Top Salvadoran ex-military officers sentenced for wartime killing of Dutch journalists
Army cadets rehearse before El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele arrives to deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of his second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas
A boy holds an image of El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, as he waits him to arrive to deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of Bukele's second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas
Supporters watch El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of his second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele arrives to deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of his second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas
Supporters watch El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele deliver a speech at an event, to mark the first year of his second term in office, in San Salvador, El Salvador June 1, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas
SAN SALVADOR - A jury in El Salvador sentenced three retired high-ranking military officers to 15 years in prison for the murder of four Dutch journalists in 1982, one of the highest profile cases of the Central American nation's civil war.
The three were charged on Tuesday for the killings of journalists Koos Joster, Jan Kuiper Joop, Johannes Jan Wilemsen and Hans ter Laag, who were reporting for IKON Television during a 1982 military ambush on a group of former Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas - some of whom were armed.
A U.N. truth commission 11 years later found the ambush was "deliberately planned to surprise and kill the journalists."
The trial was closed and details about the defendants' pleas and arguments were not made public.
El Salvador's civil war stretched from 1980 to 1992, pitting leftist guerrillas against the U.S.-backed Salvadoran army and leaving 75,000 people dead and 8,000 more missing.
Former Defense Minister General Jose Guillermo Garcia was sentenced by a jury in the northern town of Chalatenango, alongside two colonels: former Treasury Police chief Francisco Moran and former infantry brigade commander Mario Reyes.
All three - respectively aged 91, 93 and 85 - were sentenced in absentia. Garcia and Moran are in hospital under custody and Reyes currently lives in the United States though El Salvador is in the process of seeking his return.
"Truth and justice have prevailed, we have won," Oscar Perez, a representative of the Comunicandonos Foundation that represents some of the relatives, told reporters. "The victims are the focus now; not the perpetrators."
Prosecutors had requested the 15-year sentence, taking into account the military officers' age and health conditions.
The jury also issued a civil condemnation to the Salvadoran state over the delay in delivering justice, a symbolic measure that obliges the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, President Nayib Bukele, to publicly ask for forgiveness from the victims' families. REUTERS
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AsiaOne
44 minutes ago
- AsiaOne
China-backed militia secures control of new rare earth mines in Myanmar, World News
BANGKOK — A Chinese-backed militia is protecting new rare earth mines in eastern Myanmar, according to four people familiar with the matter, as Beijing moves to secure control of the minerals it is wielding as a bargaining chip in its trade war with Washington. China has a near-monopoly over the processing of heavy rare earths into magnets that power critical goods like wind turbines, medical devices and electric vehicles. But Beijing is heavily reliant on Myanmar for the rare earth metals and oxides needed to produce them: the war-torn country was the source of nearly half those imports in the first four months of this year, Chinese customs data show. Beijing's access to fresh stockpiles of minerals like dysprosium and terbium has been throttled recently after a major mining belt in Myanmar's north was taken over by an armed group battling the Southeast Asian country's junta, which Beijing supports. Now, in the hillsides of Shan state in eastern Myanmar, Chinese miners are opening new deposits for extraction, according to two of the sources, both of whom work at one of the mines. At least 100 people are working day-to-night shifts excavating hillsides and extracting minerals using chemicals, the sources said. Two other residents of the area said they had witnessed trucks carrying material from the mines, between the towns of Mong Hsat and Mong Yun, toward the Chinese border some 200km away. Reuters identified some of the sites using imagery from commercial satellite providers Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies. Business records across Myanmar are poorly maintained and challenging to access, and Reuters could not independently identify the ownership of the mines. The mines operate under the protection of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), according to four sources, two of whom were able to identify the uniforms of the militia members. The UWSA, which is among the biggest armed groups in Shan state, also controls one of the world's largest tin mines. It has long-standing commercial and military links with China, according to the US Institute of Peace (USIP), a conflict resolution non-profit. Details of the militia's role and the export route of the rare earths are reported by Reuters for the first time. University of Manchester lecturer Patrick Meehan, who has closely studied Myanmar's rare earth industry and reviewed satellite imagery of the Shan mines, said the "mid-large size" sites appeared to be the first significant facilities in the country outside the Kachin region in the north. "There is a whole belt of rare earths that goes down through Kachin, through Shan, parts of Laos," he said. China's Ministry of Commerce, as well as the UWSA and the junta, did not respond to Reuters' questions. Access to rare earths is increasingly important to Beijing, which tightened restrictions on its exports of metals and magnets after US President Donald Trump resumed his trade war with China this year. While China appears to have recently approved more exports and Trump has signalled progress in resolving the dispute, the move has upended global supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers and semiconductor companies. The price of terbium oxide has jumped by over 27 per cent across the last six months, Shanghai Metals Market data show. Dysprosium oxide prices have fluctuated sharply, rising around one per cent during the same period. Chinese influence A prominent circular clearing first appears in the forested hills of Shan state, some 30km away from the Thai border, in April 2023, according to the satellite images reviewed by Reuters. By February 2025 — shortly after the Kachin mines suspended work — the site housed over a dozen leaching pools, which are ponds typically used to extract heavy rare earths, the images showed. Six km away, across the Kok river, another forest clearing was captured in satellite imagery from May 2024. Within a year, it had transformed into a facility with 20 leaching pools. Minerals analyst David Merriman, who reviewed two of the Maxar images for Reuters, said the infrastructure at the Shan mines, as well as observable erosion levels to the topography, indicated that the facilities "have been producing for a little bit already". At least one of the mines is run by a Chinese company using Chinese-speaking managers, according to the two mine workers and two members of the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF), an advocacy group that identified the existence of the operations in a May report using satellite imagery. An office at one of the two sites also had a company logo written in Chinese characters, said one of the workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters. The use of Chinese operators in the Shan mines and transportation of the output to China mirrors a similar system in Kachin, where entire hillsides stand scarred by leaching pools. Chinese mining firms can produce heavy rare earth oxides in low-cost and loosely regulated Myanmar seven times cheaper than in other regions with similar deposits, said Neha Mukherjee of London-based Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. "Margins are huge". Beijing tightly controls the technology that allows for the efficient extraction of heavy rare earths, and she said that it would be difficult to operate a facility in Myanmar without Chinese assistance. The satellite imagery suggest the Shan mines are smaller than their Kachin counterparts but they are likely to yield the same elements, according to Merriman, who serves as research director at consultancy Project Blue. "The Shan State deposits will have terbium and dysprosium in them, and they will be the main elements that (the miners) are targeting there," he said. Strategic tool The UWSA oversees a remote statelet the size of Belgium and, according to US prosecutors, has long prospered from the drug trade. It has a long-standing ceasefire with the junta but still maintains a force of between 30,000 and 35,000 personnel, equipped with modern weaponry mainly sourced from China, according to Ye Myo-hein, a senior fellow at the Southeast Asia Peace Institute. "The UWSA functions as a key instrument for China to maintain strategic leverage along the Myanmar-China border and exert influence over other ethnic armed groups," he said. Some of those fighters are also closely monitoring the mining area, said SHRF member Leng Harn. "People cannot freely go in and out of the area without ID cards issued by UWSA." Shan state has largely kept out of the protracted civil war, in which an assortment of armed groups are battling the junta. The fighting has also roiled the Kachin mining belt and pushed many Chinese operators to cease work. China has repeatedly said that it seeks stability in Myanmar, where it has significant investments. Beijing has intervened to halt fighting in some areas near its border. "The Wa have had now 35 years with no real conflict with the Myanmar military," said USIP's Myanmar country director Jason Towers. "Chinese companies and the Chinese government would see the Wa areas as being more stable than other parts of northern Burma." The bet on Shan's rare earths deposit could provide more leverage to China amid a global scramble for the critical minerals, said Benchmark's Mukherjee. "If there's so much disruption happening in Kachin, they would be looking for alternative sources," she said. "They want to keep the control of heavy rare earths in their hands. They use that as a strategic tool." [[nid:713792]]
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
ISIS reactivating fighters, eying comeback in Syria and Iraq
Security operatives in Syria and Iraq, who have been monitoring ISIS for years, said they foiled at least a dozen major plots in 2025. PHOTO: REUTERS DAMASCUS - Middle East leaders and their Western allies have been warning that ISIS could exploit the fall of the Assad regime to stage a comeback in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, where the extremist group once imposed a reign of terror over millions. The militant group has been attempting just that, according to more than 20 sources, including security and political officials from Syria, Iraq, the US and Europe, as well as diplomats in the region. The group has started reactivating fighters in both countries, identifying targets, distributing weapons and stepping up recruitment and propaganda efforts, the sources said. So far, the results of these efforts appear limited. Security operatives in Syria and Iraq, who have been monitoring ISIS for years, told Reuters they foiled at least a dozen major plots in 2025. A case in point came in December, the month Syria's Bashar Assad was toppled. As rebels were advancing on Damascus, ISIS commanders holed up near Raqqa, former capital of their self-declared caliphate, dispatched two envoys to Iraq, five Iraqi counter-terrorism officials told Reuters. The envoys carried verbal instructions to the group's followers to launch attacks. But they were captured at a checkpoint while travelling in northern Iraq on December 2, the officials said. Eleven days later, Iraqi security forces, acting on information from the envoys, tracked a suspected ISIS suicide bomber to a crowded restaurant in the northern town of Daquq using his cell phone, they said. The forces shot the man dead before he could detonate an explosives belt, they said. The foiled attack confirmed Iraq's suspicions about the group, said Colonel Abdul Ameer al-Bayati, of the Iraqi Army's 8th Division, which is deployed in the area. 'Islamic State elements have begun to reactivate after years of lying low, emboldened by the chaos in Syria,' he said. Still, the number of attacks claimed by ISIS has dropped since Mr Assad's fall. ISIS claimed responsibility for 38 attacks in Syria in the first five months of 2025, putting it on track for a little over 90 claims in 2025, according to data from Site Intelligence Group, which monitors militants' activities online. That would be around a third of 2024's claims, the data shows. In Iraq, where ISIS originated, the group claimed four attacks in the first five months of 2025, versus 61 total in 2024. Syria's government, led by the country's new Islamist leader, Mr Ahmed al-Sharaa, did not answer questions about ISIS activities. Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra told Reuters in January the country was developing its intelligence-gathering efforts, and its security services would address any threat. A US defence official and a spokesperson for Iraq's prime minister said ISIS remnants in Syria and Iraq have been dramatically weakened, unable to control territory since a US-led coalition and its local partners drove them from their last stronghold in 2019. The Iraqi spokesperson, Mr Sabah al-Numan, credited pre-emptive operations for keeping the group in check. The coalition and partners hammered militant hideouts with airstrikes and raids after Mr Assad's fall. Such operations captured or killed 'terrorist elements,' while preventing them from regrouping and carrying out operations, Mr al-Numan said. Iraq's intelligence operations have also become more precise, through drones and other technology, he added. At its peak between 2014 and 2017, ISIS held sway over roughly a third of Syria and Iraq, where it imposed its extreme interpretation of Islamic syariah law, gaining a reputation for shocking brutality. None of the officials who spoke with Reuters saw a danger of that happening again. But they cautioned against counting the group out, saying it has proven a resilient foe, adept at exploiting a vacuum. Some local and European officials are concerned that foreign fighters might be travelling to Syria to join jihadi groups. For the first time in years, intelligence agencies tracked a small number of suspected foreign fighters coming from Europe to Syria in recent months, two European officials told Reuters, though they could not say whether ISIS or another group recruited them. Exploiting divisions The ISIS push comes at a delicate time for Mr Sharaa, as he attempts to unite a diverse country and bring former rebel groups under government control after 13 years of civil war. US President Donald Trump's surprise decision in May to lift sanctions on Syria was widely seen as a win for the Syrian leader, who once led a branch of Al-Qaeda that battled ISIS for years. But some Islamist hardliners criticised Mr Sharaa's efforts to woo Western governments, expressing concern he might acquiesce to US demands to expel foreign fighters and normalise relations with Israel. Seizing on such divides, ISIS condemned the meeting with Mr Trump in a recent issue of its online news publication, al-Naba, and called on foreign fighters in Syria to join its ranks. At a May 14 meeting in Saudi Arabia, Mr Trump asked Mr Sharaa to help prevent an ISIS resurgence as the US begins a troop consolidation in Syria it says could cut its roughly 2,000-strong military presence by half in 2025. The US drawdown has heightened concern among allies that ISIS might find a way to free some 9,000 fighters and their family members, including foreign nationals, held at prisons and camps guarded by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). There have been at least two attempted jailbreaks since Mr Assad's fall, the SDF has said. Mr Trump and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of neighbouring Turkey want Mr Sharaa's government to assume responsibility for these facilities. Mr Erdogan views the main Kurdish factions as a threat to his country. But some regional analysts question whether Damascus has the manpower needed. Syrian authorities have also been grappling with attacks by suspected Mr Assad loyalists, outbreaks of deadly sectarian violence, Israeli airstrikes and clashes between Turkish-backed groups and the SDF, which controls about a quarter of the country. 'The interim government is stretched thin from a security perspective. They just do not have the manpower to consolidate control in the entire country,' said Mr Charles Lister, who heads the Syria programme at the Middle East Institute, a US think tank. Responding to a request for comment, a State Department spokesperson said it is critical for countries to repatriate detained nationals from Syria and shoulder a greater share of the burden for the camps' security and running costs. The US defence official said Washington remains committed to preventing an ISIS resurgence, and its vetted Syrian partners remain in the field. The US will 'vigilantly monitor' Mr Sharaa's government, which has been 'saying and doing the right things' so far, the official added. Three days after Mr Trump's meeting with Mr Sharaa, Syria announced it had raided ISIS hideouts in the country's second city, Aleppo, killing three militants, detaining four and seizing weapons and uniforms. The US has exchanged intelligence with Damascus in limited cases, another US defence official and two Syrian officials told Reuters. The news agency could not determine whether it did so in the Aleppo raids. The coalition is expected to wrap up operations in Iraq by September. But the second US official said Baghdad privately expressed interest in slowing down the withdrawal of some 2,500 American troops from Iraq when it became apparent that Mr Assad would fall. A source familiar with the matter confirmed the request. The White House, Baghdad and Damascus did not respond to questions about Mr Trump's plans for US troops in Iraq and Syria. Reactivating sleeper cells The United Nations estimates ISIS, also known as Islamic State or Daesh, has 1,500 to 3,000 fighters in the two countries. But its most active branches are in Africa, the Site data shows. The US military believes the group's secretive leader is Abdulqadir Mumin, who heads the Somalia branch, a senior defence official told reporters in April. Still, Site's director Rita Katz cautioned against seeing the drop in ISIS attacks in Syria as a sign of weakness. 'Far more likely that it has entered a restrategising phase,' she said. Since Mr Assad's fall, ISIS has been activating sleeper cells, surveilling potential targets and distributing guns, silencers and explosives, three security sources and three Syrian political officials told Reuters. It has also moved fighters from the Syrian desert, a focus of coalition airstrikes, to cities including Aleppo, Homs and Damascus, according to the security sources. "Of the challenges we face, Daesh is at the top of the list," Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab told state-owned Ekhbariya TV last week. In Iraq, aerial surveillance and intelligence sources on the ground have picked up increased ISIS activity in the northern Hamrin Mountains, a longtime refuge, and along key roads, Mr Ali al-Saidi, an advisor to Iraqi security forces, told Reuters. Iraqi officials believe ISIS seized large stockpiles of weapons left behind by Mr Assad's forces and worry some could be smuggled into Iraq. Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said Baghdad was in contact with Damascus about ISIS, which he told Reuters in January was growing and spreading into more areas. "We hope that Syria, in the first place, will be stable, and Syria will not be a place for terrorists," he said, 'especially ISIS terrorists." REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
Islamic State reactivating fighters, eying comeback in Syria and Iraq
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks near al-Sina'a prison, as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) flag flutters in the background, in Hasakah, Syria, January 18, 2025. REUTERS/Orhan Qereman/File Photo FILE PHOTO: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and other officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in this handout released on May 14, 2025. Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY/File Photo FILE PHOTO: Federal police members pose with an Islamic State (IS) flag along a street of Albu Saif which was recaptured from Islamic State, south of Mosul, Iraq, February 22, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo DAMASCUS - Middle East leaders and their Western allies have been warning that Islamic State could exploit the fall of the Assad regime to stage a comeback in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, where the extremist group once imposed a reign of terror over millions. Islamic State (IS) has been attempting just that, according to more than 20 sources, including security and political officials from Syria, Iraq, the U.S. and Europe, as well as diplomats in the region. The group has started reactivating fighters in both countries, identifying targets, distributing weapons and stepping up recruitment and propaganda efforts, the sources said. So far, the results of these efforts appear limited. Security operatives in Syria and Iraq, who have been monitoring IS for years, told Reuters they foiled at least a dozen major plots this year. A case in point came in December, the month Syria's Bashar Assad was toppled. As rebels were advancing on Damascus, IS commanders holed up near Raqqa, former capital of their self-declared caliphate, dispatched two envoys to Iraq, five Iraqi counter-terrorism officials told Reuters. The envoys carried verbal instructions to the group's followers to launch attacks. But they were captured at a checkpoint while travelling in northern Iraq on December 2, the officials said. Eleven days later, Iraqi security forces, acting on information from the envoys, tracked a suspected IS suicide bomber to a crowded restaurant in the northern town of Daquq using his cell phone, they said. The forces shot the man dead before he could detonate an explosives belt, they said. The foiled attack confirmed Iraq's suspicions about the group, said Colonel Abdul Ameer al-Bayati, of the Iraqi Army's 8th Division, which is deployed in the area. 'Islamic State elements have begun to reactivate after years of lying low, emboldened by the chaos in Syria,' he said. Still, the number of attacks claimed by IS has dropped since Assad's fall. IS claimed responsibility for 38 attacks in Syria in the first five months of 2025, putting it on track for a little over 90 claims this year, according to data from SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militants' activities online. That would be around a third of last year's claims, the data shows. In Iraq, where IS originated, the group claimed four attacks in the first five months of 2025, versus 61 total last year. Syria's government, led by the country's new Islamist leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, did not answer questions about IS activities. Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra told Reuters in January the country was developing its intelligence-gathering efforts, and its security services would address any threat. A U.S. defence official and a spokesperson for Iraq's prime minister said IS remnants in Syria and Iraq have been dramatically weakened, unable to control territory since a U.S.-led coalition and its local partners drove them from their last stronghold in 2019. The Iraqi spokesperson, Sabah al-Numan, credited pre-emptive operations for keeping the group in check. The coalition and partners hammered militant hideouts with airstrikes and raids after Assad's fall. Such operations captured or killed 'terrorist elements,' while preventing them from regrouping and carrying out operations, Numan said. Iraq's intelligence operations have also become more precise, through drones and other technology, he added. At its peak between 2014 and 2017, IS held sway over roughly a third of Syria and Iraq, where it imposed its extreme interpretation of Islamic sharia law, gaining a reputation for shocking brutality. None of the officials who spoke with Reuters saw a danger of that happening again. But they cautioned against counting the group out, saying it has proven a resilient foe, adept at exploiting a vacuum. Some local and European officials are concerned that foreign fighters might be travelling to Syria to join jihadi groups. For the first time in years, intelligence agencies tracked a small number of suspected foreign fighters coming from Europe to Syria in recent months, two European officials told Reuters, though they could not say whether IS or another group recruited them. EXPLOITING DIVISIONS The IS push comes at a delicate time for Sharaa, as he attempts to unite a diverse country and bring former rebel groups under government control after 13 years of civil war. U.S. President Donald Trump's surprise decision last month to lift sanctions on Syria was widely seen as a win for the Syrian leader, who once led a branch of al Qaeda that battled IS for years. But some Islamist hardliners criticised Sharaa's efforts to woo Western governments, expressing concern he might acquiesce to U.S. demands to expel foreign fighters and normalise relations with Israel. Seizing on such divides, IS condemned the meeting with Trump in a recent issue of its online news publication, al-Naba, and called on foreign fighters in Syria to join its ranks. At a May 14 meeting in Saudi Arabia, Trump asked Sharaa to help prevent an IS resurgence as the U.S. begins a troop consolidation in Syria it says could cut its roughly 2,000-strong military presence by half this year. The U.S. drawdown has heightened concern among allies that IS might find a way to free some 9,000 fighters and their family members, including foreign nationals, held at prisons and camps guarded by the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). There have been at least two attempted jailbreaks since Assad's fall, the SDF has said. Trump and President Tayyip Erdogan of neighbouring Turkey want Sharaa's government to assume responsibility for these facilities. Erdogan views the main Kurdish factions as a threat to his country. But some regional analysts question whether Damascus has the manpower needed. Syrian authorities have also been grappling with attacks by suspected Assad loyalists, outbreaks of deadly sectarian violence, Israeli airstrikes and clashes between Turkish-backed groups and the SDF, which controls about a quarter of the country. 'The interim government is stretched thin from a security perspective. They just do not have the manpower to consolidate control in the entire country,' said Charles Lister, who heads the Syria program at the Middle East Institute, a U.S. think tank. Responding to a request for comment, a State Department spokesperson said it is critical for countries to repatriate detained nationals from Syria and shoulder a greater share of the burden for the camps' security and running costs. The U.S. defence official said Washington remains committed to preventing an IS resurgence, and its vetted Syrian partners remain in the field. The U.S. will 'vigilantly monitor' Sharaa's government, which has been 'saying and doing the right things' so far, the official added. Three days after Trump's meeting with Sharaa, Syria announced it had raided IS hideouts in the country's second city, Aleppo, killing three militants, detaining four and seizing weapons and uniforms. The U.S. has exchanged intelligence with Damascus in limited cases, another U.S. defence official and two Syrian officials told Reuters. The news agency could not determine whether it did so in the Aleppo raids. The coalition is expected to wrap up operations in Iraq by September. But the second U.S. official said Baghdad privately expressed interest in slowing down the withdrawal of some 2,500 American troops from Iraq when it became apparent that Assad would fall. A source familiar with the matter confirmed the request. The White House, Baghdad and Damascus did not respond to questions about Trump's plans for U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. REACTIVATING SLEEPER CELLS The United Nations estimates IS, also known as ISIS or Daesh, has 1,500 to 3,000 fighters in the two countries. But its most active branches are in Africa, the SITE data shows. The U.S. military believes the group's secretive leader is Abdulqadir Mumin, who heads the Somalia branch, a senior defence official told reporters in April. Still, SITE's director, Rita Katz, cautioned against seeing the drop in IS attacks in Syria as a sign of weakness. 'Far more likely that it has entered a restrategising phase,' she said. Since Assad's fall, IS has been activating sleeper cells, surveilling potential targets and distributing guns, silencers and explosives, three security sources and three Syrian political officials told Reuters. It has also moved fighters from the Syrian desert, a focus of coalition airstrikes, to cities including Aleppo, Homs and Damascus, according to the security sources. "Of the challenges we face, Daesh is at the top of the list," Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab told state-owned Ekhbariya TV last week. In Iraq, aerial surveillance and intelligence sources on the ground have picked up increased IS activity in the northern Hamrin Mountains, a longtime refuge, and along key roads, Ali al-Saidi, an advisor to Iraqi security forces, told Reuters. Iraqi officials believe IS seized large stockpiles of weapons left behind by Assad's forces and worry some could be smuggled into Iraq. Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said Baghdad was in contact with Damascus about IS, which he told Reuters in January was growing and spreading into more areas. "We hope that Syria, in the first place, will be stable, and Syria will not be a place for terrorists," he said, 'especially ISIS terrorists." REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
