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WASHINGTON In a highly unusual intervention, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to remove Iraq and Myanmar from a U.S. list of the world's worst offenders in the use of child soldiers, disregarding the recommendations of State Department experts and senior U.S. diplomats, U.S. officials said.

The decision, confirmed by three U.S. officials, would break with longstanding protocol at the State Department over how to identify offending countries and could prompt accusations the Trump administration is prioritizing security and diplomatic interests ahead of human rights.

Tillerson overruled his own staffs assessments on the use of child soldiers in both countries and rejected the recommendation of senior diplomats in Asia and the Middle East who wanted to keep Iraq and Myanmar on the list, said the officials, who have knowledge of the internal deliberations.

Tillerson also rejected an internal State Department proposal to add Afghanistan to the list, the three U.S. officials said.

One official said the decisions appeared to have been made following pressure from the Pentagon to avoid complicating assistance to the Iraqi and Afghan militaries, close U.S. allies in the fight against Islamist militants. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Foreign militaries on the list can face sanctions including a prohibition on receiving U.S. military aid, training and U.S.-made weapons unless the White House issues a waiver.

Human rights officials expressed surprise at the delisting, which was expected to be announced on Tuesday, the officials said, as part of the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.

A State Department official said the TIP report's contents were being kept under wraps until its release and the department "does not discuss details of internal deliberations."

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008, the U.S. government must be satisfied that "no children are recruited, conscripted or otherwise compelled to serve as child soldiers" in order for a country to be removed from the list and U.S. military assistance to resume.

In the lead-up to Tuesday's report, the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which researches the issue and helps shape U.S. policy on it, along with its legal office and diplomatic bureaus in Asia and the Middle East concluded that the evidence merited keeping both countries on the list, the officials said.

Officials said that although the report had been finalized there was always the possibility of last-minute changes.

BETRAYING CHILDREN

Human Rights Watch said removing Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, from the list would be a "completely premature and disastrous action that will effectively betray more children to continued servitude and rights abuses."

The decision also would put the Trump administration at odds with the United Nations, which continues to list the Myanmar military, along with seven ethnic armed groups, on its list of entities using and recruiting child soldiers.

"What's particularly astonishing is this move ignores that the U.N. in Burma says that it is still receiving new cases of children being recruited" by the Myanmar military, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Rights groups have long accused Myanmar of using child soldiers. Bordering both China and India, Myanmar is also of growing strategic importance to the United States at a time of increasing encroachment in the region by China, which has sought closer relations with its neighbor.

Iraq, which has received more than $2 billion in U.S. arms and training over the last three years, was added to the State Departments "Child Soldier Prevention Act List"in 2016. However, the flow of U.S. assistance has continued.

Former President Barack Obama handed out full or partial waivers regularly, including last year to Iraq, Myanmar, Nigeria, South Sudan and others out of 10 countries on the list.

Last year's State Department report said some militias of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of mostly Shi'ite Muslim factions with ties to the Iraqi government and backed by Iran, "recruited and used child soldiers."

The report said that despite the PMF being funded by the government, Baghdad struggled to control all of its factions.

"The government did not hold anyone accountable for child recruitment and use by the PMF and PMF-affiliated militias."

Human Rights Watch said in January that it had learned that militias had been recruiting child soldiers from one Iraqi refugee camp since last spring.

The broader TIP report, the first of Trump's presidency, is sure to be closely scrutinized for further signs that under his "America First" approach there will be little pressure brought to bear on friendly governments, especially strategically important ones, for human rights violations at home.

The Obama administration, while more vocal about political repression around the world, also faced criticism from human rights groups and some U.S. lawmakers that decisions on annual human trafficking rankings had become increasingly politicized.

(Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski in Yangon and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler)

MARAWI CITY, Philippines Fighting between government forces and Islamist rebels holed up in the heart of a southern Philippine town eased on Sunday as the military sought to enforce a temporary truce to mark the Eid al-Fitr Islamic holiday.

LONDON Britain said 34 high-rise apartment blocks had failed fire safety checks carried out after the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze, including several in north London where residents were forced to evacuate amid chaotic scenes.

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Exclusive: Overruling diplomats, US to drop Iraq, Myanmar from child soldiers' list - Reuters

Iraqi forces haveopened exit routes for hundreds of people to flee the Old City of Mosulwith the United Nations voicing alarm at the rising civilian death toll and the unimaginablerisks trapped residents face.

Troops are battlingto retake the Old City district from Isisfighters mounting a last stand in the final major city they hold in the country.

Urban warfare units have been channelling their onslaught along two perpendicular streets that converge in the heart of the Old City, aiming to isolate the jihadist insurgents in four pockets.

The week-old battle in the Old City is turning into the deadliest of the eight-month US-backed campaign to take back the northern city, which fell to Isis in June 2014.

I saw ayoung girl with facial injuries walking dazed and shocked across the frontline out of heavily-populated district with a group of neighbours. All her family was killed when their house collapsed, they said.

The United Nations has said as many as 12 civilians were killed and hundreds injured in fightingon Friday.

Fighting is very intense in the Old City and civilians are at extreme, almost unimaginable risk. There are reports that thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of people are being held as human shields [by Isis],Lise Grande, the UNhumanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement. Hundreds of civilians, including children, are being shot.

Iraqi authorities are hoping to declare victory in the northern Iraqi city in the Muslim Eid holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, during the next few days.

Helicopter gunships were assisting the ground thrust, firing at insurgent emplacements in the Old City.The government advance was carving out escape corridors for civilians marooned behind Isis lines.

There was a steady trickle of fleeing families on Saturday, some with injured and malnourished children. My baby only had bread and water for the past eight days, one mother said.

At least 100 civilians reached the safety of a government-held area west of the Old City in one 20-minute period, tired, scared and hungry. Soldiers gave them food and water.

More than 100,000 civilians, of whom half are believed to be children, remain trapped in the crumbling old houses of the Old City, with little food, water or medical treatment.

Related video: Mosul residents on Isis blowing up Grand al-Nuri Mosque

The urban-warfare forces were leading the campaign to clear the Sunni Islamist militants from the maze of Old City alleyways, moving on foot house-to-house in locations too cramped for the use of armoured combat vehicles.

A US-led international coalition is providing ground and air support in the eight-month-old campaign to seize Mosul, the largest city Isiscame to control in a shock offensive in Iraq and neighbouring Syria three years ago.

Iraqi government offensives supported by the coalition have wrested back several important urban centres in the countrys west and north from Isis over the past 18 months.

Military analysts said Baghdads campaign to recover Mosul gathered pace after the jihadi group blew up the 850-year-old al-Nuri mosque with its famous leaning minaret on Wednesday.

The mosques destruction, while condemned by Iraqi and UNauthorities as another cultural crime by the jihadists, gave troops more freedom to press their onslaught as they no longer had to worry about damaging the ancient site.

It was from the mosque that Isisleader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced himself to the world for the first time as the caliph, or ruler of all Muslims, in July 2014. Mosuls population at the time was more than twomillion.

Baghdadi fled into the desert expanse extending across Iraq and Syria in the early phase of the Mosul offensive, leaving the fighting there to local Isiscommanders, according to USand Iraqi officials. Recent Russian reports that he was killed have not been confirmed by the coalition or Iraqi authorities.

The Iraqi government once hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign dragged on as Isis reinforced positions in inner-city neighbourhoods of the citys western half, carried out suicide car and motorbike bomb attacks, laid booby traps and kept up barrages of sniper and mortar fire.

By Saturday, the area still under Isiscontrol was less than twosquare kilometres (0.77 sq miles),skirting the western bank of the Tigris River that bisects Mosul.

Isisretaliated for government advances on Friday evening with a triple bombing in a neighbourhood in eastern Mosul, which Baghdads forces recaptured in January. The attack was carried out by three people who detonated explosive belts, killing five, including three policemen, and wounding 19, according to a military statement on Saturday.

The fall of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi half of the so-called-Caliphateas a quasi-state structure, but Isiswould still hold sizeable, mainly rural and small-town tracts of both Iraq and Syria.

In eastern Syria, The de facto Isis capital, Raqqa, is now nearly encircled by a US-backed Kurdish-led coalition.

Reuters

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Iraq forces help hundreds of civilians escape Isis-held Mosul as UN warns of 'unimaginable' risk to life - The Independent

The Jerusalem Post

5 reasons why Nasrallah's threat to use Iraq and Iran fighters against Israel is alarming The Jerusalem Post In recent years, Iran has been accused of attempting to create a route to the sea via Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. This would link Tehran with its allies in Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. These allies include the Iraqi based Shi'ite militias called the ... Future Israel War Could Draw Iran, Iraq FightersFinancial Tribune all 9 news articles »

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5 reasons why Nasrallah's threat to use Iraq and Iran fighters against Israel is alarming - The Jerusalem Post

Canada is not known, at least not in popular culture, for its military might. Fewer than 100,000 active personnel serve in the countrys armed forces, whose size and strength have been mocked over the years by American and Canadian commentators alike. The United States, by comparison, has about half a million active soldiers in the Army alone, and hundreds of thousands more across the other branches.

But dont let those numbers fool you.

Despite its small size, Canada is known for producing well-trained, highly skilled soldiers, who have long fought alongside American and British counterparts in major world conflicts, including the current fight against Islamic State militants.

In particular, Canada boasts some of the best snipers of any military, and the world may very well have gotten another reminder of that last week.

On Thursday, the countrys military said that a Canadian Special Operations sniper had shot an Islamic State fighter in Iraq from more than 2 miles away, purportedly breaking a world record for the longest confirmed kill shot in history, according to the Globe and Mail.

An unidentified sniper from the elite Joint Task Force 2 made the shot from a distance of 3,540 meters using a U.S.-made McMillan Tac-50 rifle, according to the Globe and Mail. The newspaper cited anonymous military sources saying that the fatal shot, made from a high-rise in Iraq, was independently verified by video and other data.

If so, the Canadian snipers shot shatters the previous world record, held by a British soldier, by a staggering 1,065 meters.

It also fits a long tradition of expert marksmanship among Canadian soldiers.

During World War I, Canadian snipers were celebrated for their deadly accuracy. The late Francis Pegahmagabow, a First Nations sniper from Ontario, was credited with 378 kills.

Outdoorsmanship played a big role in how the Canadian military selected its snipers; the country had an abundance of farmers, hunters and trappers.

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Canadian sniper in Iraq makes fatal shot from 2 miles - Press Herald

The continuing conflict in Iraq has brought destruction to many areas of the country. It also has had an extreme cost for families and children, as well.

The United Nations Childrens Fund, or UNICEF, says fighting has displaced more than 1.5 million children in the last three years.

Their stories are hard to hear.

Zamin Makhool is 28 years old. Last December, she lost two of her children in an airstrike in her neighborhood. An explosive struck her home, leaving it a pile of wreckage. It left a hole three meters deep.

Her four-year-old son and nine-month-old daughter died. Her son died while playing with his spinning top toy, she says. Her baby daughter was crushed in the collapsed house.

The attack took place at a time when Islamic State militants controlled the neighborhood.

Since 2014, UNICEF says more than 1,000 children have been killed in Iraq. The organization says Islamic State militants claimed territory -- including Mosul and other cities -- during that period.

Peter Hawkins is a UNICEF representative in Iraq. He said in a statement that, Across Iraq, children continue to witness sheer horror and unimaginable violence.

Families risk lives when fleeing militant controlled areas

The fighting continues in Mosuls Old City, the last place in Mosul where Islamic State still holds power.

Several families recently arrived at a field hospital near the Old City neighborhood to seek treatment.

One mother brought her baby, Saja, who is one year old. She told the doctors that the child had not been fed enough for months. The doctors tried to inject nutrients into her bloodstream with a needle.

Even the families of militants are trying to flee the Old City now, said the childs mother. Its too dangerous.

One day before she came to the hospital, she said, militants had heard that her family was planning to run away. They shot her husband in their house. She then took her children and fled the neighborhood.

UNICEF and fleeing civilians say militants are killing parents and children. They also are preventing families from fleeing and punishing ones that do.

Mortars, airstrikes and so-called improvised explosive devices are harming children and adults. But starvation and disease are greater threats to children.

Poor conditions exist at camps for displaced

Conditions for those displaced by conflict are extremely difficult. Families have gathered in refugee camps in the desert areas surrounding Mosul. Temperatures during the day can reach 40 degrees Celsius in the summer.

Living conditions in the camps in Iraqi-controlled Mosul are poor, with bad food and dirty water. There is also a lack of health care.

Major Mohammad Hassan Abdullah is a medical doctor with the Iraqi Army. He works at a field clinic near the front lines.

We have 500 to 600 people coming every day, mostly babies and elderly people, he said. The problem could nearly be solved with clean water.

Zamin Makhool has one daughter still living. The family lives in a refugee camp. She says they get their food from non-governmental organizations. But food does not come every day.

Makhools husband, Ibrahim, says violence against children will continue as long as Islamic State militants hold territory in Iraq.

Ibrahim says he was trying to sell his car when the familys two young children were killed in the airstrike. The target of the attack was likely nearby Islamic State bases, or a house next door where militants were living.

It wasnt a mistake that airstrikes hit our neighborhood, Ibrahim Makhool said as he showed a picture of his destroyed home. There were three IS (Islamic State) bases in the area.

They live between families to try to stay safe, he said. Then when we are hit, they move on.

Im Mario Ritter.

Heather Murdoch reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

What do you think can be done for families in Iraq? Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

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sheer adj. complete, total

front line --n. an area where soldiers are fighting

elderly adj. old, aged

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Iraq Conflict Deadly for Children, Says UNICEF - Voice of America