’s early leaders of European, or Ashkenazi, descent took a paternalistic attitude toward Jewish immigrants from Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Many of these immigrants, known as Mizrahi Jews, were sent to shantytown transit camps and largely sidelined.
They found their political savior in the Likud Party’s Menachem Begin, who cultivated an outsiders’ alliance that appealed to their sense of deprivation. With strong backing from Mizrahi Jews, he swept to power in 1977.
In many ways, Labor has been fighting back ever since, rarely wresting control from Likud.
Barak, the last Labor prime minister, tweeted « Revolution! » after Gabbay’s win. He added that Netanyahu « is sweating and rightly so. »
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.
The next national election isn’t scheduled until late 2019, but opinion polls indicate Labor could win just 10 to 15 seats in the 120-seat parliament, making it Israel’s fourth- or even fifth-largest party.
The new Labor chairman would usually be the country’s opposition leader, a formal role that affords meetings with visiting foreign dignitaries and high-profile speaking opportunities. But Gabbay is not a member of parliament and in his victory speech he asked former Labor chairman Isaac Herzog if he would take the role of opposition leader. Herzog lost the party leadership post in an earlier round of voting last week.
Relatives of slain US troops describe loss to Jordan court
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — The relatives of two of the three American soldiers shot dead at a Jordanian air base last year described the pain of their loss in letters Monday to a military court trying the alleged killer.
The parents of one soldier and the sister of a second attended a court hearing in Jordan’s capital, Amman and will remain until the verdict, expected next Monday.
The defendant, a Jordanian soldier, has pleaded « not guilty. » If convicted, he faces life in prison. The U.S. military trainers were killed when three vehicles carrying four U.S. troops came under fire at the gate of an air base in southern Jordan in November.
The victims were 27-year-old Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen of Kirksville, Missouri; 30-year-old Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe of Tucson, Arizona; and 27-year-old Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty of Kerrville, Texas.
Moriarty’s sisters, Melissa and Rebecca, and Lewellen’s parents, Charles and Cindy, described the pain of their loss in letters to the court.
They also criticized the Jordanian authorities’ initial handling of the shooting, including claims that the U.S. troops had triggered the shooting by disobeying gate procedures. Jordan later withdrew such claims.
Rebecca, who was in court Monday, wrote that she and her siblings had exchanged messages the day before her brother’s Nov. 4 death to plan a Thanksgiving get-together later that month.
Coping with the loss has been « utterly exhausting, especially when I feel that justice has not been served, » she wrote.
« The initial days brought constant tears, » she wrote. « My face swelled up and ached from so much crying. I couldn’t taste food. Everything reminded me of him. »
Melissa Moriarty, who is to arrive in Jordan this weekend, wrote that she has endured « extreme anguish and darkness » following the death of her brother.
A key issue during the trial has been the possible trigger for the shooting.
The defendant, 1st Sgt. Marik al-Tuwayha, has said he had heard a pistol shot coming from the direction of the U.S. convoy and that he opened fire because he feared the base was coming under attack.
Several gate guards testified that they heard a sound that might have been a pistol shot but that they held their fire because they couldn’t identify the exact source.
The defendant has said he initially opened fire from inside a guard house where he was at the time, believing he was complying with rules of engagement. He has said he had « no intention of killing anyone » and felt no resentment toward Americans.
The prosecutor said Monday that the defendant acted with intent, having fired dozens of rounds over several minutes. He said the defendant did not comply with the rules of engagement because he did not determine the source of the alleged pistol shot.
In an interview Monday, Rebecca Moriarty and the Lewellens questioned why the court did not screen a security camera video of the incident and why it did not ask a surviving U.S. soldier to testify. They said the survivor was willing to take the stand.
« That is very disappointing to us as families but especially to him who went through it and is the only key eyewitness to what took place, » said Charles Lewellen, 53.
The bereaved families said the surveillance video, shown to them by U.S. law enforcement, shows the defendant reloading and shooting at Americans who were waving their hands and yelling: « We’re Americans! We’re friendly. »
Rebecca Moriarty said the shooting lasted for six minutes.
« The last word my brother said was ‘friend,' » she wrote. « He spent the last six minutes of his life trying to defuse what was, at the very least, a misunderstanding. »
Cyprus: Gas drilling on course despite peace talks’ failure
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Drilling off ethnically divided Cyprus in search of oil and gas will go ahead as scheduled following the collapse of reunification talks despite strong objections voiced by Turkey, the island’s president said Monday.
President Nicos Anastasiades also said the island nation’s Greek side is ready to re-engage with Turkish Cypriots on negotiating a peace deal if rights of military intervention aren’t ceded to Turkey and Ankara withdraws all the troops it keeps in the breakaway north.
Anastasiades, a Greek Cypriot, told a nationally televised news conference that there will be no deviation from plans to drill off Cyprus’ southern coast.
French energy producer Total is scheduled to begin drilling this month in an area off Cyprus near a huge field in Egyptian waters that’s estimated to hold 30 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday leveled criticism against energy companies for participating in « the irresponsible steps » being taken by the Greek Cypriots.
« Our expectation from all sides who are party to developments in Cyprus is to stay away from steps that can lead to new tensions in the region, » Erdogan told a World Petroleum Congress meeting in Istanbul.
Turkey doesn’t recognize Cyprus as a state and charges that drilling efforts by the island’s internationally recognized government in the Greek Cypriot south infringes on the rights of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots to its potential mineral wealth.
Anastasiades repeated that Cyprus has international law on its side and would defend the government’s sovereign right to drill off its shores at the European Union and other world bodies.
He said he’s hopeful Turkey doesn’t create a « provocation » that would put at risk the interests of oil and gas companies, the Cypriot people or Turkey itself because such an action « won’t be without consequences. »
Meanwhile, Anastasiades repeated that Turkey’s insistence on keeping military intervention rights and troops in place as part of an accord scuttled 10 days of high-level, United Nations sponsored talks in Switzerland last week.
The talks in which U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres twice stepped in to help break a stalemate had been billed as the best chance to end the Cyprus’ decades-long divide by reunifying it as a federation.
Erdogan said he regretted the talks’ collapse, which he blamed on the « negative stance » of Greek Cypriots.
Anastasiades said his goal was to create a truly independent and sovereign state free from « the dependence of third countries. »
Turkey has kept more than 35,000 troops on Cyprus since invading in 1974 following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Although Cyprus is an EU member, only the south enjoys full benefits.
« The objective is to cut the umbilical cord » with Turkey, Anastasiades said. « That’s why at some point Turkish Cypriots have to decide either they’ll be part of Turkey, or they’ll be part of the Cypriot state as it will evolve. »
Greek Cypriots want all Turkish troops gone because they see them as a threat and an extension of Turkey’s influence over Cyprus. The minority Turkish Cypriots want Turkish troops and intervention rights to stay in place to guarantee their security.
Cyprus: Greek president blames Turkey for collapse of talks
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus’ president says the ethnically divided island’s Greek side is ready to negotiate a reunification agreement with the Turkish Cypriots if rights of military intervention aren’t included in a deal and all the troops that Turkey keeps in the island’s breakaway north are withdrawn.
President Nicos Anastasiades, a Greek Cypriot, told a nationally televised news conference Monday that Turkey’s insistence on keeping military intervention rights and troops in place as part of any peace accord scuttled 10 days of high-level talks at a Swiss resort last week.
Anastasiades said his goal is to create a truly independent and sovereign state free from « the dependence of third countries. »
Turkey has kept more than 35,000 troops on Cyprus since invading in 1974 following a coup by supporters of union with Greece.
FBI: US soldier pledged allegiance to Islamic State group
HONOLULU (AP) — An active duty soldier based in Hawaii pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State group, helped purchase a drone for it to use against American forces and said he wanted to use his rifle to « kill a bunch of people, » according to an FBI affidavit.
Ikaika Kang, a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army, made an initial appearance Monday in federal court in Honolulu. He was arrested Saturday on terrorism charges.
Paul Delacourt, the FBI special agent in charge of the Hawaii bureau, said no documents made it to the Islamic State.
Birney Bervar, Kang’s appointed attorney, said after Kang’s initial court appears that he still doesn’t know much about the case. He said he only talked to Kang for a few minutes.
The 26-page affidavit from FBI Special Agent Jimmy Chen lays out details of the yearlong investigation into the 34-year-old soldier, who was a one-time martial arts fighter who thought he was dealing with Islamic State agents but were undercover agents or sources instead.
Among the charges was that Kang copied military secret documents in 2015 and wanted to provide them to the organization, according to the affidavit. It also Kang says admitted that he voluntarily pledged loyalty to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
This occurred on Saturday at a home in Honolulu, where he thought he was meeting an actual member of the organization, the affidavit says. They made combat training videos he believed would be taken back to the Middle East to help prepare the group’s soldiers to fight American forces, according to the affidavit.
Kang, who received extensive combat training, also helped purchase a drone that he believed would help Islamic State soldiers escape from American tanks, the affidavit says.
Kang, a trained air traffic controller based at Hawaii’s Wheeler Army Airfield, had his military clearance revoked in 2012 for making pro-Islamic State comments while at work and on-post and threatening to hurt or kill fellow service members.
His clearance was reinstated a year later after he completed military requirements.
However, the affidavit says the Army believed Kang was becoming radicalized in 2016 and asked the FBI to investigate.
Kang has two firearms registered in his name, an AR-15-style assault rifle and a handgun. After the shooting last summer at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, he told an undercover source that the « shooter did what he had to do and later said that America is the only terrorist organization in the world, » according to the affidavit.
The document alleges he also later told the same source that « Hitler was right, saying he believed in the mass killing of Jews. »
Kang enlisted in the Army in December 2001, just months after the Sept. 11 attacks. He served in Iraq from March 2010 to February 2011 and Afghanistan from July 2013 to April 2014. Kang was assigned to the headquarters of the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade.
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U.S. deploys advanced anti-aircraft missiles in Baltics for first time VILNIUS, July 10 (Reuters) – The United States deployed a battery of Patriot long-range anti-aircraft missiles in Lithuania to be used in NATO wargames from Tuesday – the first time the advanced defence system has been brought to the Baltics where Russia has air superiority.
The Patriot battery was brought to the Siauliai military airbase on Monday, ahead of the Tobruk Legacy exercise, and will be withdrawn when the exercise ends on July 22, a Lithuanian defence ministry spokeswoman told Reuters.
The NATO wargames take place ahead of the large-scale Zapad 2017 exercise by Russia and Belarus which NATO officials believe could bring more than 100,000 troops to the borders of Poland and the three Baltic NATO allies – the biggest such Russian manoeuvres since 2013.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia possess only short-range anti-aircraft missiles, leaving the skies largely unprotected in the event of hostilities and have expressed concern about their air defence weakness following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
As a deterrent to Russia in the flashpoint region, the United States has deployed detachments of troops since the Crimea annexation, which have been augmented by four NATO battle groups of more than 1,000 soldiers.
Referring to the NATO exercise starting on Tuesday, Lithuania’s Defence Minister Raimondas Karoblis said: « The deployment of Patriots is important because it demonstrates that such moves are no longer a taboo in the region. » « It proves that the missiles can be brought to wherever they are needed, which is very important, » he told Reuters.
« Air defence, including ground-based defences, is one of the holes in our defences, and we will not solve it without help from our allies, » he said.
The Patriot batteries were used in 200 combat engagements against manned and unmanned aircraft, cruise missiles and tactical ballistic missiles, according to its maker U.S. firm Raytheon.
NATO ally Poland said last week that the United States had agreed to sell it Patriot missile defence systems. In March it said it expected to sign a deal worth up to $7.6 billion with Raytheon to buy eight Patriot systems by the end of the year. (Reporting by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
China’s ambition, US retreat on show in Serbian factory town
SMEDEREVO, Serbia (AP) — A giant Chinese red flag flutters on a pole where an American flag used to fly at a steel mill in this dusty industrial Serbian town. The company logos of U.S. Steel are faded on the huge chimneys stacks, replaced by those of a Chinese company.
When U.S. Steel sold its loss-making smelter in Serbia to the government for the symbolic sum of $1 in 2012, few here thought the ailing communist-era factory would ever be revived. Then came along a state-owned Chinese company.
Hebei Iron & Steel’s 46 million-euro ($52 million) purchase of the Steelworks Smederevo last year is part of China’s broader effort to project influence and gain an access point to the European market as other traditional powers, particularly the U.S. under President Donald Trump, retreat from the world stage.
The dynamic was laid bare at a world summit over the weekend, where Trump showed little interest in promoting free trade and was at odds with other countries on issues like climate change. China, meanwhile, was keen to promote itself as a champion of commerce and openness — even though in practice it falls far short of being one.
The Serbian plant is economically irrelevant in the short term to China, which abounds with steel production at home. But the deal saved 5,200 local jobs and gained Serbia’s political favor.
« It seems to me that everything China has been doing in the past several years in the field of its investments abroad also has a political background and connotation, » said Mijat Lakicevic, a Serbian political and economy analyst.
« China doesn’t really need the Serbian plant that produces practically nothing compared to the steel production in China, » he said. « So, I would describe this as placing a foot in the doorway in order to enter the market and the area where Russia and America are already present. »
The longer-term strategy for China is to open markets for its businesses as its home economy slows. The most high-profile effort in this direction is the ambitious $900 billion Belt and Road project, often referred to as the New Silk Road — a transport and trade corridor running from China to Germany, via Greek ports, the Balkans and Central Europe.
Annual investment by Chinese companies in Europe reached an all-time high of $18 billion in 2014, with annual inflows averaging $10 billion over the past four years, according to the Rhodium Group, a China investment monitor.
Beijing is encouraging its industries to diversify abroad in hopes of reducing China’s reliance on exports and its domestic market. That has also led to a string of acquisitions in chemicals, tourism, insurance, banking and other industries.
Steel producers have an extra incentive because Beijing is trying to shrink its bloated state-dominated industry at home. China’s production glut has led to a flood of low-priced exports, which has depressed global markets and cost jobs in the U.S. and Europe, raising political tensions. As China negotiates the issue with the U.S. and EU, its acquisition of the Serbian plant gets it some rare good headlines in which it is credited with saving, not destroying, jobs.
Chinese companies are also starting to make inroads into Eastern European construction and engineering markets, including plans to build a $2 billion high-speed rail line from the Serbian capital, Belgrade, to Budapest in neighboring Hungary.
And while the EU remains the Western Balkans’ largest trading partner, local governments have sometimes looked with favor to countries like China that are willing to invest large amounts without raising concerns about the region’s patchy record on human rights or media freedoms.
« Serbia has an important role in China’s global Belt and Road project and we want to capitalize on all its potential, » Serbian Construction Minister Zorana Mihajlovic said. « This project cannot be realized without developed infrastructure in the countries where it passes. »
She said that China has so far loaned some 5.5 billion euros ($6.3 billion) in Serbia for the construction of bridges, highways and railroads that it plans to use as transport routes for its goods into the heart of Europe.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has often been criticized by Western European leaders as being authoritarian, has often expressed his admiration for the economic achievements of countries like China. He wants to make Hungary the main hub for Chinese business and investments in Central and Eastern Europe.
« The old model for globalization has become obsolete, » Orban said in May in Beijing while taking part in a Belt and Road conference. « The engine room of the global economy is no longer in the West, but in the East. »
In Smederevo, the town of some 100,000 people where thousands make a living from the steel plant, there was praise for China.
Though salaries are about 25 percent below what they were under the U.S. company — roughly 750 euros ($855) compared with 1,000 euros ($1,140), mayor Jasna Avramovic said it was important that the jobs had returned in the first place.
« It’s been one year since the Chinese came to our town and a calmer atmosphere is visible, » Avramovic said. « There is no more uncertainty over what will happen with the plant. The salaries come on time. »