US-backed forces celebrate fall of Raqqa
BEIRUT (AP) — U.S.-backed Syrian forces celebrated Tuesday in the devastated streets of Raqqa after gaining control of the northern city that once was the heart of the Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate, dealing a major defeat to the extremist group that has seen its territory shrink since summer.
Militants took over the vibrant metropolis on the Euphrates River in 2014, transforming it into the epicenter of their brutal rule, where opponents were beheaded and terror plots hatched.
It took thousands of bombs dropped by the U.S.-led coalition and more than four months of grueling house-to-house battles for the Syrian Democratic Forces to recapture Raqqa, marking a new chapter in the fight against the group whose once vast territory has been reduced to a handful of towns in Syria and Iraq.
“Liberating Raqqa is a triumph for humanity, especially women,” who suffered the most under IS, said Ilham Ahmed, a senior member of the SDF political wing.
“It is a salvation for the will to live an honorable life. It is a defeat to the forces of darkness,” said Ahmed, speaking to the Associated Press from Ein Issa, just north of Raqqa.
“Military operations in Raqqa have ceased and we are now combing the city for sleeper cells and cleaning it from land mines,” Brig. Gen. Talal Sillo told the AP earlier in the day.
A formal declaration that Raqqa has fallen would be made soon, once troops finish their clearing operations, Sillo said.
Kurds pull out from disputed areas
BAGHDAD (AP) — Kurdish fighters pulled out of disputed areas throughout northern and eastern Iraq on Tuesday, one day after giving up the vital oil city of Kirkuk — a dramatic redeployment of forces that opened the way for government troops to move into energy-rich and other strategically important territories.
The vastly outnumbered Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, appeared to have bowed to demands from the central government that they hand over areas outside the Kurds’ autonomous region, including territory seized from the Islamic State in recent years.
The evacuations exposed a Kurdish leadership in turmoil in the wake of last month’s vote for independence as Iraq’s central government shores up its hand for negotiations about resource-sharing with the country’s self-ruling minority.
Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi acknowledged the power shift, saying Iraqi forces took over the disputed areas from the Kurds with barely a shot fired.
“I call on our citizens to celebrate this day because we have been united,” al-Abadi said, calling the independence vote “a thing of the past” as he offered to begin talks with the Kurdish regional government.
The developments followed weeks of political crisis precipitated by the Kurdish leadership’s decision to have the referendum for independence in territories beyond the boundaries of its autonomous region in northeast Iraq.
The Iraqi government, as well as Turkey and Iran, which border the land-locked Kurdish region, rejected the vote. The U.S. also opposed the vote, saying it was a distraction on the war against IS.
Taliban launch attacks in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks throughout Afghanistan on Tuesday, targeting police compounds and government facilities with suicide bombers in the country’s south, east and west, and killing at least 74 people, officials said.
Scores of other policemen and civilians also were wounded.
Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister, Murad Ali Murad, called the onslaught the “biggest terrorist attack this year.”
Murad told a press conference in Kabul that attacks in Ghazni and Paktia provinces killed 71 people.
In southern Paktia province, 41 people — 21 policemen and 20 civilians — were killed when the Taliban targeted a police compound in the provincial capital of Gardez with two suicide car bombs. Among the wounded were 48 policemen and 110 civilians.
In southern Ghazni province, the insurgents stormed a security compound in Andar district, using a suicide car bomb and killing 25 police and five civilians, Murad said. At least 15 people were wounded, including 10 policemen, he added.
And in western Farah province, police chief Abdul Maruf Fulad said the Taliban attacked a government compound in Shibkho district, killing three policemen.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for all three attacks.
Later on Tuesday, an Afghan official said drone strikes killed 35 Taliban fighters in the country’s east, near the border with Pakistan.
