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A10 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 30 September 2017
Iraqi forces to take control of Kurdish borders Activists: Airstrikes hit dozens

By S. GEORGE erendum vote could lead agency announced. of towns across northern Syria
Q. ZAHRA to violence, setting off an At Irbil International airport,
Associated Press unpredictable chain of hundreds of passengers BEIRUT (AP) — Airstrikes hit towns and villages in north-
IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — Iraq’s mili- events. lined up for flights out of the ern Syria Friday killing and wounding dozens of people,
tary was preparing to take Two U.S. officials said Wash- Kurdish region in the hours opposition activists and pro-government media said.
control of the international ington was concerned before the central govern- Clashes meanwhile in the country’s center and east
borders of the northern about possible operations ment’s flight ban took ef- with the Islamic State group led government forces to
Kurdish region as a flight involving Iraqi, Iranian or fect Friday evening. Bagh- secure a main highway linking the capital Damascus
ban halted all international Turkish forces, or a combi- dad had demanded the with eastern Syria.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
said the airstrikes are concentrating on Idlib, Hama
and Aleppo provinces north of the country, which wit-
nessed clashes last week between Syrian and Russian
troops with insurgents.
Rami Abdurrahman, the Observatory’s chief, said 42
towns and villages were aerially bombarded on Friday
alone, killing at least 12 and wounded 31.
The opposition’s Thiqa News Agency released a video
showing a bloodied dead baby being pulled from un-
der the rubble in the village of Urem Al-Kubra in Alep-
po province. Thiqa said five people were killed in the
strikes Urem al-Kubra.
Opposition activists say Syrian and Russian warplanes
have been bombing northern Syria for nearly a week,
killing as many as 150 people.
The airstrikes in northern Syria came as government
forces have been fighting fierce battles with IS mem-
bers in central and eastern Syria, clashes that killed
scores of troops and pro-government militiamen, ac-
cording to IS statements and Syrian opposition activ-
A Kurdish woman holds a banner with ‘independence’ written on it to protest against the flight ban ists.
issued by the Iraq federal government outside the Irbil International Airport in Iraq, Friday, Sept. 29, Violence had broken out Thursday when IS fighters at-
2017. Many travelers boarded the last flights out of the cities of Irbil and Sulaymaniyah as an Iraqi tacked the village of Shola, capturing it from govern-
government order to halt all international flights in Kurdish territory was set to kick in on Friday. ment forces and cutting off the highway linking the
(AP Photo/Bram Janssen) capital Damascus and the eastern city of Deir el-Zour.
flights from servicing the nation thereof. Behind the region hand over the air- Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group,
territory’s airports on Friday scenes, the United States port to its authority or else which is fighting with government forces in Syria, said
as the central government has strongly been advising face a ban. Talar Saleh, that the highway has been secured, adding that ve-
in Baghdad stepped up against any military incur- the general director of Irbil hicles can now drive through it.
moves to isolate the Kurds sion into the Kurdish region, International Airport, says The Observatory said two days of fighting in the desert
following their vote on in- and believes none of the Kurdish authorities had at- area left 120 Syrian troops, Hezbollah fighters and oth-
dependence earlier this players will do so, accord- tempted to meet with offi- er pro-government gunmen dead. The government-
week. ing the officials, who spoke cials from the central gov- controlled Syrian Central Military Media said Syrian
Iraqi troops now in Turkey on condition of anonymity ernment to comply with troops repelled the attack by IS.
and Iran would start on Sat- because they weren’t au- the demand. But “so far, The attack by IS came as a surprise at a time when the
urday morning to enforce thorized to speak publicly up to this moment, there is extremists are losing ground across their self-declared
control over the border on the matter. no reply from Baghdad,” caliphate. In July, the group lost the northern Iraqi city
crossings out of the Kurd- The nonbinding referen- she said at a press confer- of Mosul. IS’s de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria is cur-
ish region, Iraqi officials told dum — in which the Kurds ence held at the airport. rently under attack by the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-
The Associated Press. They voted overwhelmingly in fa- While Baghdad controls led Syrian Democratic Forces.
will not enter the Kurdish vor of independence from the airspace over the Kurd- Iraqi troops and SDF fighters have been marching
region, but instead Iraqi Iraq — will not immediately ish region, immigration against IS under the cover of airstrikes by the U.S.-
customs administrators result in independence. But and security inside the air- led coalition while Syrian troops and their allies have
backed by the troops will Kurdish leaders have said ports are controlled by lo- gained ground under the cover of Russian airstrikes.
set up control points just they will use it to press for cal Kurdish region officials The Pentagon said in a statement Friday that since
outside the Kurdish border negotiations on eventually and security forces. Many the U.S.-led coalition operations against IS began in
stations, the officials said. forming their own state. of the hundreds of people Iraq and Syria in 2014, forces allied with the Americans
The step will be the first That has set off alarm bells traveling Friday afternoon have retaken more than 83 percent of land once held
movement of troops — in Baghdad, where the were foreigners ordered by extremists. It added that the effort has liberated
outside of joint military ex- government has said it is to leave the region by the more than six million Syrians and Iraqis.
ercises held by Turkey, Iran determined to prevent a companies they work for. It said these achievements have come at a cost, how-
and Iraq — in response to break-up of the country, “Of course we don’t want ever, with 1,200-1,500 Iraqi forces killed in action during
this week’s referendum in and in Iraq’s neighbors, to leave,” said Joao Gabri- the nine-month campaign that liberated Mosul and
which Kurds voted by more Iran and Turkey, which fear el Villar, a Brazilian doctor an approximate 8,000 more wounded.
than 90 percent to back the vote will fuel similar am- working for a non-govern- The Pentagon statement said SDF fighters who are
independence from Iraq bitions among their own mental organization that marching in Raqqa and Deir el-Zour have suffered
for their self-rule zone and significant Kurdish popula- helps people displaced by “similarly in efforts to rid their nation” of IS, with ap-
other areas they have cap- tions. So they have moved the conflict with the Islamic proximately 1,100 of their troops killed and 3,900 more
tured the past year. to isolate the region. Iran State group. wounded in the ongoing fight. It said that in the month
The escalation feeds wor- on Friday announced a “We had only just arrived,” of August, the coalition carried over 455 open reports
ries in the United States, a ban on oil imports and ex- he said. “We could have of possible civilian casualties from previous months
close ally of both the Kurds ports with the Iraqi Kurd- helped many more people and received 80 new reports from coalition artillery
and Baghdad, that the ref- ish region, the state news if we stayed.”q shelling or airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. q