BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi Shi’ite force backed by Iran said it pushed Islamic State out of several villages on the border with Syria on Monday, potentially reopening a supply route to send Iranian weapons to President Bashar al-Assad.

The maneuver could also be the prelude to a connection with the Assad’s Iranian-backed forces, although they are yet to reach the Iraqi border from the Syrian side.

Syrian rebel sources have warned of advances by the Syrian army and Iranian-backed militia to reach the border.

The territory taken by the Popular Mobilisation force on Monday is located north of the Islamic State-held town of Baaj.

For Popular Mobilisation, it is a step towards achieving a linkup with Assad forces, giving him a significant advantage in fighting the six-year rebellion against his rule.

But the territory is connected with land held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish groups on the Syrian side, who are more focused on fighting Islamic State than Assad.

It is not known whether the Syrian Kurds would allow the Iraqi Shi’ite force to use their territory to reach Assad’s troops, deployed further south and further west.

In a statement on its website, Popular Mobilisation described its advance to the border with Syria as “a Ramadan miracle”, referring to the Muslim fasting month which started over the weekend.

Popular Mobilisation is taking part in the U.S-backed Iraqi campaign to defeat Islamic State in the city of Mosul and the surrounding province of Nineveh.

Iraqi government armed forces are focusing their effort on dislodging insurgents from the city of Mosul, Islamic State’s de-facto capital in Iraq.

While reporting nominally to Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government, Popular Mobilisation has Iranian military advisers, one of whom died last week fighting near Baaj.

MOSUL CAMPAIGN

Iran has helped to train and organize thousands of Shi’ite militia fighters from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Syrian conflict. Fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah are also working closely with Iranian military commanders in Syria.

Eight months into the Mosul campaign, Islamic State fighters have been dislodged from all of the city except an enclave by the western bank of the Tigris river.

Iraq’s army on Saturday launched a new offensive to take the militants’ enclave, which includes the densely populated Old City, amid concern over the fate of the civilians trapped there.

Up to 200,000 people still live behind Islamic State lines in Mosul, struggling to get food, water and medicine, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Lise Grande told Reuters.

Government forces have been dropping leaflets over the districts telling families to flee, but many have remained out of fear of getting caught in the crossfire.

“We have been informed by authorities that the evacuation is not compulsory ... If civilians decide to stay ... they will be protected by Iraqi security forces,” said Grande.

“People who choose to flee will be directed to safe routes. The location of these will change depending on which areas are under attack and dynamics on the battlefield,” she added.

“The fighting is extremely intense,” a government advisor told Reuters. “The presence of civilians means we have to be very cautious,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity, explaining the slow progress of the campaign.</s>BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s mostly Iran-backed Shiite paramilitary forces reached the border with Syria on Monday after securing a string of small villages west of Mosul, according to a spokesman for the group.

The move follows a push by the government-sanctioned forces to retake a number of small villages and key supply lines from the Islamic State group in the vast deserts west of Mosul. Iraq’s conventional military has focused on clearing the city itself, a slow, grinding process in dense urban terrain packed with tens of thousands of civilians.

The paramilitary forces — mostly Shiite fighters with close ties to Iran referred to as the Popular Mobilization Forces — began Monday’s operation by pushing IS militants out of the center of the town of Baaj, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Syrian border, according to Shiite lawmaker Karim al-Nouri.

The fighters plan to “erect a dirt barricade and dig a trench” along the border, said Sheikh Sami al-Masoudi, a PMF leader, describing how the forces would secure the porous border area that has long been a haven for smugglers and insurgent activity.

Al-Masoudi described Baaj as the last IS supply line between Syria and Iraq in the area and said the paramilitary forces reached the border by retaking the village of Um Jrais.

Iraq’s army, federal police and special forces launched the operation to retake Mosul last October with close backing from the U.S.-led international coalition. The city’s eastern half was declared liberated in January, and the push for the city’s western section, separated from the east by the Tigris River, began the following month.

Iraqi forces are closing in on the last pockets of IS control in Mosul’s Old City, a slow, grueling fight that the United Nations warns could put the more than 100,000 civilians still trapped by IS at severe risk.

Meanwhile, the Iran-backed PMF — known as Hashed al-Shaabi in Arabic — has largely operated in the desert to the west of Mosul, retaking small villages and cutting IS supply lines since October.

After securing the border area, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces are ready to move inside Syrian territories, according to Hashim al-Mousawi, a leader with the powerful al-Nujaba militia that falls under the PMF umbrella.

But, al-Mousawi added such a move would require the approval of the Iraqi government.

On the Syrian side of the border, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, IS militants and Syrian rebels are fighting for territory. President Bashar Assad’s forces and their allies have also been on the offensive, moving toward the Iraqi and Jordanian border but are still far from reaching it.

On May 18, a U.S. airstrike hit pro-Syrian government forces that the U.S.-led coalition said posed a threat to American troops and allied rebels operating near the border with Jordan. The attack was the first such close confrontation between America troops and fighters backing Assad.

Syrian activists said leaflets were dropped Sunday on advancing Syrian soldiers and their allies, warning them to stay away from the border crossing of Tanf. “Any movements toward Tanf will be considered hostile and we will defend our forces,” the coalition leaflet read.

Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul fell to IS in the summer of 2014 as the militants swept over much of the country’s north and central areas. Weeks later the head of the Sunni extremist group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced the formation of a self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria from the pulpit of a Mosul mosque.

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.</s>BAGHDAD, May 29 (Reuters) - An Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim force backed by Iran said it pushed Islamic State out of a group of villages on the border with Syria on Monday, a manoeuvre that could weaken the militants' hold on the frontier.

The Iraqi territory taken by the Popular Mobilisation force connected with land held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish groups on the Syrian side, creating a possible bridge.

In a statement on its website, Popular Mobilisation described its advance through Iraq to the border with Syria as "a Ramadan miracle," referring to the Muslim fasting month which started over the weekend. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Andrew Heavens)</s>An Iraqi Shi'ite force backed by Iran said it pushed Islamic State out of villages on the border with Syria on May 29, in a step toward reopening a supply route to send Iranian weapons to President Bashar al-Assad.

The Popular Mobilization Forces described its advance to the border with Syria north of the town of Baaj on May 29 as "a Ramadan miracle," referring to the Muslim fasting month which started over the weekend.

For Popular Mobilization, reclaiming the territory is a step towards achieving a linkup between Baghdad and Assad's forces in Syria, reopening a critical highway for supplying weapons to Assad's army, and giving the Syrian leader a significant advantage in fighting the six-year armed rebellion against him.

"This will be the first step to the liberation of the entire border," said Ahmed al-Asadi, a spokesman for the Iran-backed militia.

But the Iraqi forces backed by Iran cannot as yet link up with the Syrian army and allied Iranian-backed militias in Syria as Assad's forces have not as yet reached the Iraqi border from the Syrian side, despite concerted efforts in recent weeks.

To get there, they would have to pass through territory held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces which the U.S. military has been training to fight IS.

Iraq's Iranian-backed militia leaders say they are ready to move inside Syrian territory to assist Assad in battling rebel groups there. It is not known whether the Syrian Kurds would allow the Iraqi Shi'ite force to use their territory to reach Assad's troops, however, which are deployed further south and further west.

Popular Mobilization is taking part in the U.S-backed Iraqi campaign to defeat IS in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province.

The Iraq government's army has been focusing its efforts on dislodging the militants from Mosul, while the Iran-backed militia forces have battled to reclaim the vast desert territory between Mosul and the Syrian border.

While reporting nominally to Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, Popular Mobilization has Iranian military advisers, one of whom died last week fighting near Baaj.

Iran backs militia forces in both Iraq and Syria, where it has helped to train and organize thousands of Shi'ite troops it has recruited from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Fighters from Lebanon's Hizballah also work closely with Iranian military commanders in Syria.

Eight months into the Mosul campaign, IS fighters have been dislodged from all of the city except an enclave by the western bank of the Tigris river.

Iraq's army over the weekend launched a new offensive to take the militants' enclave, which includes the densely populated Old City.

With reporting by AP, dpa, and Reuters</s>By Reuters - May 28,2017 - Last updated at May 28,2017

A member of Iraqi Rapid Response forces jumps off a vehicle during clashes with Daesh militants in western Mosul, Iraq, on Saturday (Reuters photo)

BAGHDAD — Iraq's Iran-backed Shiite paramilitary force said on Sunday it had dislodged the Daesh terror group from a number of villages west of Mosul, scoring further progress towards the border with Syria.

The villages taken by the Popular Mobilisation Forces include Kojo, where Daesh extremists abducted hundreds of Yazidi women in 2014, including Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar, recipients of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.

Kojo and the other villages of the Sinjar mountain region will be returned to the Yazidi community, a Popular Mobilisation leader, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, told Iraqi state television.

Popular Mobilisation is taking part in the US-backed Iraqi campaign to defeat Daesh in Mosul and the surrounding province of Nineveh. The force reports nominally to Iraq's Shiite-led government and has Iranian military advisers.

Iraq’s government is aiming to control the border area with Syria in coordination with the Iranian-backed army of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Linking up the two sides would give Assad a significant advantage in fighting the six-year rebellion against his rule.

The region immediately alongside the border on the Iraqi side is either under the control of Daesh or Kurdish forces. Daesh also controls parts of Syria.

Iraqi government armed forces are focusing their effort on dislodging insurgents from the city of Mosul, the Daesh group’s de-facto capital in Iraq.

Since the campaign started in October, the insurgents have lost the city except for an enclave alongside the western bank of the Tigris River.

On Saturday Iraqi forces launched an operation to capture the enclave, which includes the densely populated Old City centre and three adjacent districts.

The fall of the city would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” declared nearly three years ago by Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi from Mosul.</s>BAGHDAD: Iraq's Iran-backed Shi'ite paramilitary force said on Sunday it had dislodged Islamic State from a number of villages west of Mosul, scoring further progress towards the border with Syria.

The villages taken by the Popular Mobilisation paramilitary force include Kojo, where Islamic State fighters abducted hundreds of Yazidi women in 2014, including Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar, recipients of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.

Kojo and the other villages of the Sinjar mountain region will be returned to the Yazidi community, a Popular Mobilisation leader, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, told Iraqi state television.

Popular Mobilisation is taking part in the U.S-backed Iraqi campaign to defeat Islamic State in Mosul and the surrounding province of Nineveh. The force reports nominally to Iraq's Shi'ite-led government and has Iranian military advisers.

Iraq's government is aiming to control the border area with Syria in coordination with the Iranian-backed army of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Linking up the two sides would give Assad a significant advantage in fighting the six-year rebellion against his rule.

The region immediately alongside the border on the Iraqi side is either under the control of Islamic State or Kurdish forces. Islamic State also controls parts of Syria.

Iraqi government armed forces are focussing their effort on dislodging insurgents from the city of Mosul, Islamic State's de-facto capital in Iraq.

Since the campaign started in October, the insurgents have lost the city except for an enclave alongside the western bank of the Tigris river.

On Saturday Iraqi forces launched an operation to capture the enclave, which includes the densely populated Old City centre and three adjacent districts.

The fall of the city would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" declared nearly three years ago by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from Mosul.</s>BAGHDAD, May 29 (Reuters) - An Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim force backed by Iran said it pushed Islamic State out of a group of villages on the border with Syria on Monday, potentially reopening a supply route to send Iranian weapons to President Bashar al-Assad.

The manoeuvre could also be the prelude to a connection with the Iranian-backed forces of Assad, although they are yet to reach the Iraqi border from the Syrian side.

Syrian rebel sources have warned of advances by the Syrian army and Iranian-backed militia to reach the border.

The territory taken by the Popular Mobilisation force on Monday is located north of the Islamic State-held town of Baaj.

For Popular Mobilisation, it is a step towards achieving a linkup with Assad forces, giving him a significant advantage in fighting the six-year rebellion against his rule.

But the territory is connected with land held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish groups on the Syrian side.

They are more focused on fighting Islamic State than Assad and it is not known whether the Syrian Kurds would allow the Iraqi Shi'ite force to use their territory to reach Assad's troops, deployed further south and further west.

In a statement on its website, Popular Mobilisation described its advance to the border with Syria as "a Ramadan miracle", referring to the Muslim fasting month which started over the weekend.

Popular Mobilisation is taking part in the U.S-backed Iraqi campaign to defeat Islamic State in the city of Mosul and the surrounding province of Nineveh.

Iraqi government armed forces are focusing their effort on dislodging insurgents from the city of Mosul, Islamic State's de-facto capital in Iraq.

While reporting nominally to Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, Popular Mobilisation has Iranian military advisers, one of whom died last week fighting near Baaj. Iran has helped to train and organise thousands of Shi'ite militia fighters from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Syrian conflict. Fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah are also working closely with Iranian military commanders in Syria.</s>BAGHDAD >> While Iraq’s conventional military has been slowly clearing the Islamic State group from inside Mosul’s complex urban terrain, Iraq’s Iran-backed Shiite paramilitary forces have been working their way through less glamorous territory: vast deserts west and south of the city that run along and across Iraq’s border with Syria.

The territory, dotted with small villages and dusty roads, is home to key supply lines into neighboring Syria and connecting Iraq’s north to the capital Baghdad. Control of the Iraqi-Syrian border would be a key strategic prize for the mostly Shiite paramilitary forces and their backer Iran, who also supports the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

One division of the Iraqi government-sanctioned paramilitary group known as the Popular Mobilization Forces first reached Iraq’s border with Syria on Monday after securing a string of small villages west of Mosul and south of Sinjar, according to Ahmed al-Asadi, the group’s spokesman.

“This will be the first step to the liberation of the entire border,” he said.

The PMF began Monday’s operation by pushing IS militants out of the center of the town of Baaj, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Syrian border. Once the town was retaken a unit was dispatched to secure the village of Um Jrais along the border.

“This victory will also be an important incentive for the Syrian Arab Army to secure the entire border from the Syrian side,” al-Asadi said, referring the Assad’s government forces.

As the PMF secure more of the border region, they plan to “erect a dirt barricade and dig a trench,” said Sheikh Sami al-Masoudi, a paramilitary group leader. Iraq’s border with Syria has long been a haven for smugglers and insurgent activity.

The Nineveh foothold would give the paramilitary forces considerable leverage politically and militarily in Iraq after the fight against IS is concluded, according to Maria Fantappie, the senior Iraq researcher for the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental research firm.

“The Iranians have been prioritizing something that the U.S. has overlooked: control over strategic roads, rather than control of the Sunni communities,” Fantappie said explaining that the U.S.-led coalition’s fight against IS has largely focused on retaking cities while the PMF have instead focused on transit and supply lines.

Control of roads and borders also allows the paramilitary forces to divide Iraq’s Sunni community geographically and politically, Fantappie said.

“They have been trying to bisect Iraq and prevent a unified Sunni block from emerging,” she said.

More than 150 kilometers (93 miles) away from the PMF’s border advance, Iraqi military and police forces are slowly closing in on the last pockets of IS control in Mosul’s Old City. Iraqi commanders say the grueling fight that is now in its eighth month is in the final stage, an operation that the United Nations warns will likely put the more than 100,000 civilians still trapped by IS inside Mosul at severe risk.

In Syria, Assad’s forces and their allies have also been on the offensive, moving toward the Iraqi and Jordanian border, but are still far from reaching it. U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, IS militants and Syrian rebels are also fighting for territory in an increasingly messy battle space.

On May 18, a U.S. airstrike hit pro-Syrian government forces that the U.S.-led coalition said posed a threat to American troops and allied rebels operating near the border with Jordan. The attack was the first such close confrontation between America troops and fighters backing Assad.

The Islamic State group traces its roots to the insurgency that grew in Iraq after the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein, but the group rose to power under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria following the 2011 uprising against Assad. In early 2014, IS began driving Iraqi government forces out of the country’s western Anbar province and that summer overran Mosul and large swaths of Iraq’s north. At the height of the group’s power IS controlled nearly a third of Iraq, but with aid, training and weapons from Iran and then the U.S.-led coalition, Iraqi forces have retaken more than half of the land the extremists once held.

After securing the Iraqi side of the border with Syria, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces are ready to move inside Syrian territories to assist Assad, said Hashim al-Mousawi, a leader with the powerful al-Nujaba militia that falls under the PMF umbrella. Before the PMF was sanctioned by the Iraqi government al-Nujaba fighters openly fought inside Syria, helping prop up the Assad regime during the early days of the uprising against his government.

But, now al-Mousawi said crossing into Syria to fight would require the approval of the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.</s>Stakes are high as Iran seeks to secure influence through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in so-called 'Shia crescent'.

Syrian rebels say the United States and its allies are sending them more arms to try to fend off a new push into the southeast by Iran-backed militias aiming to open an overland supply route between Iraq and Syria.

The stakes are high as Iran seeks to secure its influence from Tehran to Beirut in a "Shia crescent" of Iranian influence through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, where Sunni Arab states have seen power struggles with Iran.

Tensions escalated in the southeastern region of Syria, known as the Badia, this month when government forces supported by Iraqi Shia militias deployed in a challenge to rebels backed by President Bashar al-Assad's enemies.

This has coincided with a march towards the Syrian border by Shia militias from Iraq. They reached the frontier adjoining northern Syria on Monday. A top Iraqi militia commander said a wider operation to take the area from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) started on Tuesday.

While in Iraq the United States has fought alongside Iranian-backed Iraqi government forces and Shia militias against ISIL, in Syria Washington has lined up against Assad's Iranian-backed government and wants to block a further expansion of Iranian influence with its regional allies.

Several rebel groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) banner operate in sparsely populated Badia, where they captured swathes of territory from ISIL this year. US air strikes on May 18 targeted Iran-backed fighters who had moved into the area.

Also in May, Damascus declared both the Badia and Deir Az Zor priorities of its campaign to re-establish its rule over Syria, which has been shattered by six years of war that have killed hundreds of thousands of people. The government is being helped by both Iran and Russia, while the opposition has been helped by the West and regional states that oppose Assad.

Rebels said military aid has been boosted through two separate channels: a programme backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), known as MOC, and regional states including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and one run by the Pentagon.

"There has been an increase in the support," said Tlass Salameh, head of the Jaish Usoud al-Sharqiya, one of the FSA groups backed via the CIA-backed programme. "There's no way we can let them open the Baghdad-Damascus highway," he said.

READ MORE: Syria's civil war explained from the beginning

A senior commander of a Pentagon-backed group, Maghawir al-Thawra, told Reuters news agency a steady flow of weapons had arrived at their base near the Iraqi border since the pro-Damascus forces began deploying this month.

He said efforts to recruit and train local fighters from Deir Az Zor had accelerated at their garrison at Tanf, on the highway some 20km from the Iraqi border.

"The equipment and reinforcements come and go daily ... but in the last few weeks they have brought in more heavy military vehicles, TOW [missiles], and armoured vehicles," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Two armoured vehicles newly delivered to the Tanf garrison were shown in photos sent to Reuters from a rebel source. A video showed fighters unpacking mortar rounds.

In a written response to emailed questions, a spokesman for the US-led coalition did not say if coalition support to Maghawir al-Thawra had increased.

Colonel Ryan Dillon said coalition forces were "prepared to defend themselves if pro-regime forces refuse to vacate" a de-confliction zone around Tanf.

"The coalition has observed pro-regime forces patrolling in the vicinity of the established de-confliction zone around the Tanf training site in Syria... Pro-regime patrols and the continued armed and hostile presence of forces inside the ... zone is unacceptable and threatening to coalition forces," Dillon said.

US jets this week dropped leaflets on pro-government forces instructing them to pull out of the Tanf area to the Zaza junction further from the border. The leaflets were obtained by Hammurabi Justice, a Maghawir-linked website.

The Syrian army could not be reached for comment.

READ MORE: Syria Civil War: 'The sky is falling' in Aleppo

A commander in the military alliance fighting in support of Assad said the deployment of government forces and pro-Damascus Iraqi fighters in Badia would "obstruct all the plans of the MOC, Jordan and America".

The commander, a non-Syrian, said Assad's enemies were committed to blocking "what they call the [Shia] Crescent". But, he said, "Now, our axis is insistent on this matter and it will be accomplished."

The Iraqi Badr militia said its advance to the Syrian border would help the Syrian army reach the border from the other side.

"The Americans will not be allowed to control the border," its leader, Hadi al-Amiri, told al-Mayadeen TV.</s>BAGHDAD (AP) — A spokesman for the Iraqi government-sanctioned paramilitary force says the troops are moving to capture a key town beyond the city of Mosul, near the Syrian border.

Shiite lawmaker, Karim al-Nouri, says the mainly Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces seeks to drive Islamic State militants out of the center of strategic Baaj, west of Mosul near the border with Syria.

Al-Nouri told The Associated Press on Monday that many of the surrounding villages have already been taken from IS.

He says once Baaj falls, the fight with IS will move to the Syrian border. He didn’t elaborate.

The Iran-backed paramilitary force— known as Hashed al-Shaabi in Arabic — has largely operated since October in the desert to the west of Mosul, trying to cut IS supply lines.
Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, assisted by Iran, say they cleared ISIL out of several villages north of Ba'aj on the border with Syria.