Air strikes killed 23 civilians, including eight children, on Thursday in countryside around the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s base in Syria, a war monitoring group said. The warplanes were believed to belong to the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State militants, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Wednesday that Iraq will continue to hit Islamic State targets in Syria, as well as in neighboring countries if they give their approval. “I respect the sovereignty of states, and I have secured the approval of Syria to strike positions of the terrorists in the Syrian Albu Kamal because it is from these positions car bombs enter Baghdad and other Iraqi cities and we will continue to fight terrorism”, he have said in the city of Sulaimani. “I will not hesitate to strike the positions of the terrorists in the neighboring countries”, he have added.
As part of the ongoing sweeping operations conducted by the second field army in different parts of North Sinai following the massive exodus of Coptic families from Al-Arish city, Sunday’s operations resulted in the death of four militants. However, the city of Al-Arish, which occupied the news headlines during the last week, is still witnessing the presence of militants who are believed to be members of the IS affiliated group of ‘Sinai Province.’ On Sunday the militants opened a checkpoint in central Al-Arish, where they stopped many pedestrians and checked their IDs. They created such checkpoint to prove their presence in the city; however, once police forces arrived, they fled the scenes. Also, the checkpoint was aiming to target Coptic residents, as the militants were checking the pedestrians’ IDs, he added.
Federal Police forces managed on Saturday to repel an attack launched by the Islamic State group, using booby trapped vehicles and suicide bombers, on the front lines of the security forces in the outskirts of Dawasa area in Mosul. “Security forces also managed to kill 10 suicide bombers and detonate 5 booby-trapped vehicles”, have said the Federal Police Chief, Lieutenant General Raed Shakir Jawdat. Security forces also managed to kill 10 suicide bombers and detonate 5 booby-trapped vehicles.
Scores of civilians fled western Mosul on Thursday while Iraqi forces fought Islamic State militants in the group’s stronghold uring bad weather in the early hours. Civilians from Maamoun district fleeing the fighting gathered at a petrol station at Hammam al-Alil junction. Men were separated and taken for a security screening while women and children sat together waiting to board buses which would take them to Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul. The residents will be housed in two camps, Hammam al-Alil camp and Jada camp set up by the Iraq government to serve as temporary shelter.
Iraqi forces began Tuesday the installation of a floating bridge that will help bring supplies from the east of Mosul to forces fighting Islamic State militants in the west. Abdul-Karim al-Sabaawi, a Brig. Gen. in the Iraqi army, said in press statements that the engineering teams had begun erecting the floating bridge that will link both sides of the Tigris River, which bisects the city. The bridges were partially destroyed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes during operations in eastern Mosul to hinder attempts by Islamic State fighters to escape to the west. Iraqi commanders said recently they were planning to erect a bridge across the river to allow military supplies into the west.
Turkey has suggested what it calls a “Mosul model” for the potential Raqqa operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), highlighting that Raqqa is also a predominantly Arab city that must be saved by mostly Arab forces. “More than 90 percent of the Raqqa population is Arab. If you assign a terror organization with a different ethnic background to save the city, you would cause a big instability. The same was also valid for Mosul”, Defense Minister Fikri Işık told reporters on Feb. 23, apparently referring to the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). Işık held an extensive meeting with the United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis last week in Munich as part of a series of discussions with the new U.S. administration for coordinating the future phases of the fight against ISIL. Turkey requests that the U.S. cease its cooperation with the PYD, which it sees as affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Raqqa operation could be carried out with the participation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which has developed and improved during Turkey’s Euphrates Shield operation in northern Syria and particularly the al-Bab operation, he added.
Germany signed an agreement with the government of Iraq on Monday to provide a €500 million euro (over $521 million) credit facility to fund investments aimed at reconstructing Iraqi infrastructure damaged due to the war against the Islamic State during these years. The funding comes from the KfW Banking Group, with a small team of German officials to advise Iraq on how to distribute it. “We want to help the Iraqi government rebuild public infrastructure so that the people who had to flee IS terrorism can return to their homes” the words of the foreign minister Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel. After he have noted taht the liberation of eastern Mosul marked an important success: “Islamic State cannot be defeated militarily alone” and “More engagement and investment to ensure functioning water and energy supplies and transportation systems are needed to transform these cities and areas into peaceful, vibrant and liveable homelands. The credit, which is the biggest yet to Iraq, came after German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised support to Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Abadi last year.
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. 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 AlUwaynat, close the Algerian border, he said.
Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said the Islamic Republic is not going to allow the US to overstep its redlines. “Today, Iran is stronger (than the US) both politically and strategically and has great capabilities in all fields, which Washington does not favor”. Iran has specific redlines in the region and we will never allow the US to cross them, Boroujerdi said in an interview.“Americans have always been seeking to defeat Iran and its allies (in the region), the Resistance (Front) in particular, but have failed to do so,” he added.