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Iranian artillery bombed Kurdish militants in northern Iraq on Monday, injuring at least three people and forcing hundreds to flee their homes, Kurdish officials told VOA.

The cross-border shelling in Iraqi Kurdistan's Haji Omaran region targeted positions of Iranian Kurdish rebel groups Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and Komala, Kurdish officials said.

"The shelling started at 5 a.m. [local time] and continued for several hours, forcing hundreds of civilians from nearby villages to flee their homes," Farzang Ahmad, the local administrator of the Haji Omaran sub-district in Iraqi Kurdistan, told VOA.

Ahmad added that one villager and two rebels were injured and many local farmers' livelihoods were destroyed as a result of the shelling.

"The Republic of Iran's justification for the attack is the presence of Iranian Kurdish rebels in the border region with Iraq," he said.

Iran is home to roughly 10 million Kurds who mostly live in the northwest of the country, close to Iraqi and Turkish Kurdish communities across the border.

Kurdish groups

Kurdish armed groups, such as KDPI and Komala, have been in conflict with the Iranian government for decades, and are seeking greater autonomy for the areas inhibited by ethnic Kurds. These armed Kurdish groups are widely spread across the 60-kilometer border with neighboring Iraq.

The mountainous nature of the terrain makes it difficult for the Iranian government to control the area.

To diminish the growing activity of the Iranian Kurdish rebels, the country's military has bombed areas inside the Iraqi border on several occasions in the past, drawing criticism from Iraqi Kurdish officials who charge that civilians bear the brunt of the bombing.

The Iranian government has not commented on Monday's shelling, but Iraqi Kurdish officials say the bombing was carried out in response to the killing of an Iranian commander and injuring two Iranian border guards during clashes in Kermanshah province on Saturday.

Mustafa Mauludi, the secretary general of KDPI, denied his group's involvement in the killing and added that no other Kurdish group has claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack.

Mauludi accused Iran of initiating escalations with Kurdish rebels and breaking a two-decades-old cease-fire in 2015.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has been attacking us for years now, thinking we will abandon our struggle," Mauludi told VOA. "We have persisted our struggle despite difficulties and we will continue to do so."

Escalation of fighting

The predominately Kurdish province in northwestern Iran situated in the border region with Iraq has recently witnessed an escalation of fighting between Kurdish armed groups and Iranian border guards.

Iranian officials say that they have expelled the Kurdish rebels from the province.

"Thanks to efforts of the armed forces and struggles of the intelligence forces, security is in place on the border lines," Asadollah Razani, Kermanshah province governor general, said last Thursday.

Razani added that Iranian forces are closely monitoring the border region with Iraq and "any suspicious move will receive strong response."

However, Kurdish rebel leader Mauludi told VOA that his group receives broad support from the Kurdish population in Iran and that conflict in the province may continue "until [the] Kurdish issue is resolved."

He told VOA that continued Iranian attacks will more likely encourage Kurdish rebel groups to unify against the Iranian government forces.

"We have been in dialogue with other Kurdish parties in Iran for a while to develop a long-term cooperation mechanism and a mutual platform that will help us be more prepared for future challenges," Mauludi said.

Original post:
Kurds Accuse Iran of Cross-border Shelling in Northern Iraq - Voice of America

A Canadian court has accused Iran of supporting terrorism, upholding a previous ruling that requires the Islamic Republic to pay around $1.7 billion in damages to American victims of terrorism.

Ontarios Court of Appeal rejected Irans request to reconsider the ruling on Monday night, arguing that doing so would amount to a breach of Canadas Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (JVTA).

The JVTA allows victims of terrorism to sue foreign states for damages.

The accusation came despite Irans firm response to similar cases in the past, where various American and European courts had taken punitive measures against Tehran over unproven claims of complicity in terror.

The new case was brought by families of Americans citizens who had been killed in a series of attacks between 1980s and 2002, mostly blamed on Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements Hamas and Hezbollah.

The families claimed that the Iranian government supported the two organizations and was therefore responsible for their actions.

The complaints were first filed in the US but the claimants turned to Canada after finding out that the Iranian government had more properties and bank accounts there.

A one-story house in Toronto, an industrial building in Ottawa and two bank accounts were among the assets that were sought in the case.

Without offering further elaboration, the court also claimed in its ruling that Iran was seeking to frustrate the JVTAs implementation.

The Iranian government had reportedly told the court that it had immunity in the case. It had also argued that the judgment was against international law and exceeded the maximum damages allowable in Canadian law.

Tehran also argued that the victims had to prove Irans role in each attack instead of just repeating the US governments baseless allegations.

The court said Iran was only immune in terrorism cases that had occurred before January 1985, when Canadas State Immunity Act was passed.

A recurring trend

Last year, the US Supreme Court ruled that around $2 billion had to be turned over to the American families of the people killed in a 1983 bombing in Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran.

Likening the act to highway robbery, Iran said back then that it would seek reparations.

The trend of the unfair rulings continued in March, when a New York court ordered Iran to pay $7.5 billion in damage to families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and $3 billion to a group of insurers over related claims.

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The ruling surprised many since Washington had clearly blamed the attacks on the al-Qaeda terror group and even investigated members of Saudi Arabias royal family who had proven ties to the terrorist organization.

Various investigations have revealed that 15 of the 19 plane hijackers involved in the attacks were Saudi nationals and some of them had received big sums of money from Saudi royals.

The ruling lost even more weight in September, after the US Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), clearing the path to sue Saudi Arabia for the tragic death of over 3,000 people.

It was reported in March, however, that a judge in Luxembourg had quietly put a freeze on $1.6 billion in assets belonging to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) to compensate the 9/11 victims.

The Canadian courts ruling came days after yet another anti-Iran ruling by a US court, which allowed the American government to seize an Iranian charitys office tower in New York City over claims that it was used to breach Iran sanctions.

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Canadian court upholds $1.7 billion ruling against Iran - Press TV

MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq Iraqi forces slowed their advance on Tuesday through the last streets in Mosul controlled by Islamic State where militants and civilians are packed in densely together, a commander said.

While Iraqi commanders predicted final victory in Mosul this week, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced they had begun an assault on Islamic State's Syrian redoubt in the Old City of Raqqa.

The Iraqi military has pushed insurgents into a shrinking rectangle no more than 300 by 500 meters beside the Tigris river in Mosul; but the resistance has been fierce.

The Rapid Response Division, an elite Interior Ministry unit, called in air strikes just 50 meters away from their targets, and the fighting got close enough at one point for the militants to toss a hand grenade at the troops.

It was from the pulpit of Mosul's medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque that, three years ago, leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a "caliphate" over parts of Iraq and Syria. Forces retook the mosque on Thursday, prompting Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to declare an end to the group's "state of falsehood".

The number of Islamic State militants fighting in Mosul, by far the biggest city it has ever controlled, has dwindled from thousands at the start of the U.S.-backed offensive more than eight months ago to a couple of hundred now, according to the Iraqi military.

A commander from the Rapid Response Division estimated more than 10,000 civilians remained trapped inside the area under militant control, including people brought from other areas as human shields.

They are trapped with little food, water or medicine amid the Old City's maze of narrow alleyways, according to residents who have managed to escape.

"The presence of civilians has affected the troops' advance a lot. The directions from the commander-in-chief of the armed forces are to advance slowly to preserve civilians' lives and this is what we are doing," the officer said on state TV without being named.

"The area is small but the advance today is very good, relatively."

He said the progress had also been slowed by a high number of improvised explosives planted in streets and buildings.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support to the offensive, which Iraq's army and counter-terrorism service are also fighting in a multi-pronged attack.

TERRITORY SINKING FAST

With Mosul gone, the group's territory in Iraq will be limited to a few areas west and south of the city where some tens of thousands of civilians live.

In neighboring Syria, a U.S-backed coalition force said it had fired on two small sections of the historic Rafiqah Wall in the Old City of Raqqa, allowing them to overcome Islamic State defenses.

"The portions targeted were 25-metre sections and will help preserve the remainder of the overall 2,500-meter wall," the coalition said in a statement.

Iraqi authorities are planning a week of nationwide celebrations, to mark the end of the offensive, and Abadi is expected to visit Mosul to formally declare victory.

With its territory shrinking fast, Islamic State has been stepping up suicide attacks in the parts of Mosul taken by Iraqi forces and elsewhere, including a camp for displaced people west of Baghdad on Sunday.

Thousands of people have already fled the Old City this week, joining about 900,000 others, about half the city's pre-war population, who have been displaced over months of grinding warfare.

Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is believed to be hiding near the Iraq-Syrian border, according to U.S. and Iraqi military sources.

The group has moved its remaining command and control structures to Mayadin, in eastern Syria, U.S. intelligence sources have said, without indicating if Baghdadi was also hiding in the same area.

Baghdadi has often been reported killed or wounded. Russia said on June 17 its forces might have killed him in an air strike in Syria. But Washington says it has no information to corroborate such reports and Iraqi officials are also skeptical.

(Writing by Stephen Kalin; editing by Ralph Boulton)

BERLIN Germany should brace for further attacks given growing numbers of potential Islamist militants, top security officials warned on Tuesday, vowing to step up efforts to prosecute, convict and deport suspects.

MOSUL/BEIRUT Western-backed forces edged into the final redoubts of the two capitals of Islamic State's self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria on Tuesday, hampered by fierce resistance from the militants and the presence of human shields.

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Iraq slows advance on last IS pocket in Mosul packed with civilians - Reuters

Highlights

The Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) extended its Internet connectivity services to the affected community in the CDO Community Centre in Arbat camp. This is the ETCs second Services for Communities (S4C) project in Iraq.

The ETC conducted a mission to Athbah, 15km from west Mosul, to install CMOSS-compliant radio equipment for staff in the new IHP overnight camp within Athbah field hospital compound.

A total of 87 humanitarians have registered to access ETC Internet connectivity services in Domiz and Arbat camps since the beginning of 2017.

More than 1,411 vouchers have been used by the affected population at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Youth Centre and Internet cafe in Domiz camp since the project started in June 2016. This was the ETCs first S4C project.

The ETC is in the process of receiving US$1.47 million from the Iraq Humanitarian Pooled Fund (IHPF), led by the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC) and managed by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to provide services until the end of May 2018.

Situation Overview

People continue to flee Mosul under difficult circumstances, which are exacerbated by high temperatures. Many people living in Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)-controlled areas are food insecure and have not had access to safe drinking water and medicines for weeks or months. Humanitarians continue to respond to the extremely fast outflows of people, but the pace and scale of displacement is stretching response capacities. In the past weeks, mass displacement of civilians continues in western Mosul. Since the start of the Mosul operation in October 2016, 678,177 Iraqis have been displaced.

Humanitarian and protection needs remain severe. Where possible, humanitarian partners, including the ETC, are planning to conduct more assessment missions in newly-accessible priority sites to determine needs on the ground.

The ETC is planning to conduct needs assessment missions in the priority camps identified to determine communications needs of humanitarians and later, affected communities.

See more here:
Iraq - ETC Situation Report #43 Reporting period 26/05/2017 to 30/06/2017 - Reliefweb

BBC News

IS suicide bomber dressed as woman kills 14 at Iraq camp BBC News The UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, condemned the attack. "This is terrible," she said in a statement. "The people who were attacked had fled to Kilo 60 for their safety. Many have travelled huge distances seeking help." In recent ... Suicide bomb blast kills Iraqis at camp for displacedAljazeera.com Suicide bomber dressed as woman kills 14 in Iraq refugee campThe Independent Iraq local official: Suicide bomber disguised in woman's all-covering robe has killed 14 people at camp for displacedWashington Post FRANCE 24 -kurv all 92 news articles »

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IS suicide bomber dressed as woman kills 14 at Iraq camp - BBC News