Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the government offensive to recapture the city of Mosul from Islamic State militants was in its final stages, like reported by reuters.com.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday night, he warned the insurgents that they must surrender or be killed.

Since launching the offensive on October, government forces have driven IS from eastern Mosul and are now making advances in the western sector.

The city on the Tigris river is the last urban stronghold in Iraq of the militants, who declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria after they captured it in 2014.

“The battle now is in the final stages. Daesh become day after day surrounded inside a tight area and they are in their final days,” Abadi said, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.

He also pledged to treat the families of IS fighters fairly.

“Let me be very clear, we will preserve families of Daesh who are civilians but we will punish the terrorists and bring them to justice if they surrender,” he said.

“They are cornered and if they will not surrender they will definitely get killed.”Abadi said he would visit Washington next week and meet U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the war. The United States is providing air and artillery support in the offensive.

Iraq’s Federal Police chief said Tuesday security forces had retaken 90 percent of central Mosul’s Old City, a most-wanted target in operations against the Islamic State in western Mosul, like reported by iraqinews.com.

Lt. Gen. Shaker Jawdat said in a statement that his forces recaptured Bab al-Jadid and Bab al-Bid neighborhood. The troops recaptured Nineveh’s railway station and a nearby garage a few hours earlier.

“The Rapid Response forces recaptured 90 percent of the Old City and became 100 meters away from the Old Bridge,” Jawdat stated, referring to one of the five strategic bridges linking western and eastern Mosul above the Tigris River.

Iraqi generals view the Old City, with its narrow alleyways and dense population, as a major target whose recapture could be highly decisive for the outcome of operations in the western region of Mosul.

Iraqi government forces recaptured eastern Mosul from Islamic State on January 24th after three months of battles. Security commanders recently said they became in control of 30 percent of western Mosul since another offensive launched in February to retake the region.

Iraqi troops have made remarkable victories in the west by recapturing major government facilities, a military base and the city’s airport.

Pakistan army is sending a brigade of combat troops to shore up Saudi Arabia’s vulnerable southern border from reprisal attacks mounted by the Houthis in Yemen, Middle East Eye reported citing senior security sources.

The brigade will be based in the south of the Kingdom, but will only be deployed on its border, the sources told Middle East Eye. “It will not be used beyond Saudi borders,” one said.

It is the latest twist in a brutal and devastating two-year war, which has killed more than 10,000 people in Yemen, injured over 40,000 and brought the impoverished nation to the verge of famine.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes and starving civilians trapped in the carnage, like reported by pakistantoday.com.pk .

The war was launched by Saudi Arabia and it’s Arab coalition allies after the Houthis overran Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, and the southern port of Aden and ousted the Saudi-backed president, Abd Rabbuh Hadi.

Increasingly, the Houthis have been retaliating with cross-border missile strikes on targets deep inside the kingdom.

The deployment of the Pakistani brigade follows a visit by General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the Pakistani chief of army staff (COAS), to Saudi Arabia on a three-day official visit in December last year.

“COAS reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to the security and protection of the Holy Mosques and also the territorial integrity of the kingdom,” the Pakistani army said in a statement.

“Later, General Qamar Javed Bajwa met the Chief of general staff of Saudi Forces, General Abdul Rehman bin Saleh al-Bunyan, to discuss military to military relations, defence cooperation and regional security situation.

“Both leaders agreed to boost military cooperation and collaboration.”

The area of deployment for the Pakistani brigade is politically sensitive in Islamabad, because two years ago the parliament rejected a request by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman for Pakistan to join a “Sunni” coalition to fight the Houthis.

The Houthis, whose tribesmen mostly follow Zaidism, a variant of Shia Islam practised by a minority in northern Yemen, are backed by Iran, although the level of direct support provided by Tehran is disputed.

Parliament debated the deployment for four days, a debate dominated by the fears of further stoking sectarian violence in Pakistan where 20 percent of the population is Shia.

The remarks by Nikki Haley, the US envoy to the UN, regarding Washington’s priorities in Syria, constitute both a convergence and a divergence with Russian priorities, as set out by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov in an interview with Al-Hayat, like reported by arabnews.com.
Both the US and Russia agree on the goal of purging terrorists from Syria, so that it can no longer serve as a haven for them. However, Haley has rushed to stress that Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, must be made to leave Syria, while Bogdanov said that this was a sovereign decision to be determined by the Syrian government at the right time. Haley spoke of the need to secure the borders of US allies, meaning primarily Israel, but also Iraq and Turkey. Bogdanov linked any such guarantees for Israel to the issues of its occupation of the Golan Heights in Syria and the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon, calling on the representatives of the state parties to hold a roundtable for the implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative.

In the meantime, a noteworthy tripartite meeting in Turkey’s Antalya brought together the military chiefs of the US, Turkey and Russia earlier this week, to discuss regional issues led by Syria and Iraq. At the same time, there have been some key developments on the ground with Kurdish implications for Turkey in Syria, with US and Western forces deployed to Manbij. In addition, the Trump administration has started developing its strategy for the coming battle for Raqqa, which the US considers a top priority and crucial for the elimination of Daesh. This comes amid conflicting reports regarding the possible partition or reunification of war-torn Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya. Iran and Kurdish forces are focal in talk of partition, for different reasons, but the signals coming from the new US administration suggest an intention to head off any partition plans that would reinforce the Iranian project in Syria and Iraq. This is while the signals coming from Russia suggest willingness to coexist with partition, if political settlements that consider Iran’s interests fail. The US-Russian-Turkish-Iranian nexus in Syria and Iraq is compound and complex. The Arab Gulf countries seem to be in a wait-and-see posture on this, but are existentially concerned when it comes to the balance of relations with Turkey and Iran.

Indispensable Kurdish fighters
The Trump administration, like the Obama administration before it, appreciates the resolve of the Kurds as serious fighters who have proven their worth in the front lines of the war on Daesh. For this reason, it is committed to supporting the Kurds as an indispensable instrument in the bid to crush Daesh. Furthermore, the Kurds and the Arab Sunni tribes are, in the view of the Trump administration, the most deserving  candidates to capture the areas liberated from Daesh, and not Iran with its Persian Crescent project extending from Daesh-held territories in Iraq and Syria, to Lebanon, which is dominated today by Hezbollah, a proxy of Tehran.
Russia agrees with the US over supporting the Kurds. Russia is keen to give Kurds a pivotal status in the new Syrian constitution, in which Syria is renamed the Syrian Republic, replacing the Syrian Arab Republic. According to a well-informed observer, the party guaranteeing Kurdish interests in Syria right now is Russia.
Interestingly, Bogdanov, in his interview with Al-Hayat, challenged Turkey and its objections to Kurdish statehood in Syria, saying: “Why does Turkey bless Kurdistan in Iraq but not Kurdistan in Syria? I believe this is none of their business. This is an Iraqi and Syrian affair. The Syrian people, not the Russian or Turkish people, decide the form of the state and the leadership, and this is our position. Changing the regime and other arrangements is a sovereign and internal matter.”

Fears of partition in the Arab world
Interestingly too, when Bogdanov was asked about fears of partition in the Arab region, about the rise of a Kurdish state in Iraq and the possibilities of partition in Iraq and Syria, he interrupted to add, “and in Yemen and Libya.” He stressed respect for countries’ sovereignty, but also the principle of self-determination. He said: “Sometimes, there are constitutions that contain federal or decentralized principles, and this is important to find mechanisms to resolve problems (if) there would be a legal and constitutional way.”
Bogdanov added in reference to what he saw and heard in Erbil: “There is a government, a president, a flag, and all the components of a state. We want the same thing in Syria. We told them this question must not be addressed to Russia because this is a consensual matter stipulated in the Iraqi constitution. They agreed to this idea and implemented it legally.”
In other words, Russia is open to the possibility of a Kurdish state in Syria, not just in Iraq, or at least a Kurdish region as part of a federal or confederal Syria. Turkey is opposed. Iran is anxious but it is bargaining. Iran fears the Kurdistan model would spread to its territories, where Iranian Kurds also have similar ambitions. However, Iran also realizes that keeping a foothold in Syria and Iraq requires agreeing to partition in the two countries.

The view from the US
The Trump administration seems aware of all this. Figures close to the administration speak of reunification in Syria, to head off the Iranian project, and reclaim Turkey from Russia if a Russian-American deal falls through. They also say that the reunification of Syria means, practically, getting Assad to step down because he would be unqualified and incapable of leading a united Syria.
At least, this is their stated position, but what is happening behind closed doors is a different matter, particularly since talk of deals is still in the early stages, while the partition of the Arab countries is a long-standing Israeli quest. What is clear at this stage is that Russia is not currently prepared for a deal with the US that would require sacrificing its strategic ally Iran. It is also not ready to sacrifice Assad at this juncture. What is also clear is that the Trump administration will not accept, under any circumstances, Iran claiming the territories liberated from Daesh. Yet the Kurds are not going to hold these territories by themselves. The current talk focuses on a combination of Kurds, Sunni Arab tribes and fighters being prepared to become the boots on the ground who will hold these territories.
Washington does not agree with Moscow that the Syrian army should do the job. This must have been a key part of the discussions between senior leaders in the Turkish, Russian, and US armies in Antalya. Both the east and west banks of the Euphrates were tackled in the discussions, after Turkey guaranteed “cleansing” its borders from Kurds west of the Euphrates. The important party that was absent-yet-present in the talks was Iran, which is keen to have a place in Syria to guarantee contiguity between Iraq and Lebanon.

Israel’s priorities
What does Israel want meanwhile? This is the mystery question, bearing in mind that in the past it had a truce with Iran that some considered tantamount to collusion with the project for the Persian Crescent, and bearing in mind that Jews and Persians have never in the past fought a direct war. Some say that what Israel wants now is to dismantle Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal, and contain Iran’s missile capabilities, which are not included in the nuclear deal, as Tehran affirms.
Will these issues be subject to deals or will they trigger wars? If the latter is true, will war be declared on the weakest link, that is Hezbollah in Lebanon, or will war come as a result of the Trump administration’s need for a later, bigger war that would distract away from the internal crisis surrounding it?
Any grand bargain between the US and Russia is still far off, in light of the US distrust of Russia, and the doubts a segment of the American public harbor vis-a-vis their president. Iran is still the subject of contention between the Trump administration and Russia. Iran is worried, because so far, all signals indicate the new US administration is not willing to accept Iran’s regional ambitions. But it is also reassured because Russia is not yet ready to throw Iran under the bus, despite all talk to the contrary.
Turkey remains at the forefront of the American-Russian tug of war. In turn, Turkey is wary of making mistakes that would implicate it further. Turkey insists on building bridges with Russia, but is not willing to abandon its membership of NATO. It is trying to navigate stormy seas, and the lifeboat currently is its partnership on the ground in Syria against Daesh, together with the US and Russia.

Major-General Ahmed Hassan, commander of Third Military Zone, revealed that the Yemeni military intelligence has opened an expanded investigation with four Lebanese, recently caught in Ma’rib, affiliated to “Hezbollah” and providing support to Houthis and Saleh, like reported by aawsat.com .

Hassan added that they are still detained by the national army and are being investigated for more information. When the investigation is complete, they will be directly sent to prisons in a number of regions.

He preferred not to reveal what has been mentioned in the investigations, but stressed that the army is keen to obtain all the required information.

This is the second declared incident showing “Hezbollah” involvement in Yemen. In mid-October 2015, military investigations revealed that Lebanese leaders affiliated to “Hezbollah” and Iranian leaders were involved in smuggling huge amount of arms into Yemen.

On the military level, Hassan stated that the third military zone is now in a defense phase of the liberated regions that are witnessing daily attempts by Houthis and Saleh militias to regain control over some of them.

The Arab Coalition has not stopped supporting the army, said Hassan, and it has submitted to the coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, its requirements for the coming period. He added that, recently, militias have been forcing children and teenagers to enlist in the militias to fight on several battlefronts.

Sana’a Resistance spokesperson Abdullah Al Shandaqi called on Yemenis and the international community to “support the legality and the military solution” that will lead to permanent and comprehensive peace as it will be the sole solution to spare Yemeni lives.

Meanwhile, the Arab Coalition continues to stage raids over militias’ locations.

As the Islamic State begins deploying off-the-shelf drones to surveil or attack Iraqi and western forces, defense companies race to find a technical solution

When she was embedded with Iraqi soldiers in Mosul last fall, researcher Vera Mironova says the Islamic State regularly buzzed her unit with camera-equipped drones to record information on troop movements, like reported by csmonitor.com.

In one instance, two drones hovered above the patrol, causing nearly 100 soldiers to open fire, says Ms. Mironova. Only one of the drones fell to the ground in the barrage.

“There is no other way to take them down,” says Mironova, an international security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center who traveled to Mosul to conduct field research.

Over the past 90 days, US officials say they have spotted 92 enemy drones, most of which are off-the-shelf models outfitted with cameras or explosives. Drones have killed and injured local and western forces, though it’s unclear how many. In October, drones killed two Kurdish fighters and injured two French commandos.

The arrival of consumer-grade drones on the Iraqi battlefield makes the fight against the Islamic State the first major conflict in which all sides rely on unmanned aircraft. Going forward, the US military may never face another military adversary without its own fleet of drones and autonomous weapons.

Now, American and local forces are scrambling to come up with new ways of fighting back against drones, testing weapons and technologies on the battlefield to thwart the growing aerial menace.

“This commercial, off-the-shelf drone capability that they have is much less damaging, much less effective [than other ISIS tactics like car bombs] but it is also something that’s more difficult to do something about,” says US Air Force Col. John Dorrian, spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq.

Though a handful of defense companies are developing antidrone weapons, none of their innovations have seen widespread adoption. Most operate as jammers, disrupting the signal between the drone and its operator. One of these drone guns, the DroneDefender appeared in a photo that was reportedly taken on a US base in Iraq. Neither the military nor the manufacturer, Battelle, can comment on the specific types of drone countermeasures currently used in Iraq.

Designed to look and feel like a rifle, the DroneDefender fires an electronic signal that can force a drone to return to its owner, hover in place or land. In a little more than a year, Battelle has sold more than 100 of the devices to the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and a foreign military organization.

“These are kind of early days and we’re seeing what drones can do and how they’ll be used,” says Katy Delaney, a spokesperson for Battelle. The Ohio-based company does not disclose the cost of the DroneDefender due to business sensitivity issues but says it is considered “affordable” in the “competitive landscape.”

Although products like the DroneDefender may be new to the market, nonstate actors have been using unmanned aircraft for more than a decade. As early as 2004, Hezbollah sent an Iranian-made unmanned aircraft into Israeli airspace. During the 2006 Lebanon War, the militant group flew a drone rigged with explosives into an Israeli warship.

Since then, low-cost of consumer drones have become nearly ubiquitous. In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration had registered more than 325,000 drones compared to 320,000 piloted aircraft by early last year. Now there are more than 670,000 registered drones and the FAA estimates that there could be as many as 7 million by 2020.

“The threat that runs through all of this is lower barriers to entry,” says Peter Singer, a senior fellow and strategist at New America, a Washington-based think tank, and author of “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.”

“We can reasonably project ten years out that robotic systems are going to be even more widely available but also simpler, easier to use and more autonomous,” he says.

On the home front, these drones may prove just as much a threat as they do on the battlefield, delivering drugs and contraband to inmates. In one such instance in London, a quadcopter brought a sack of drugs and cellphones directly to the window of a prison cell.

A team of Canadian and Israeli researchers published a paper this fall about how they used a drone to remotely hack and control smart light bulbs, demonstrating how unmanned aerial vehicles could wreak havoc on the internet-connected electronics. And almost two years ago, a Connecticut teenager built a quadcopter capable of firing a mounted handgun.

“Three years ago you had to convince [perspective clients] that it was going to be a threat. It was more theoretical,” says Josh Desmond, vice president of business development at DroneShield. His company makes unmanned aircraft detectors and an antidrone gun.

“Now it’s more that people want to talk to us. There’s no convincing them that it’s going to be a threat. It already is,” he says.

Detectors are legal in the US but makers of antidrone weapons are prohibited from selling their equipment to anyone other than the federal government. That’s because the jammers may also block telephones and radios, a violation of Federal Communications Commission regulations.

Some laws affecting drone countermeasures date back almost a century, says Jonathan Rupprecht, an attorney focused on drone law. He says the Federal Communications Act of 1934 prohibits anyone from manufacturing or even marketing an unlicensed jammer in the US.

“We may need to start adapting quickly and maybe have some specific provisions … that say you can operate said drone countermeasure,” he says.

For those worried that America now faces a new threat, security analysts say that automated technologies are most likely concerning because they’re new.

“New technologies come along and they give new options to terrorists and criminals,” New America’s Mr. Singer says. “For a regular American, if you’re worried about someone shooting up your kid’s school, unfortunately we don’t have to wait for a world of robots to know that’s a real danger.”

The media learned about the 28th Russian military death in Syria from a widow’s post on a social network

The news of the death of Artyom Gorbunov, a Russian soldier recently killed in action in Syria, first surfaced on the Vkontakte social network on March 3. Gorbunov’s spouse wrote a message to his military unit’s online community, asking for the phone number of the chief of the brigade headquarters, like reported by rbth.com .

Russian media carried the initial report, but Gorbunov’s death was not officially confirmed until the end of the day. In the evening of March 3, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Gorbunov had been killed on the outskirts of Palmyra the previous day, when his reconnaissance detachment ran into an Islamic State ambush. Why not report such incidents straight away?

Embargoes on losses

The Defense Ministry is prohibited to report losses to the media by a presidential decree of May 28, 2015, which specifies that information about peacetime military losses constitutes a state secret. The ministry reports all losses directly to the head of state.

“News of a serviceman’s death is conveyed to his family, who may then release the information via social networks, either in posts on their own pages or, as in the latest case, by way of requests addressed to communities of the respective military units,” said Viktor Murakhovsky, chief editor of Arsenal Otechestva magazine.

In such a situation, the Defense Ministry may officially acknowledge the serviceman’s death in keeping with a formal procedure and with the family’s permission, but this takes some time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday to voice US-Israeli concerns over Iran’s attempts to expand its influence in Syria, Israeli sources reported according to aawsat.com.

Netanyahu’s spokesman said that during the latest phone conversation with US President Donald Trump, the Israeli prime minister coordinated stances towards Iran on the eve of his visit to Russia.

A ministerial official with a military background said that Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles was a provocation to both the US and Israel, adding that Tehran’s “vital interests” in Syria could soon be targeted.

When asked whether Israel would bomb Iranian forces in Syria, the official said: “Anything Iranian that moves in Syria will be a target”.

Threats to target Iranian forces in Syria coincided with heavy raids by the Syrian regime on eastern Ghouta, breaking a fragile truce announced earlier by Russia in the area located near Damascus.

The heavy shelling killed two people less than 24 hours after Russia announced a freeze in fighting there.

“Military aircraft, either Russian or Syrian, carried out two strikes on the edge of Arbin,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“These are the first air strikes since the truce was announced” on Tuesday afternoon, Abdel Rahman was quoted by AFP as saying, adding that regime artillery also struck the town of Harasta in Eastern Ghouta.

Senior Army of Islam official Mohammad Alloush blamed the attacks on Moscow.

Speaking to AFP, he said: “Russia’s announcement of a cessation of hostilities in Eastern Ghouta is a political announcement — militarily, it’s not being executed.”

“Russia wants to present itself as neutral and a sponsor of a political solution (to the Syrian conflict), but on the ground it’s a different case,” he said.

“This announcement came late. It was supposed to be announced on March 5, but the regime didn’t commit to it. Even with this announcement, there is no agreement from the regime on a freeze,” he added.

The leader of ISIS Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has abandoned operational commanders behind with diehard followers to continue waging the battle of Mosul in Iraq, said US and Iraqi officials.

He is now hiding out in the desert, focusing mainly on his own survival, they added.

It is impossible to confirm the whereabouts of the ISIS “caliph”, who declared himself the ruler of all Muslims from Mosul’s Great Mosque after his forces swept through northern Iraq in 2014, like reported by aawsat.com .

But US and Iraqi intelligence sources say an absence of official communication from the group’s leadership and the loss of territory in Mosul suggest he has abandoned the city, by far the largest population center his group has ever held.

He has proved to be an elusive target, rarely using communication that can be monitored, and moving constantly, often multiple times in one 24-hour cycle, the sources say.

From their efforts to track him, they believe he hides mostly among sympathetic civilians in familiar desert villages, rather than with fighters in their barracks in urban areas where combat has been under way, the sources say.

US-backed Iraqi forces began an operation five months ago to recapture Mosul, a city at least four times the size of any other the group has held.

The 100,000-strong Iraqi force fully captured the eastern half of Mosul in January, and commanders began an operation to cross the Tigris and take the western half last month. Progress has since been steady and the coalition says its victory is now inevitable, which would dismantle the so-called “caliphate” in Iraq.

The intelligence sources point to a sharp drop in ISIS postings on social media as evidence that Baghdadi and his circle have become increasingly isolated.

Baghdadi himself has not released a recorded speech since early November, two weeks after the start of the Mosul battle, when he called on his followers to fight the “unbelievers” and “make their blood flow as rivers.”

US commanders sound upbeat and say the battle for the city is now in a late stage.

“The game is up,” US Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler told Reuters at the Qayyara West Airfield south of Mosul, adding that some of ISIS’ foreign fighters are trying to leave the city.

Those left behind to fight, mostly Iraqis, are putting up a “very hard fight” on the tactical level but they are no longer an integrated force, as coalition air strikes took out command and control centers, car bombs and weapon caches, he said.

“They have lost this fight and what you’re seeing is a delaying action,” he said.

Although the loss of Mosul would effectively end ISIS’ territorial rule in Iraq, US and Iraqi officials are preparing for the group to go underground and fight an insurgency like the one that followed the US-led invasion.

The “caliphate” as a state structure would end with the capture of Raqqa, its de facto capital in Syria, possibly later this year. Raqqa is far smaller than Mosul, but mounting operations against ISIS in Syria has been trickier than in Iraq, because the group’s many Syrian enemies have mostly been pre-occupied fighting among themselves in a civil war since 2011.

“The inevitability of their destruction just becomes really a matter of time,” said Major General Rupert Jones, deputy commander for the US-led anti-ISIS coalition.
The last official report about Baghdadi was from the Iraqi military on Feb. 13. Iraqi F-16s carried out a strike on a house where he was thought to be meeting other commanders, in western Iraq, near the Syrian border, it said.

The US government has had a joint task force to track down Baghdadi which includes special operations forces, the CIA and other US intelligence agencies as well as spy satellites of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

Earlier, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Wednesday that he will not hesitate to strike “terrorist sites” in neighboring countries, after Baghdad carried out air raids in Syria last month.

“I respect the sovereignty of states, and I have secured the approval of Syria to strike positions (on its territory),” he told a conference in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya.

Abadi announced Iraqi strikes against ISIS near the border in Syria that were believed to be the first of their kind by Baghdad’s forces.

Iraq’s prime minister says it will continue to target militants in neighboring countries, as it did last month with airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Syria, like reported by ap.org.

Addressing a forum in the autonomous Kurdish region on Wednesday, Haider al-Abadi said he “will not hesitate” to target terrorism positions that pose a threat to Iraq from inside neighboring countries, adding that such actions would only be carried out with the consent of the neighboring government.

Iraqi F-16 warplanes struck the IS-held Syrian towns of Boukamal and Husseibah, near the border, in February. The government said it ordered the strikes in response to bombings in Baghdad that were claimed by the extremist group.