| Oil prices rise after week of sharp falls Posted: 06 Nov 2016 05:37 PM PST  Oil prices rose in early trading on Monday, with traders citing opportunistic buying following sharp declines in the previous week on the back of ongoing weak fundamentals. International Brent crude oil futures were trading at $45.92 per barrel at 0119 GMT, up 34 cents, or 0.75 percent, from their previous close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 0.40 cents, or 0.91 percent, at $44.47 a barrel.
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| Syrian Kurds begin campaign to oust Islamic State from Raqqa Posted: 06 Nov 2016 05:23 PM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — Kurdish-led Syrian forces began an offensive Sunday to liberate the Islamic State group's de facto capital of Raqqa, clashing with the extremists north of the Syrian city and warning neighboring Turkey not to interfere in the operation.
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| Hundreds forced out of Iraq's Kirkuk after IS attack: Amnesty Posted: 06 Nov 2016 04:08 PM PST  Hundreds of families have been driven out of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk in apparent retaliation for a recent attack by the Islamic State group, Amnesty International said on Monday. Authorities in the Kurdish-controlled city demolished the homes of hundreds of Arab residents and ordered them to leave Kirkuk in the wake of the attack on October 21, the London-based rights group said. An additional 190 families were said to have been displaced from nearby villages by Kurdish Peshmerga and Asayesh forces.
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| Election 2016: twists and turns aplenty Posted: 06 Nov 2016 01:14 PM PST  Clinton thought a controversy over her use of a private server to send email while secretary of state had been put to rest in July, when FBI chief James Comey recommended no criminal charges against her. All that changed in late October, just 11 days before the election, when Comey surprised Americans by announcing the discovery of new, potentially relevant emails without giving further details. The news was welcome for Trump, who repeatedly called the revelations "the biggest political scandal since Watergate." He saw a bump in the polls.
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| Morale high among anti-IS fighters marching on Raqa Posted: 06 Nov 2016 12:36 PM PST  For Shawakh Gharib, it's time to take revenge. With the start of the offensive to conquer Raqa, the Syrian fighter believes his dream of going home will soon come true. Gharib, 25, fled Raqa in 2014 when fighters of the Islamic State group arrived, but on Sunday he was upbeat at the prospect of returning.
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| 'Fight will not be easy' in IS-held Raqa: US defense chief Posted: 06 Nov 2016 12:11 PM PST  "The effort to isolate, and ultimately liberate, Raqa marks the next step in our coalition campaign plan," Carter said in a statement. "As in Mosul, the fight will not be easy and there is hard work ahead, but it is necessary to end the fiction of ISIL's caliphate and disrupt the group's ability to carry out terror attacks against the United States, our allies and our partners," he said, using an alternative name for the jihadist group. "The international coalition will continue to do what we can to enable local forces in both Iraq and Syria to deliver ISIL the lasting defeat it deserves," the US defense chief added.
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| An ancient cure for war-torn Syria Posted: 06 Nov 2016 11:41 AM PST For five long years, the world's impression of Syria has been one of uprisings, civil war, refugees, failed peace talks, and the Islamic State setting up its capital in the city of Raqqa. On Sunday, US-backed fighters of the Syria Democratic Forces launched an operation to retake Raqqa. Amid the flux and fatalism of war, however, many Syrians, along with help from Germany and others, are working to eventually reunite the country in the hope that a peace deal will keep Syria intact. |
| US-backed forces launch assault on Syrian IS 'capital' Posted: 06 Nov 2016 11:38 AM PST  US-backed Kurdish-Arab forces launched an offensive Sunday on the Islamic State group's de facto Syrian capital Raqa, upping pressure on the jihadists who are already battling Iraqi troops in Mosul. The start of the assault by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) came as Iraqi forces fought inside Mosul for the third day running amid fierce jihadist resistance. The two cities are the last major urban centres under IS control after the jihadists suffered a string of territorial losses in Iraq and Syria over the past year.
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| US envoy says killing of 3 US trainers in Jordan 'tragic' Posted: 06 Nov 2016 11:22 AM PST  AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — A U.S. official described the shooting deaths of three U.S. military trainers in Jordan as a "very tragic incident."
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| The Latest: US says Mosul campaign ahead of schedule Posted: 06 Nov 2016 11:14 AM PST  MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — The Latest on the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State group (all times local):
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| Iraqi forces battle car bombs with commercial drones Posted: 06 Nov 2016 11:10 AM PST  On the Mosul front lines, Iraqi forces have found a new tool to counter the Islamic State group's suicide car bombs: small commercial drones. "It's a car bomb!" Mohammed Salih alerted his forces after checking the live feed from a drone his men were flying over the area, on the Mosul battle's southern front. The dust had not yet settled when another threat materialised on the drone's monitor.
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| Q&A: A look at the offensive against IS-held Raqqa Posted: 06 Nov 2016 11:08 AM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — U.S.-backed Syrian forces on Sunday said they would march on the northern city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State group's self-styled caliphate.
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| The Latest: France to provide airstrikes in battle for Raqqa Posted: 06 Nov 2016 11:02 AM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the Syrian conflict (all times local):
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| U.S.-backed Syrian alliance declares attack on Islamic State in Raqqa Posted: 06 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST  By Rodi Said AIN ISSA, Syria (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian armed groups has launched an operation to retake the northern city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State in Syria, the group said on Sunday. A statement issued by the U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab armed groups, said the long anticipated campaign, called Euphrates Anger, started late on Saturday. "The general command of the Syria Democratic Forces announces the blessed start of its major military campaign to liberate the city of Raqqa," Jehan Sheikh Amad, an SDF spokeswoman, told a news conference in the Syrian town of Ain Issa, 50 km (30 miles) north of Raqqa.
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| Turkish, U.S. military chiefs discuss Syria and Iraq operations - Turkish military Posted: 06 Nov 2016 10:35 AM PST The heads of the Turkish and U.S. armed forces discussed joint strategies against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq during a meeting in Ankara on Sunday, the Turkish military said in a statement. Turkish chief of general staff Hulusi Akar met his U.S. counterpart Joseph Dunford hours after U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an operation to liberate the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State. "Joint combat methods against Daesh (Islamic State) in Syria and Iraq, namely al-Bab and Raqqa, were discussed for the coming days," the statement said, referring to two Syrian cities. |
| Tanks of Iraq's 9th division rumble into Mosul Posted: 06 Nov 2016 10:25 AM PST  Every shot sent shock waves all around and left ears ringing: the tanks of the Iraqi army's 9th armoured division were advancing through the streets of Mosul's Intisar neighbourhood. When Iraqi forces finally punched into the streets of Mosul in the past few day, the three-week-old offensive to wrest the city back from the Islamic State ground entered a new phase. In Intisar, a modest neighbourhood on the eastern edge of Mosul, civilians kept as low a profile a possible.
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| Under pressure, Islamic State digs in for Mosul fight-top Kurdish official Posted: 06 Nov 2016 10:23 AM PST By Michael Georgy and Babak Dehghanpisheh SALAHUDDIN, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces are expected to face much fiercer resistance from Islamic State in the next phase of the battle for Mosul, including booby traps that can blow up entire neighborhoods, the top Kurdish security official said on Sunday. Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government's Security Council, said that even if Islamic State is driven out of its main stronghold Mosul, that will not be enough to eliminate the group, and its radical ideology will survive. "The fight against ISIS is going to be a long fight," Barzani told Reuters in an interview. |
| Mosul Today: Advances slow in Mosul, bombers hit elsewhere Posted: 06 Nov 2016 09:53 AM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's special forces worked Sunday to clear neighborhoods on the eastern edge of Islamic State-held Mosul as bombings launched by the extremist group elsewhere in the country killed at least 20 people.
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| Kosovo: 7 arrested for alleged terror activity linked to IS Posted: 06 Nov 2016 09:52 AM PST PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Seven people have been arrested in Kosovo for alleged involvement in terror activities that prosecutors think were carried out with co-conspirators in neighboring Balkan countries, police said Sunday. |
| Mosul battle rages as IS bombings elsewhere in Iraq kill 20 Posted: 06 Nov 2016 09:36 AM PST  MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Iraq's special forces worked Sunday to clear neighborhoods on the eastern edge of Islamic State-held Mosul as bombings launched by the extremist group elsewhere in the country killed at least 20 people.
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| Germany's Social Democrats press for new points-based immigration rules Posted: 06 Nov 2016 09:08 AM PST Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD), junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition, will announce a plan on Monday for a points-based system to regulate immigration, a top party official said. Thomas Oppermann, who leads the Social Democrats in the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, said the goal was to pass the new law governing migration by skilled workers from outside the European Union before national elections in September 2017. |
| Clinton has a lot of promises to keep Posted: 06 Nov 2016 08:15 AM PST  If Hillary Clinton makes it to the White House, a whole lot of eyes will be on her list of do's and don'ts. Throughout the presidential campaign against Donald Trump, Clinton has made some very specific ...
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| Islamic State hits back in Mosul but faces new Raqqa front Posted: 06 Nov 2016 07:56 AM PST  By Ahmed Rasheed and Rodi Said BAGHDAD/AIN ISSA, Syria (Reuters) - Islamic State fighters targeted Iraqi troops with car bombs and ambushes in Mosul, stalling an army advance in their north Iraq stronghold, but faced attack on a new front on Sunday when U.S.-backed rebels launched a campaign for the Syrian city of Raqqa. The jihadists have lost control of seven eastern districts of Mosul to Iraqi special forces who broke through their lines last Monday. Mosul, the largest Islamic State-controlled city in either Iraq or Syria, has been held by the jihadist fighters since they drove the army out of northern Iraq in June 2014.
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| Erdogan blasts West as Turkey's Kurdish party boycotts parliament Posted: 06 Nov 2016 07:15 AM PST  By Tuvan Gumrukcu and Gulsen Solaker ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused Europe on Sunday of abetting terrorism by supporting Kurdish militants and said he did not care if it called him a dictator. Turkey drew international condemnation for the arrest on Friday of leaders and lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the second-largest opposition grouping in parliament, as part of a terrorism investigation. The government accuses the HDP, which made history last year by becoming the first Kurdish party to win 10 percent of the vote and enter parliament, of financing and supporting an armed Kurdish insurgency, which it denies.
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| First step under way to isolate Raqa for military assault: US official Posted: 06 Nov 2016 05:56 AM PST  The first step is under way to isolate the Islamic State group's de facto Syrian capital Raqa ahead of a larger assault on the city, a US official said Sunday. "We will first undertake an effort to isolate Raqa to set the stage for an eventual assault on the city itself to liberate it" from IS control, a US official told AFP on condition of anonymity, as a US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance launched an offensive on the city. The official said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) "is the partner force most capable of acting soon to isolate Raqa, and we believe the inclusion of fighters from the local population is an important advantage the SDF brings to this effort.
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| Five facts on the jihadist-held Syrian city of Raqa Posted: 06 Nov 2016 05:52 AM PST  In an area inhabited since antiquity, Raqa reached its heights under the Abbasid caliphate. From 796 to 809, the powerful caliph Harun al-Rashid transferred the capital of his empire from Baghdad to Raqa, which sat at the crossroads of key trade routes. The caliph's court returned to Baghdad in 809 and Raqa remained a major administrative centre for the western part of the empire.
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| Syria's SDF: US-backed alliance targeting IS-held Raqa Posted: 06 Nov 2016 05:24 AM PST  It has since emerged as a key fighting force against IS in northern Syria and the main ground partner of the US-led coalition that launched a campaign against the jihadist group in mid-2014. The SDF has scored a series of victories in the past 12 months, the most important the recapture in August of the strategic northern city of Manbij. The SDF was formed in mid-October last year as Kurds, Arab Muslims and Christians, and other groups joined forces to battle IS in northern Syria.
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| Kosovo says detained Islamic State suspects planned attacks in Balkans Posted: 06 Nov 2016 04:35 AM PST By Fatos Bytyci PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo's state prosecutor has said seven Islamic State suspects detained last week were planning attacks in the Balkans and were receiving instructions from militants in Syria. Kosovo has not seen any militant attacks on its home turf, but at least 200 people have been detained or investigated for alleged Islamic State-related offences. Around 300 Kosovars have gone to fight with the group in Syria and Iraq. |
| Amid scandal, bluster and insults, Trump closes in on White House Posted: 06 Nov 2016 04:07 AM PST  By Bill Trott WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supercharging the bluster, hyperbole and media mastery that made him one of the world's best-known businessmen, Donald Trump upended U.S. democratic traditions on a 17-month quest he hopes will lead to the White House. From his grand Trump Tower escalator entrance into the Republican presidential race on June 16, 2015, Trump managed to be simultaneously charismatic and combative, elitist and populist, lewd and pious as he drilled into a lode of polarity and anti-Washington anger among American voters. In Tuesday's election against Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump is making his first run for public office.
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| Fending off foes, Clinton blazes a trail with White House in sight Posted: 06 Nov 2016 04:03 AM PST  By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton has one of the strongest resumes of anyone ever to run for U.S. president, with stints as first lady, senator and secretary of state, but she is also a polarizing figure and a Washington insider with decades of political baggage. Should Democrat Clinton, 69, defeat Republican Donald Trump, 70, in Tuesday's election, she would become the first woman elected U.S. president, having already been the only first lady to win elected office and the first woman nominated for president by a major U.S. party. Clinton fell short in her first presidential bid in 2008, losing her party's nomination to Barack Obama.
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| Iraq forces gain ground in Mosul despite fierce resistance Posted: 06 Nov 2016 03:19 AM PST  Iraqi forces battled jihadists inside Mosul for the third day running Sunday while civilians risked their lives dodging bombs and snipers to slip out of the city. The Islamic State group put up fierce resistance to defend the city it seized more than two years ago and also claimed responsibility for deadly suicide attacks further south. The elite Counter-Terrorism Service has been spearheading the attack on the eastern front of the three-week-old offensive on Mosul, Iraq's largest military operation in years.
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| 10 Iranian pilgrims killed in a suicide attack in Iraq: agency Posted: 06 Nov 2016 02:26 AM PST DUBAI (Reuters) - Ten Iranian pilgrims were killed in a suicide attack in Iraq's holy city of Samarra, about 125 km (80 miles) north of Baghdad on Sunday, the Iranian news agency ISNA quoted an Iranian official as saying. Pilgrimage official Mohammad Javad Daneshyar said the Iranians were getting off a bus when an ambulance carrying the suicide bomber approached them and blew up. (Reporting By Dubai newsroom, editing by Larry King) |
| Arabs view US election with indifference or loathing Posted: 06 Nov 2016 12:03 AM PDT  In Cairo, capital of the most populous Arab country, the US election is met with self-absorbed indifference or loathing for one, and sometimes both, candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The staff at a barber shop in Cairo's middle class Dokki neighbourhood looked at one another in bemusement when asked whom they favoured for US president. "We're following what's happening here, that's more than enough for us," laughed a hairdresser who gave her name as Mona, referring to Egypt's economic crisis.
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| White House race a nearly two-year roller coaster ride Posted: 05 Nov 2016 08:59 PM PDT  The following is a sample of the major stages, developments and surprises of a race like no other as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump battle for the White House. The New York Times scores a big scoop with news that Clinton used a private email server while working as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. "We brought up the existence of emails in research this summer but were told that everything was taken care of," Clinton's future campaign manager Robby Mook wrote in a recently hacked email.
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| 25 killed in Iraq suicide bombings claimed by IS Posted: 05 Nov 2016 05:34 PM PDT  Suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State group killed at least 25 people and wounded more than 50 in two cities north of Baghdad on Sunday, officials said. One bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle at the southern entrance to Tikrit, while another other blew up an ambulance at a car park in Samarra, possibly in concert with a third bomber. The Tikrit attack killed at least 15 people and wounded at least 33, while at least 10 died and at least 25 were wounded in Samarra, security and medical officials said.
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| Deal with US to prevent Turkey role in Raqa assault: SDF Posted: 05 Nov 2016 05:03 PM PDT  Washington has agreed that Turkey will play no role in the battle to capture the Islamic State group's Syrian bastion Raqa, the spokesman for the Kurdish-Arab force leading the fight said Sunday. "We have agreed definitively with the (US-led) international coalition that there will be no role for Turkey or the armed factions allied with it in the operation," Talal Sello of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) told AFP. The SDF is an alliance led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and has been a key ally of the US-led coalition against IS.
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