During a press briefing on May 19, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis described a tactical shift in the US-led effort against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

"By taking the time up front to surround these locations, instead of simply shoving them from one [location] to another and actually reinforcing them as they fall back ... we now take the time to surround them,"Mattis said.

Mattis then got specific about the coalition's focus going forward.

"Those foreign fighters are a threat, so by taking the time to deconflict, to surround, and then attack, we carry out the annihilation campaign so we don’t simply transplant this problem from one location to another,"he told reporters.

The phrase "annihilation campaign" caught some by surprise.

As Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Micah Zenko noted at the time, it appeared "nowhere in US military doctrine" and differed from earlier approaches outlined by US military leaders.

"You can’t kill or capture your way out of an industrial-strength insurgency like that which we faced in Iraq,” retired Army Gen. David Petraeus said at a Harvard event in spring 2009, when he was chief of US Central Command.

"You can't kill your way to success in a counter insurgency effort," retired Adm. James Stavridis, who led both US Southern Command and European Command, said in a 2013 interview. "You have to protect the people, get the civil military balance right, train the locals, and practice effective strategic communications."

As Zenko has noted, the holistic approach of traditional counterinsurgency campaigns has been sidelined in favor of the annihilation-campaign approach because of the complexity and ferocity of the fight against ISIS, which has been accentuated by the terror group's ability to project power through foreign fighters launching attacks in their home countries.

In an interview last week with Breaking Defense, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, elaborated on the annihilation campaign and its origins.

"When Secretary Mattis looked at our anti-ISIS campaign, he concluded that in some instances we were essentially just pushing the enemy from one location to another," Dunfor said, adding:

"He asked me and the military chain-of-command to make a conscious effort not to allow ISIS fighters to just flee from one location to another, but rather to deliberately seek to 'annihilate' the enemy. That was the commander’s intent, and our commanders on the ground have tried to meet that goal of annihilating the enemy in order to mitigate the risk of these terrorists showing up someplace else."

Dunford said that the flow of foreign fighters was one piece of the "connective tissue" that linked terrorist groups like ISIS. He said 19 countries are currently part of an intelligence-sharing operation to relay information about such fighters.

Dunford also acknowledged the danger of such a concerted effort to kill combatants.

Despite that emphasis, he said, "I would never claim that means that all enemy fighters are being killed."

"One tactic they have adopted is to mix in with the civilian population, and that makes targeting them very difficult," he added. "We can’t just indiscriminately bomb people who are leaving these cities."

Military officials have said they do everything they can to avoid civilian casualties. But what has become clear in recent months is that the coalition is killing civilians in large numbers in its effort to defeat ISIS.

In its February civilian casualty report, US Central Command said that at least 199 civilians had "more likely than not" been killed coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve on June 15, 2014. (The January report identified 188 likely civilian casualties.)

In the June civilian casualty report — issued after the first four full months of President Donald Trump's term — that number had jumped to 484 civilians likely killed by US-led coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.

Many of those casualties have come as the fighting moves in to urban centers in both countries — environments where it becomes harder to avoid killing civilians despite the coalition's efforts to do so.

Such efforts have also been frustrated by ISIS putting civilians between itself and coalition forces, as in the case of 105 Iraqis killed in a blast caused by a bomb targeting two ISIS snipers in Mosul. (And unlike the US, ISIS has shown no hesitation about willfully and indiscriminately targeting civilians.)

But the US has also increased its bombings while loosening its rules of engagement.

According to US Air Force Central Command data, the coalition dropped 4,374 weapons in May, the most in a month during Operation Inherent Resolve by a significant margin.

The 14,865 weapons dropped between February and May this year also exceed the 9,065 weapons released over the same period last year. (Reports that the coalition is using white phosphorus in Raqqa has also drawn international concern.)

While that uptick has likely been driven in part by the requirements of urban operations, it has also come as Trump has ceded more and more control of battlefield decision-making to military commanders.

A February report from the Associated Press also said that some rules of engagement had been loosened to allow coalition personnel on the ground to call in strikes directly.

The Pentagon disputed that report, saying that only the procedures for calling in strikes had been adjusted, not the rules themselves.

Moreover, the review process for targeting procedure appears to be inadequate for the scale and scope of coalition operations.

A US military official admitted late last year that there was no "red team" set up to evaluate strikes.

And until mid-June, the US had just two people working full time to investigate civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria. That team is now up to seven members.

The US has also said it would stop reporting when its aircraft were responsible for civilian casualties. Such reports will now only cover the coalition as a whole.

The US has carried out 95% of the strikes in Syria and 68% of those in Iraq.

"Since the air war began some 22,000 airstrikes ago, military officials have repeatedly claimed that they 'do everything possible' to protect civilians," Zenko, of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in a New York Times column this week. "Making good on that promise is not only the right thing to do — it is also strategically vital to the longer-term effectiveness of the fight against terrorism."

SEE ALSO: US-led coalition aircraft shoots down Syrian fighter jet near Raqqa

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When Myriam Rawick was only eight years old, she started keeping a diary about the war that was unfolding in her native Syria.

As feuding forces waged battles in her hometown of Aleppo, Myriam's family was forced to gather only what they could carry and flee their homes in search of safety.

As the war displaced more than half of Syria's pre-war population and ravaged her home city in the coming years, Myriam continued to track her experiences growing up among air strikes, chemical attacks, militant coups, and food and water shortages.

Today, Myriam is 13, and her diary has been translated from Arabaic and published in France. Read the excerpts of a heartbreaking journal from a child forced to come of age in the Syrian civil war:

SEE ALSO: Here’s how Syria's six-year civil war has unfolded

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"I woke up one morning to the sound of things breaking, people shouting 'Allahu Akbar'," the phrase for "God is greatest" in Arabic, Myriam wrote in her diary at the start of the war.

Source: AFP

"I was so afraid I wanted to throw up. I hugged my doll tight, saying 'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, I'm here with you.'"

Source: AFP

"Aleppo was a paradise, it was our paradise," Myriam wrote about the city that has become the center of battles between government forces, rebel groups, and jihadist fighters since 2012.

Source: Business Insider

This weekend, for the fourth time in a month, US-led coalition forces clashed with forces backing the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The incident — the downing of a Syrian army jet in northern Syria — is another lurch toward what could be a fight that draws powers like Iran as well as the US and Russia into a conflict spanning the region.

On Sunday, US military officials said Syrian pro-government forces attacked the village of Ja'Din, south of Tabqah and west of Raqqa.

The strike reportedly wounded members of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is a coalition of mostly Arab and Kurdish fighters who have become important US partners in the fight against ISIS.

Coalition fighter jets reportedly halted that outbreak of fighting with show of force.

About two hours later, a Syrian SU-22 jet again struck SDF fighters, dropping munitions with little warning, according to US Central Command spokesman Col. John Thomas, who said there were US forces in the area that were not directly threatened. US aircraft tried to contact the Syrian jet but failed to do so, Thomas said.

After that, according to a coalition statement, "in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of Coalition partnered forces, [it] was immediately shot down by a U.S. F/A-18E Super Hornet."

Previous clashes between the US-led coalition and its partner forces and the Assad regime and its allies, Russia and Iran among them, took place in southeastern Syria around an outpost near al Tanf, on the border with Iraq.

On May 18, coalition airstrikes hit pro-regime forces "that were advancing well inside an established de-confliction zone" northeast of al Tanf, US Central Command said in a release at the time. That strike came after "apparent Russian attempts to dissuade Syrian pro-regime movement south towards At Tanf were unsuccessful."

Weeks later, on June 6, pro-Assad forces again entered the deconfliction zone, which covers a 34-mile radius around al Tanf.

"The Coalition issued several warnings via the de-confliction line prior to destroying two artillery pieces, an anti-aircraft weapon, and damaging a tank,"the coalition said at the time.

On June 8, coalition forces again struck pro-Assad forces that entered the deconfliction zone.

Hours after that engagement, a US aircraft shot down a regime drone that dropped bombs near coalition partner forces.

As after those incidents, the US-led coalition said on Sunday:

"The Coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime, Russian, or pro-regime forces partnered with them, but will not hesitate to defend Coalition or partner forces from any threat ... The demonstrated hostile intent and actions of pro-regime forces toward Coalition and partner forces in Syria conducting legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated."

Despite that sentiment, the US, Iran, and Russia all appear to be edging closer to a deeper conflict in Syria.

Moscow has provided air support to the Assad regime since 2015, and this month it launched attacks on US-backed fighters that were attacking Iranian-backed forces near al Tanf.

In a statement on Monday, the Russian Ministry of Defense called the shoot down of the Syrian jet "a cynical violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic" and said the US did not use the established communication line with Moscow beforehand.

The statement also called some US combat air operations "blatant breach[es] of the international law" and "military aggression" against Syria.

It also said Russia had stopped cooperating with the US to prevent incidents in the air over Syria and that going forward, "In the combat mission zones of the Russian aviation in the air space of Syria, all kinds of airborne vehicles, including aircraft and UAVs of the international coalition detected to the west of the Euphrates River will be tracked by the Russian [surface-to-air missile] systems as air targets." (Though that statement was reportedly amended.)

The US said Monday that it was repositioning its aircraft over Syria to ensure safety in its operations against ISIS, but the Pentagon also said US pilots would defend themselves against the Russians if attacked.

Events in Syria in the last 24 hours have been complicated by Iran firing medium-range surface-to-surface missiles from western Iran at ISIS targets in northeast Syria's Dier Ez-Zur province.

Iran, which has long backed Assad with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps advisers and support from the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, justified the strike as retaliation for a recent ISIS attack in Tehran that left 18 dead.

But the nature and timing of Iran's strike was also likely calculated to send a message to a wider audience, demonstrating that Tehran would hit back against terrorism and that it had the capability to strike throughout the region — the latter message almost certainly intended for the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

The US's sharply intensifying involvement in Syria has triggered alarm among US observers.

"The cult of credibility is as popular in DC as it is dangerous. Watch Syria. The risk of sliding into a big war is rising,"Colin Kahl, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East as well as national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and deputy assistant to President Barack Obama, said on Twitter on Monday.

"For years, hawks have argued that Assad & Iran (& Russia after 2015) were essentially paper tigers in Syria" who could be deterred by the US, Kahl added. But, he said, despite Trump's strikes on an Assad airfield and the recent clashes, the regime and its allies "keep pushing, probing, testing, countering. They haven't been cowed & deterred."

"Why?" Kahl continued. "Because the terrain they are fighting over, & the US coalition is now operating near, is very important to the Axis of Assad."

The al Tanf area specifically is strategically valuable to Assad and Iran because it would provide Tehran an overland link to move men and material through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon. Intelligence sources have told Reuters that the coalition's presence near al Tanf is meant to prevent such a route from opening.

The situation is made more fraught by reports that White House officials have pushed to expand US involvement in Syria and confront Iran more forcefully.

Two National Security Council officials — Senior Director for Intelligence Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Derek Harvey, the council's top Middle East adviser — want to go on the offensive the war-torn country, and their fervor has reportedly left other Iran hawks, like Defense Secretary James Mattis, uneasy. (Cohen-Watnick is reportedly suggested using US spies to overthrow the Iranian government.)

Mattis, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, and Brett McGurk, the diplomat overseeing the anti-ISIS coalition, have all pushed back. So far their vision of the campaign has won out.

Some in the administration have pushed to confront Iran in Yemen, where Tehran is backing the Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition in a fight that has pushed the country to the brink of famine.

The US is supporting Saudi forces in their campaign. (There are also tensions simmering between Riyadh and its partners and Iran.)

With the US's deepening involvement in Afghanistan — where the US is set to send thousands more troops several months after dropping the biggest weapon its arsenal on an ISIS affiliate camp there — some have expressed concern that Washington could soon find itself deeply involved in conflicts stretching from the Pakistani frontier to the Mediterranean coast and down to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula (and even in the nearby Horn of Africa).

All this has come as Trump has taken a decidedly hands-off approach to military operations.

Some have cast that in favorable contrast to Obama's "micromanagement" of operations abroad. Others, like Ilan Goldenberg and Nicholas Heras of the Middle East Program at the Center for New American Security, have said Trump may be "blindly stumbling into this conflict with no public discussion of the consequences."

The risks of "what could potentially mutate into a vastly expanded American military intervention in the Middle East" might not be worth what may be limited gains in Syria, Goldenberg and Heras write.

With his administration looking for solutions in Syria, weighing deeper involvement in Afghanistan, poised to deal with the fallout of ISIS' defeat in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, Trump has yet to speak with his commanders in either of the latter two countries.

SEE ALSO: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff explains the US's 'annihilation campaign' against ISIS

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SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia said on Tuesday it was suspending air strikes into Syria following the U.S. downing of a Syrian military jet on Sunday and Russia's subsequent threat against U.S.-led coalition aircraft.

"As a precautionary measure, Australian Defence Force (ADF) strike operations into Syria have temporarily ceased," Australia's Department of Defence said in a statement.

Russia said on Monday it would treat U.S.-led coalition aircraft flying west of the River Euphrates in Syria as potential targets and track them with missile systems and military aircraft, but stopped short of saying it would shoot them down.

Russia made clear it was changing its military posture in response to the U.S. downing of a Syrian military jet on Sunday, something Damascus said was the first such incident since the start of the country's conflict in 2011. 

(Reporting by James Regan; editing by Nick Macfie)

SEE ALSO: The US, Russia, and Iran are edging closer to an all-out clash in Syria

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US Central Command said on Tuesday a US aircraft shot down a drone operated by pro-Assad regime forces northeast of al Tanf, an outpost in Syria's southeast desert where the US-led coalition has clashed several times with the Assad regime's partners in recent weeks.

According to a statement from CentCom, an F-15E Strike Eagle downed the drone, an Iranian-made Shaheed-129, around 12:30 a.m. local time on Tuesday, "after it displayed hostile intent and advanced on Coalition forces."

The statement said coalition personnel were at the al Tanf outpost, near the Syria-Iraq border, where US special operations forces have been training local partners to fight ISIS militants in Syria.

The shoot down took place just outside the 34-mile deconfliction zone, set up to avoid clashes, that has been established around al Tanf.

"The F-15E intercepted the armed UAV after it was observed advancing on the Coalition position," CentCom said in its statement. After it continued its advance without changing course, it was shot down.

Recent clashes

The incident occurred at the same location where another pro-regime drone dropped a weapon near coalition forces on June 8, according to the release.

The drone in that incident — another Shaheed-129, operated by unknown parties — was shot down by a US aircraft as well. Following that encounter, a Syrian Su-22 appeared on scene and maneuvered to attack US-backed forces before being warned off by a US aircraft.

The June 20 shoot down is the fifth occasion in a little more than a month in which the US-led coalition and its local partners have clashed with forces aligned with the Assad regime, which include Russia and Iran.

Over the weekend, a US aircraft shot down a Syrian army jet that the US said was firing on coalition partner forces southwest of Raqqa in northern Syria.

After that incident, Moscow said it was suspending cooperation with the US via the "deconfliction line" that was used to prevent incidents in the air over Syria. Russia also said it would track coalition aircraft that flew over its combat-mission zones in the country "as air targets."

The US's statement on Tuesday did not specifically mention contacting Moscow over the deconfliction line before downing the pro-regime jet, but it did say the coalition "has made it clear to all parties publically and through the de-confliction line with Russian forces" that"hostile intent and actions" by pro-regime forces and their partners against the coalition and its partners "will not be tolerated."

"There is a de-confliction mechanism in place with Russian forces to reduce uncertainty in this highly contested space and mitigate the chances of strategic miscalculation," the statement read.

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said on Monday that communications were still open between the two sides.

As it has in previous statements after encounters with pro-regime forces, CentCom said the coalition did not seek to fight the Syrian regime, its local partners, or Russian forces, but that it would not "hesitate to defend Coalition or partner forces from any threat."

Deepening US involvement

The June 20 incident is the latest in a series of escalations of the US's involvement in the Syrian Civil War.

As ISIS' presence in the country erodes, the US-led coalition's partner forces and the Assad regime, supported by Russian aircraft and Iranian-backed militias, appear to be jockeying for control of territory yielded by the terrorist group.

The area around al Tanf is thought to be valued by Damascus and Tehran because it could help complete an overland route linking the two countries, and Lebanon, through Iraq.

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces and their partners appear to be looking toward Dier ez-Zur in northeast Syria, where a Syrian military force is surrounded by ISIS fighters and through which another supply route could eventually run.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps recently targeted ISIS positions around Dier ez-Zur with medium-range surface-to-surface missiles in retaliation for a recent ISIS-linked attack in Tehran that killed 18 people.

The US-led coalition is also supporting its partners' operations on the ground in Raqqa, ISIS' self-declared capital.

The recent Russian warning that it would track coalition aircraft as targets complicates operations over Raqqa, as the city is within range of both Syrian and Russian air-defense systems.

In the past, according to Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, who commands the coalition's air operations, ground-based targeting radars have "illuminated" coalition planes.

US aircraft over Syria have reportedly been moved in response to the Russian warning, and Harrigian also said the coalition was adapting to recent uncertainty in the skies over Syria.

"We have positioned ourselves such that we are able to manage and mitigate threats to our folks to a reasonable level,"he told The New York Times.

SEE ALSO: The US, Russia, and Iran are edging closer to an all-out clash in Syria

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia, Iran and the United States are drawing new red lines for each other in Syria, with Moscow warning Washington on Monday it would treat any U.S.-led coalition planes in its area of operations as potential targets after the U.S. air force downed a Syrian jet.

Tensions escalated on Sunday as the U.S. army brought down the jet near Raqqa and Iran launched missiles at Islamic State targets in eastern Syria — the first time each state has carried out such actions in the multi-sided Syrian war.

A pro-Damascus commander said Tehran and Washington were drawing "red lines."

Russia, like Iran an ally of President Bashar al-Assad, issued a warning of its own to the United States in response to the downing of the Syrian jet, saying on Monday it would view as targets any planes flying west of the Euphrates River, though it stopped short of saying it would shoot any down.

The incidents reflect mounting competition for areas of Syria where Islamic State (IS) insurgents are in retreat, leaving swathes of territory up for grabs and posing the question of what comes next for U.S. policy that is shaped first and foremost by the priority of vanquishing the jihadists.

The United States said the Syrian army plane shot down on Sunday had dropped bombs near fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters battling to capture the city of Raqqa from IS.

Russia's Defense Ministry responded on Monday by suspending cooperation with the United States aimed at avoiding air incidents over Syria, where the Russian air force is bombing in support of Assad's campaigns against rebels and IS.

The Syrian army said the jet was shot down while flying a mission against Islamic State.

The SDF however accused the Syrian government on Monday of attacking its positions using planes, artillery and tanks.

"If the regime continues attacking our positions in Raqqa province, we will be forced to retaliate," SDF spokesman Talal Silo said.

The Syrian government this month marched into Raqqa province from the west but had avoided conflict with the U.S.-backed SDF until the latest incident.

"The SDF is getting big-headed," said the pro-Damascus military commander, a non-Syrian who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"There could be problems between it and Soheil Hassan," said the commander, referring to the Syrian officer leading the government offensive in Raqqa province.

Iran sends 'clear message'

The United States has said its recent actions against Syrian government forces and allied militia have been self-defensive in nature, aimed at stopping attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces or their local allies.

These have included several air strikes against pro-government forces that have sought to advance towards a U.S. military base in southeastern Syria near the border with Iraq, where the U.S. military has been training rebels to fight IS.

The area is of strategic significance to Tehran as it seeks to secure a land corridor to its allies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and establish a "Shi'ite crescent" of influence that has long concerned U.S.-allied states in the Middle East.

The missiles fired by Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Sunday targeted IS in Deir al-Zor province, fast becoming the jihadists' last remaining foothold in Syria and a declared military priority of Tehran's allies in the Syrian government.

The attacks have showcased the depth of Iran's military presence in Syria: Iranian drones launched from areas around Damascus allowed Revolutionary Guard commanders to assess the damage done by the missiles in real-time.

Two top Revolutionary Guard commanders said that the strikes were intended to send a message to the perpetrators of militant attacks in Tehran last week — claimed by Islamic State — that killed 18 people, as well as their supporters.

"I hope that the clear message of this attack will be understood by the terrorists as well as their regional and international supporters," said Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guards' aerospace unit, according to the website of Iranian state television.

Six missiles with a range of between 650 to 700 kilometers (400-435 miles) were fired from western Iran, soaring over Iraqi territory and striking the targets in Deir al-Zor.

State TV posted black and white aerial video on their website on Monday which they labeled as the moment of impact of the attack.

A projectile can be seen hitting a building followed by thick black smoke billowing out. State TV repeatedly aired video footage of the beginning of the attack Monday, showing several missiles streaking across a dark night sky. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif defended the attack in a Twitter post on Monday. "Iran's missile capability protects its citizens in lawful self-defense & advances common global fight to eradicate (IS) & extremist terror," he wrote.

Other Iranian officials were more blunt in their assessment of the attack. 

"This attack, before being a message for the terrorists, is a message for the supporters of terrorism in the region which are symbolized by the Saudi regime and the Americans," the state television website quoted Iranian parliamentarian Javad Karimi Qoddousi as saying.

Analysts say that more robust U.S. military action in Syria since President Donald Trump took office in January has resulted from his decision to give the military more autonomy in how it pursues the war on Islamic State.

"The (Syrian) regime is always testing and pushing the boundaries," said Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

"I don't think the Americans are testing the red lines. They are saying 'we have a red line here and if you are going to test it we will respond, but it doesn't mean we are now shifting strategy' because they also want to reassure the Russians." 

(By Tom Perry and Babak Dehghanpisheh; additional reporting by Laila Bassam and Ellen Francis in Beirut; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Mark Heinrich)

SEE ALSO: US shoots down a pro-regime drone in another escalation of its involvement in Syria

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NOW WATCH: Watch the King of Jordan participate in a military exercise with his armed forces

President Trump's administration has made repeated claims that their proposed immigration bans are meant to stop the flow of refugees across US borders.

In honor of World Refugee Day, observed on June 20, we're looking at what that flow actually looks like compared to the rest of the world.

Earth TimeLapse, an interactive platform created by Carnegie Mellon University and Robert Muggah, global security expert and research director at the Igarapé Institute, details over a 16-year span from 2000 to 2015 where migrants are leaving and arriving.

Data comes from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Each red dot represents 17 refugees arriving in a country, while yellow dots represent refugees leaving their home country behind.

The resulting maps are nothing short of mesmerizing.

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2001 saw roughly 500,000 refugees fleeing primarily Middle Eastern countries, such as Afghanistan, and African countries, such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Source: UNHCR

By 2002, both the number of newly displaced refugees and total refugees had fallen (since 2001). Still, large numbers of people fled war-torn African countries for safer, neighboring nations or havens in Europe.

Due to the War in Darfur, 2003 primarily saw an outflow of refugees from Sudan to nearby Chad. The UNHCR estimates roughly 100,000 new refugees came from Sudan alone.

Source: UNHCR

Khalil al-Hussein fled the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold Raqa 18 months ago, but now he is back and fighting to help oust the jihadists from his hometown.

The 25-year-old is one of several members of a Kurdish-Arab alliance fighting IS who are originally from the northern city.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces began an operation to capture Raqa last year, and finally entered the city earlier this month.

It was the first time Hussein had been inside his hometown since he fled, following years under terrifying IS rule.

"I fled Raqa because the crimes of Daesh became too much to bear: the punishments, the decapitations, prison, insults," he told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

"I want to find my house again whatever the price -- even if I have to die," said Hussein, who lived in the city's eastern district of Al-Rumeilah.

When the SDF broke into Raqa city for the first time on June 6, Hussein was among their ranks.

"I want to liberate my city from Daesh," he said passionately, standing on the city outskirts, his head wrapped in a green scarf.

"I'm not just here for my house, I'm here to liberate my city's people."

- 'Beautiful memories' -

Located in a remote desert region and bordered to the south by the Euphrates river, Raqa was little known internationally before the country's conflict erupted in March 2011.

It was the first provincial capital to fall to rebels, but IS jihadists seized it from opposition fighters in 2014, and transformed it into their de facto Syrian capital.

Since then, it has become synonymous with the group's worst atrocities, a place of public executions and prison sentences for such "crimes" as smoking or wearing jeans.

But the city still holds a special place in the hearts of its natives, including Hussein, who smiles when he talks about it.

"There is nothing more beautiful than Raqa," he said, his eyes shining.

"I have beautiful memories of the pretty streets, the generous residents and the coexistence between communities."

Raqa had some 300,000 residents before the war, most of them Sunni Arabs.

But the population was also about 20 percent Kurdish and included thousands of Syriac and Armenian Christians.

Hussein signed up with the SDF after fleeing Raqa, joining the ranks of its Kurdish and Arab fighters, many of them like him from Raqa city.

- 'We will free Raqa' -

At his side, on the outskirts of the city, his fellow fighters discuss the unfolding battle, in which the SDF has so far captured four neighbourhoods, two in the east and two in the west.

Hussein's Al-Rumeilah neighbourhood, however, remains under IS control.

Some of the fighters smoke, while others take photos of the city.

A group join hands, some with weapons slung over their shoulders, and dance the traditional Middle Eastern "dabke" to celebrate their advances.

"We feel great joy," said Abu Saleh al-Hindawi, a fighter who commands Arab members of the SDF.

He is also from Raqa, and participated in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's government when it began in 2011, before later joining the SDF.

Walid al-Khalaf, perched on a pick-up truck and bearing an automatic weapon, is also originally from the Al-Rumeilah district, and left last year.

"I haven't seen my house for eight months. I can't describe how I feel," the 28-year-old said.

"I left my house with nothing but a blanket and mattress."

Now, he has a single thing on his mind.

"We will free Raqa, and God willing the battle won't last long," he said.

"And wherever the jihadists go, we will pursue them."

SEE ALSO: The US, Russia, and Iran are edging closer to an all-out clash in Syria

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Western-backed Syrian rebels holding a strategic swathe of the desert southeast stretching to the Iraqi border said they came under major attack on Tuesday from government forces and allied Iranian-backed militias backed by Russian air power.

They said hundreds of troops with dozens of armored vehicles including tanks had surged into the Bir Qassab area some 75 km (45 miles) southeast of Damascus towards the Badia region that skirts the borders with Jordan and Iraq.

Bir Qassab straddles the route to the eastern suburbs of Damascus, near the Dumeir air base, that is also a key rebel supply line towards areas they control further southeast.

Bir Qassab fell to Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels after it was abandoned a few months ago by Islamic State (IS) militants beating an eastward retreat to reinforce their urban bastion, Raqqa, against a U.S.-backed coalition offensive, and Deir al Zor province against a thrust by Syrian government forces.

Bir Qassab had given Islamic State a springboard for attacks on territory just to the east of Damascus and a base for maintaining their grip on large swathes of the Badia region.

"The (Syrian) regime and militia ground attack started this dawn and our forces are holding on to their positions," said Saad al Haj, spokesman for Osoud al Sharqiya, one of the largest rebel groups operating in the area.

"With (the help of) intensive Russian bombing they are trying to advance but we are repelling them," al-Haj added.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces, aided by Iranian-backed militias, have engaged in a race with FSA rebels in recent weeks to seize areas in the southeastern desert vacated by retreating Islamic State insurgents.

The government offensive is part of a major campaign to recover control of territory south of the ancient central town of Palmyra, putting Assad's forces within reach of the Iraqi frontier for the first time in years.

This move has also effectively encircled FSA-controlled desert territory stretching to the Jordanian and Iraqi borders and close to the Tanf garrison where U.S. forces are based.

Iranian-backed forces have also been trying to advance towards the base even after repeatedly being bombed by the U.S. led coalition.

U.S. forces said on Tuesday they had shot down an armed "pro-Syrian regime" drone near the garrison. A Western intelligence source identified the drone as Iranian.

SEE ALSO: 'I want to liberate my city': Syrian fighters return to their hometown of Raqqa to oust ISIS

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RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) - U.S.-backed forces are closing in on Islamic State in Raqqa, but local Syrians who have escaped the battlefield are worried about what comes after the fight.

Dozens of them have volunteered to help rebuild the town once the militants have been defeated. The aim of organization they have joined, the Raqqa Civil Council (RCC) is to restore order and keep the peace in a place where further violence could fuel the rise of a new set of extremists with global ambitions.

The RCC was established in April by Kurdish and Arab allies of the U.S.-led coalition that began attacking Raqqa this month, to replace militant rule in a part of Syria long beyond President Bashar al-Assad's control.

The campaign against Islamic State has accelerated since President Donald Trump took office in January with the militants now facing defeat in both Raqqa and Mosul in Iraq.

But the RCC says post-conflict planning in Raqqa has not kept pace. RCC volunteers say they have told the coalition it will take 5.3 billion Syrian lira (about $10 million) a year to restore power and water supplies, roads and schools and that they have nothing but small private donations so far.

The dangers of the failure to rebuild after conflict were clear in Iraq following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The post-conflict chaos opened the door to an insurgency that devastated the country and fueled the rise of Islamic State.

Mosul and Raqqa are both key centers of the caliphate the group proclaimed in 2014, but Raqqa is its operational headquarters, from where it plotted many of the deadly attacks that have targeted civilians around the world.

A U.S. official said Washington stood ready to fund the RCC, "provided they prove themselves inclusive and representative of the communities they govern."

Stability

The RCC is a diverse team co-led by Arab tribal leader Sheikh Mahmoud Shawakh al-Bursan, who wears tribal robes, and Kurdish civil engineer Leila Mustafa, dressed in a green shirt and jeans.

Based in the village of Ain Issa, 50 km (30 miles) north of Raqqa, it has the support of the Syrian Democratic Forces, U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab militia fighting Islamic State.

"This is a historic step for Raqqa," Mustafa said, referring to the dozens of technocrats and tribal leaders at its headquarters, a former government water department building, preparing to govern Raqqa until free elections can be held.

"But there is destroyed infrastructure which must be rebuilt," she said. "Schools must be opened. Water and power stations need funding."

The lack of funding has left the council, whose 70 members include teachers, doctors, engineers and lawyers, with few resources to appease frustrated, displaced Raqqa residents looking for quick solutions when they return to the city.

Revenge killings of anyone associated with Islamic State are likely, and such violence could fuel another extremist militant movement, just as revenge killings of al-Qaeda-linked tribes in Iraq helped Islamic State spread its rule there from Raqqa.

Abdul Aziz al-Amir, one of 20 representatives of local tribes on the council, is optimistic they can foster social cohesion in the city, where rows of houses and shops have been pulverized by coalition air strikes and Islamic State bombs.

“People with disputes always came to us,” said Amir, wearing a checkered headdress and flowing robe. “We have the confidence of the people. We can help bring stability."

Syria's northern neighbor Turkey disagrees, arguing that a Raqqa council allied to Kurdish militia will expand the power of Syria's Kurds, effective fighters during the six-year-old conflict who have established self-rule in Syria's north.

Turkey has battled a three-decade old insurgency by Kurdish PKK fighters in its south east and says Syrian Kurdish militia are an extension of the outlawed PKK. It views their ascendancy as a security threat.

The main Syrian Kurdish groups say their goal is only autonomy in a future democratic and federal Syria. The council says some 80 percent of its members are Arabs, with two Arabs and a Kurd as its deputy leaders.

European countries share Turkish and U.S. concerns that the RCC acts independently from the Kurdish militia in Raqqa, an overwhelmingly Arab city, but are very worried about post-conflict limbo given the number of attacks on their soil.

"For the moment the United States is telling us, 'we're carrying out our war so will see afterwards," a European diplomat said.

Scratch Police Force

In the meantime, the council is running mainly on small donations, often from individuals. “One girl sent us 30 euros through Western Union,” said RCC member Omar Aloush. “We thanked her.”

Sitting in his office surrounded by people asking him to help them return home, he holds up a petition from farmers for funds to fix irrigation canals destroyed by Islamic State.

“Fixing Raqqa will require millions and millions of dollars,” said Aloush who had watched as Islamic State destroyed his businesses; a hospital, a sports club, a language school and a restaurant.

“We don’t even have the cash to help them with a project that would cost about $15,000.”

With 200,000 people displaced from Raqqa and more expected to flee as fighting intensifies, some needs are basic.

Two western military personnel from the coalition appeared in Aloush's office to tell him they could not pay for vehicles to transport food. Aloush told them the council would foot the bill.

Just outside Ain Issa, police recruits for Raqqa funded by the coalition engage in a traditional dance to celebrate their graduation, after just 12 days of training.Idris Mohamed, a Kurd who has been named as the future head of security in Raqqa, says 700 have been trained so far. “The goal is to train 3,000 but 10,000 would be great,” he said.

His main concern, aside from the Islamic State sleeper cells expected to stage attacks once coalition forces have control, is revenge killings that could bring a new wave of instability.

As fellow graduates enjoyed the music, young policeman Adel al-Arabi recounted how Islamic State had killed his brother and cousin. “I watched Daesh behead them in the street,” he said, explaining that he had joined the force to avenge their deaths.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in BEIRUT, Tulay Karadeniz and Dominic Evans in ANKARA and John Irish in PARIS, editing by Philippa Fletcher)

SEE ALSO: US-led coalition aircraft shoots down Syrian fighter jet near Raqqa

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In the wake of a US F/A-18 shooting down a Syrian Su-22, Russia issued strong warnings to the US by threatening to target US and US-led coalition planes in Syria.

But a head-on, conventional fight with the US is the last thing Russia wants, and it has already started to backpedal.

At first, Russia said it would target US aircraft west of the Euphrates river in Syria.

Then, just a few hours later, another statement refined that point, saying US aircraft in that region would be "tracked by the Russian [surface-to-air missile] systems as air targets."

The incident resembles the aftermath of the April 7 US strike on Syria's al Sharyat airbase, where 59 cruise missiles from US Navy destroyers took out a handful of Syrian President Bashar Assad's jets after a chemical-weapon attack killed civilians, many of them children.

At that time, Russia suspended the deconfliction line— a line of communication established to reduce the risk that Russian and coalition aircraft could get too close. Russia also vowed to meet additional strikes against Syria with force.

Military experts shuddered at the thought that Russia and the US were operating within mere miles of each other with no mechanism to deconflict possible incidents, but Russia reestablished the deconfliction lines just days later.

Now Russia has again suspended this line of communication, and again threatened force against the US. But according to Anna Borshchevskaya, an expert on Russia’s foreign policy in the Middle East at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, it's all just bluster from Putin.

"I don’t think Putin wants a direct military confrontation with the US. He never wanted it," Borshchevskaya said. "In fact, I think it’s the last thing he wants."

Borshchevskaya pointed to Turkey's 2015 downing of a Russian jet that only entered their airspace for a few seconds as evidence of Putin's lack of resolve when it comes down to brass tacks. "There were multiple ways that Putin reacted" to Turkey's shoot down "but certainly not a direct war," said Borshchevskaya.

And if Putin was wary of war with Turkey, he'd be downright fearful of a fight with the US.

"To be perfectly frank, no one can really match the US in conventional terms, and certainly not Russian armed forces," said Borshchevskaya.

Instead, Russia can continue to prop up Assad and bomb small rebel factions in asymmetrical warfare without much fear of reprisal. Similarly, Iran has sent in proxy militias to fight on Assad's behalf but likely wouldn't dream of lining up their armed forces against the US's.

Perhaps H.R. McMaster, President Trump's National Security Advisor, said it best: "There are two ways to fight the United States military: Asymmetrically and stupid."

Nick Heras, an expert on Syria from the Center for New American Security, told Business Insider that in terms of Russia directly going after US forces in Syria, "We’re not there yet in the escalation chain."

Instead, Russia is reacting to the reality that the US and partnered forces have gained control over a large swath of eastern Syria that ISIS once held, which would be "an existential threat to the Assad regime, as it opens it up to internal dissent and destabilizing," said Heras.

But as Assad-aligned actors try to nudge the US and its partners out of eastern Syria, they meet with stiff resistance. Five times in a little over a month, US-led coalition planes have struck pro-Syrian forces that they claim were advancing on or threatening their partners' positions.

"My assessment is that Assad and his Iranian sponsors have tried to test a theory to target US proxies in Syria rather than to respond to US soldiers," said Heras.

According to Heras, Assad and his allies may now try to knowingly target ground forces that have US elements in them. But Iran can do that through proxies, and Assad can do it knowing the US won't advance west toward Damascus.

But, he said, if Russia does the same with its air force, the US would respond in kind — and that would be bad news for Moscow.

"Putin responds to strength, and if he perceives weakness he always pushes ahead. That’s what happened in Syria," Borshchevskaya said.

If Putin or his allies decide to push ahead against US forces on the ground in Syria, the US seems willing to respond.

SEE ALSO: The US, Russia, and Iran are edging closer to an all-out clash in Syria

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When US forces shot down a Syrian warplane for the first time in the country's six-year war, both Russian and US media outlets pontificated over what the latest move could mean for US-Russia relations that are already stretched quite thin.

The US military's decision to down a jet belonging to Syria, Russia's ally, clearly angered the Kremlin, which promptly announced the suspension their participation in the deconfliction line, which helps the two military super powers avoid striking each other and triggering a larger war.  

Russia also said it would target US and US-led coalition aircraft flying where its forces were operating west of the Euphrates river.

But while some US outlets speculated whether Russia would follow through with its threats, Russian media criticized the US's downing of a Syrian plane in within its own borders as "lies about self-defense."

"The US could find no better way or marking out its territory than by shooting down a plane,"wrote Federal News Agency, one of the central news outlets coming from the Kremlin. "But because they could not announce such a position openly, they are covering it up with lies about 'self-defense.'"

As the Kremlin rejected the US military's version of downing a plane after government forces attacked an opposition-held area, most major Russian media outlets accused the US of "meddling" in Syria's government affairs.

"The Pentagon's meddling into the Syrian army's military action has become systematic and intolerable," wrote Aleksandr Hrolenko for RIA Novosti, another media outlet owned by the Russian state. Hrolenko further called defense secretary James Mattis Trump's "mad dog" and accused the US of "bombing almost entirely helpless Syrians" to show off to the Russian military.

State-owned Russia Times even took the added step of interviewing American congressman Ron Paul, who told the outlet that the US should "mind its own business" by staying out of Syria.

While both countries have called for an end to the fighting in Syria, Russia and the US have also accused the other of escalating the conflict and standing in the way of peace through military and financial support.

"The US takes 'defense' to mean a few too many things," read another article by Russia's Federal News Agency.

SEE ALSO: "America cannot accept the fact that it elected Trump all by itself": How Russian media reported on Sessions' testimony

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ANKARA (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told his Turkish counterpart that weapons provided to the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria would be taken back once Islamic State was defeated, Turkish defense ministry sources said on Thursday.

In a letter to Turkey's Defense Minister Fikri Isik, Mattis said the United States had informed Turkey about the weapons it had given the YPG and that it would provide monthly lists of the arms supplied, the sources said in a statement.

Relations between the two NATO allies have become strained due to the support the United States has given the YPG, which Turkey has fought in northern Syria, to support the campaign against Islamic State.

In his letter, Mattis told Isik that the United States would take determined measures to address Turkey's security concerns, the sources said, and that Arabs would comprise 80 percent of the forces to capture Syria's Raqqa from Islamic State.

The YPG is a leading part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which launched an operation earlier this month to capture Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto Syrian capital. Turkey has said that it would retaliate against the YPG if it felt a threat from the group.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; editing by Dominic Evans)

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ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish officials said Thursday that U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has written to his Turkish counterpart, reassuring him that arms provided to Syrian Kurdish fighters would be taken back once Islamic State militants are ousted from their main stronghold in Syria, the city of Raqqa.

Turkish Defense Ministry officials said in a statement that Mattis also reassured Defense Minister Fikri Isik that the United States would regularly provide Turkey with a list of arms provided to the fighters while U.S. military advisers on the field would ensure that the arms don't go outside of the Syria battle zones.

A U.S. decision to launch an offensive to capture Raqqa in partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has complicated relations with Ankara, which views the group's Kurdish fighters as an extension of an insurgent Kurdish terror group operating in Turkey.

Ankara fears arms provided to the Kurdish fighters will end up in the hands of the insurgents in Turkey and has threatened to respond to threats.

The officials said Mattis told Isik in the letter that 80 percent of the force which would capture Raqqa would be made up of Arabs and that an Arab force would hold the city.

If confirmed, Mattis' statement on the weapons being taken back once the Raqqa fight is over conflict with recent comments made by officials of the U.S.-led coalition against IS.

The coalition's spokesman at the time, Col. John Dorrian, said last month that the weapons supplied to the Kurds will not be reclaimed by the U.S. after the specific missions are completed, but that the U.S. will "carefully monitor" where and how they are used.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron has said that France is no longer pushing for the departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad, in a shift in French policy throughout the Syrian war.

Macron said he wants to work more closely with Russia for a solution in Syria and says foreign powers were too focused on Assad as a person.

"For a long time we were blocked on the persona of Bashar Assad," Macron said in an interview with eight European newspapers published on Thursday. "Bashar is not our enemy, he is the enemy of the Syrian people."

Macron also said that foreign powers "collectively committed an error" in focusing on a military solution in Syria. "The new outlook I have on this issue is that I haven't stated that Bashar Assad's departure is a necessary condition for everything. Because no one has shown me a legitimate successor," he said.

Macron's predecessors were among the most vocal Assad opponents.

However, Macron warned France would attack Syria if the government uses chemical weapons. French warplanes are already targeting Islamic State extremists in Syria.

SEE ALSO: How Bashar Assad rose from a comfortable childhood to become one of the deadliest world leaders in modern history

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New details have emerged from the downing of a Russian-made Su-22 by a US F/A-18E Super Hornet over Syria.

The Pentagon said that after Syrian jets had bombed US-backed forces fighting ISIS in Syria and ground forces headed their way with artillery and armored vehicles, US jets made a strafing run at the vehicles to stop their advance.

But then a Syrian Su-22 popped up laden with bombs.

"They saw the Su-22 approaching," Navy Capt. Jeff Davis,a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Tuesday, as CNN notes. "It again had dirty wings; it was carrying ordnance. They did everything they could to try to warn it away. They did a head-butt maneuver, they launched flares, but ultimately the Su-22 went into a dive and it was observed dropping munitions and was subsequently shot down."

A US F/A-18E off the USS George H.W. Bush in the Mediterranean then fired an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile at the Syrian jet, but the Su-22 had deployed flares causing the missile to miss. The US jet followed up with an AIM-120 medium range air-to-air missile which struck its target, US officials told CNN.

The pilot ejected over ISIS territory, and Syrian forces declared him missing in action.

The focus of the US's airpower in recent years has turned to providing air support against insurgencies or forces that do not have fighter jets of their own. Before the Su-22, the US had not shot down a manned enemy aircraft since 1999.

Since the downing of the Syrian jet, Russia has threatened to target US and US-led coalition jets flying over Syria west of the Euphrates river.

Both Syria's Su-22 and the US's F/A-18E Super Hornet are updated versions of 1970s aircraft, but Russia and the US both have much more advanced systems to bring to bear. Fortunately, an air war seems unlikely between major powers in Syria.

SEE ALSO: Russia just threatened to target US jets in Syria — but the last thing it wants is an air war with the US

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• President Donald Trump asserted that Mexico was ranked the "second deadliest country in the world" on Thursday evening and cited "drug trade" as the cause.
• When homicide numbers are compared on a per-capita basis, Mexico's number of homicides per 100,000 people puts it on somewhat different ground, pushing it to the middle of the pack in Latin America.
• The Mexican government was previously critical of the report, saying "Violence related to organized crime is a regional phenomenon" that goes beyond Mexico's borders.

President Donald Trump on Thursday evening tweeted that "Mexico was just ranked the second deadliest country in the world, after only Syria. Drug trade is largely the cause. We will BUILD THE WALL!"

Trump was likely referring to a recent study by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that named Mexico the second-deadliest conflict zone in the world, behind Syria and ahead of Iraq.

The president retweeted a link to a CNN story about the report when it came out in early May.

However, that study was highly disputed, and a number of factors undercut the assertion. (It should also be noted that a wall would not stop much of the drug flow into the US, and that drug-related violence in Mexico has largely not spilled over into the US.)

According to the IISS report, Mexico's nearly 23,000 intentional homicide victims in 2016 fell short of the 50,000 seen in Syria and exceeded the 17,000 recorded in Iraq and the 16,000 registered in Afghanistan. The next country in the ranking — Yemen — was below 10,000 victims, and the following two, Somalia and Sudan, were both below 5,000.

As Trump said, organized crime related to the drug trade is behind much of Mexico's violence, and the IISS ranking put Mexico on its list because, in its estimation, criminal violence in the country had reached "a level akin to armed conflict."

While Mexico did indeed have 23,000 intentional homicide victims in 2016 (and looks set to exceed that this year), not all of those deaths were related to organized-crime-related violence. According to research by the Justice in Mexico project, only about one-third to half of those deaths appear to be related to organized crime.

The IISS told Business Insider that it did not assess a more precise tally of organized-crime-related deaths because the Mexican government does not release it. (Indeed, it has been several years since such a figure was made public.) "If they released this number monthly, or at least annually, we would be happy to use it," the think tank said.

Moreover, the comparison made by the IISS is based on absolute numbers. By that measure, other countries in Latin America — one of the most violent regions of the world— are close to or surpass Mexico.

The basis of the measure on absolute numbers was also disputed by a number of observers, as homicide comparisons are more often made based on per-capita numbers — typically the number per 100,000 people.

Measuring homicides by absolute numbers puts Mexico close to or behind other countries in Latin America.

In Venezuela, one nongovernment organization counted more than 28,000 violent deaths in 2016, more than 18,000 of which the government there classified as homicides. In Brazil, the last several years have seen total homicide counts close to 60,000. Colombia recorded about 12,000 homicides in 2016, its lowest tally in 32 years.

By comparison, the US had 15,700 homicides in 2016, according to the FBI.

When homicide numbers are compared on a per-capita basis, Mexico's homicide rate puts it on somewhat different ground.

It falls to the middle of the pack just in Latin America. Comparatively, Mexico's 2014 homicide numbers put it behind all the countries of the Northern Triangle — Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala — as well as Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and small countries like the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Mexico's official per capita homicide rate in 2016 was 17 per 100,00.

The IISS also told Business Insider in a statement that inclusion on the list was based on three criteria:

"1-Sustained wide-ranging threat to state authority through years (not just spikes) from well-armed groups. 2-Groups control territorial spaces in several cities or rural areas 3- armed forces deployed frequently or permanently."

By those standards, other countries in the region likely deserve inclusion but didn't make the list. In Brazil, large armed gangs fight each other and have retaliated against police operations with public violence, and in Venezuela, organized armed groups challenge the state's control in some areas.

Those two countries and the countries of the Northern Triangle — which also deals with powerful criminal groups like MS-13 and Barrio 18 — have all, like Mexico, deployed their militaries and militarized police forces to combat violence.

"They cite countries like Brazil, which have higher homicide rates per 100k inhabitants. The rate is a different measure, which is usually released much later in the year and is not doable for the ACD/ACS (since many conflict countries are measured in absolute number of fatalities, not rate per 100k)," the IISS told Business Insider in a statement when asked about these criticisms.

"Plus, we don’t follow Brazil, Venezuela and others because they don’t quite fit the criteria above," the statement said. "There, criminal violence is much more fragmented and involves a great deal of micro-criminality, rather than heavy-calibre clashes for territories that we see in Mexico."

The Mexican government was critical of the report when it was first issued in May.

"Violence related to organized crime is a regional phenomenon" that goes beyond Mexico's borders, it said in a statement. "The fight against transnational organized crime should be analyzed in a comprehensive manner."

Other experts who study crime and violence criticized the comparison.

"Equating these [countries] with Syria is analytically lazy and lends itself to the wrong policies," Tom Long, a professor at the UK's University of Reading, said on Twitter. "They aren't mainly political conflicts."

"Yes there's tragedy in Mexico, but not accurate to suggest it's like Syrian war," Brian J. Phillips, a professor at the CIDE in Mexico City, said on Twitter, "and per capita other countries have much more violence."

While the report itself was enough to elicit frustration in Mexico, Trump's retweet of a Drudge Report tweet linking to a CNN story about the report added to the ire.

"I hope these morons are happy," Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope tweeted. "Their idiotic report was already retweeted by @realDonaldTrump."

SEE ALSO: No, Mexico isn't more dangerous than Iraq and Syria

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Almost every weekday, tons of lentils, salt, oil and wheat flour are loaded onto an Ilyusin-76 cargo plane at an airport in Jordan.

Russian contract pilots then fly nearly 400 miles across the Syrian border and parachute the supplies from about 15,000 feet over the outskirts of a government-controlled neighborhood in Deir Ezzor.

The costly air drop operation organized by the World Food Program has saved countless lives in the besieged Sunni-majority city, which has been encircled by hostile forces of the Islamic State for more than three years.

But the operation — heavily funded by American and European taxpayers — has also benefited the Syrian regime, and its Russian and Iranian backers, providing a lifeline to a strategic eastern city.

The feeding of Deir Ezzor provides a poignant illustration of how Syria and its allies have harnessed the good intentions of the United States, the United Nations and other international donors to advance its military interests during the country’s more than 6-year civil war.

In contrast, Syria has been starving hundreds of thousands of civilians in opposition held towns, imposing an Kafka-esque set of regulations that systematically delay and deny the delivery of food and medicines to those in need. The impediments, UN emergency relief coordinator Stephen O’Brien recently told the Security Council, reflects "a mindset and approach by the government of Syria that uses civilian suffering as a tactic of war."

"The Syrian government has a big interest in having the UN feeding these people in Deir Ezzor, because food is loyalty," said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert who heads the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "It reassures the locals that the government, not ISIS, is on their side."

Securing the support of locals has gained importance in recent months as Deir Ezzor has emerged as a major flashpoint in the battle to defeat the Islamic State. With US backed forces on the attack in Raqqa, Islamic State fighters have been fleeing towards Deir Ezzor.

Bashar Al-Assad’s military, backed by Russian and Iranian firepower, is advancing on eastern Syria in an effort to dislodge the Islamic State, reestablish government control over eastern Syria, and secure a government-controlled border crossing into Iraq.

The conquest of Deir Ezzor, the administrative capital of eastern Syria, would ensure Assad’s dominion over the east, at least below the Euphrates. But it would also undercut a key strategic US objective in the region: thwarting Tehran’s efforts to extend its influence in the Middle East by establishing a so-called "Shia Crescent," a land corridor connecting Iran to its allies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

"If you want to rule eastern Syria, Deir Ezzor is a very good thing to have," said Aron Lund, and expert on the region and the Century Foundation, noting that possession of the eastern administrative capital is critical to laying claim to the region’s oil reserves and farmland along the Euphrates River. "It seems to me what’s happening is that Assad is on the way to being ruler of most of Syria west and south of the Euphrates, which includes the capital, the other big cities, and most of the population."

The Syrian advance has heightened tensions with the United States and allied Arab and Kurdish fighters, who are battling the Islamic State for control of Raqqa in northeastern Syria. The rival coalitions appear to be jockeying for position as they compete to fill a security vacuum that would follow the defeat of the Islamic State.

On Sunday, a US fighter jet shot down a Syrian warplane after it dropped a bomb near a group of US-backed fighters in the town of Tabqa, near Raqqa. The US has also shot down Iranian drones overflying territory occupied by US-trained militia in southern Syria.

Iran, meanwhile, has for the first time launched missiles strikes into Syria from its own soil, targeting Islamic State forces around Deir Ezzor. At the same time, Iranian-trained Iraqi militia are poised to advance from Iraq towards the city’s eastern border.

The Deir Ezzor airdrops are part of a broader humanitarian relief plan brokered by the UN special envoy, Staffan de Mistura, and backed by Russia and the United States.  

The arrangement — which was endorsed by the 17-nation International Syria Support Group, or ISSG, in February, 2016 — placed the burden on key international powers, including the US and Russia, to ensure that combatants on all sides abided by the agreement.

The United States, which has footed the majority of the bill, poured more than $10 million into it its first months of operations, with Britain, Canada, Germany and  the Netherlands throwing in several million more. There have been more than 260 airdrops to date, at a total cost of between $36 million and $65 million.

Initially, the pact saw UN and Syrian Red Cross convoys delivering food and other goods to towns that had been cut off from basic supplies for years.

"For a few months, it worked really well," said one State Department official. "The government provided the approval for the convoys, ensuring that even the government besieged areas received assistance. We were shocked at how well it was working."

But over time, and as the world’s attention turned elsewhere, Syria resumed its policy of blocking aid deliveries to rebel-controlled towns.  Those convoys that did get through were required to unload stocks of medicines. "The initial success had gone down the tubes."

Russia, which offered strong  political support for the UN aid drops, but no funding, scored propaganda points as Russian media credited Moscow with shipping foods supplies to Deir Ezzor, paid for by the United States and its European allies.

A WFP spokeswoman acknowledged that the source of the airdrops — which are carried out by a Russian company on contract to the UN– are "occasionally misrepresented in the media" as Russian and that the food agency "continues to address this challenge."

Inside the State Department last Fall, there were calls for shutting down the air drops, on the grounds that Russia and Syria had not lived up to their part of the bargain, and the West was being played for fools. The WFP drops, officials noted, simply freed up resources to supply their own troops.

"The Americans paid while the rest of the opposition areas starved. Only Deir Ezzor got stuff," said a former State Department official. "I pushed hard to end it since the Russians reneged. But the State Department’s humanitarian advocates, as well as the National Security Council, argued for maintaining the program because it was saving lives, according to the former official.

"These are hungry people who are besieged" Jeremy Konyndyk, who served as the director of US Foreign Disaster Assistance during the Obama administration, told FP. "We have a very fundamental humanitarian imperative to try to assist who we can."

In the end, a compromise was reached.

The program would continue, but the US and other donors would stop contributing to a special airdrop fund, leaving it to the World Food Program to determine whether it could meet the costs within its own operating budget. The expectation was that Deir Ezzor would no longer be a major priority.

But the food drops to Deir Ezzor, continued. The food agency’s donors, including the United States agreed to increase its operating budget to accommodate the Deir Ezzor air drops.

The airdrops are carried out by a Russian contract airliner, Abakan Air, which is owned by two Russian nationals, Nikolai Ustimenko and his son Patel Ustimenko. They  had previously been barred from UN business following allegations that a separate company they owned paid bribes to a Russian UN procurement officer, according to a report in the New York Times. Abakan Air did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

But it appears the ban does not extend to Abakan.

Abeer Etefa, a World Food Program spokeswoman based in Cairo, Egypt, defended the decision to hire Abakan, saying the company was not on any UN blacklists, and that "it was the only company that was able to do the high altitude airdrops and was accepted with insurance."

Etefa acknowledged the operation poses "ethical and moral dilemmas," but she suggested it would be unfair to punish civilians besieged by the terror organization.

The crucial questions the food agency needs to weigh, she said, is "do the people who receive food need it or not? Will those people starve if they don’t get the food or not? That will determine whether we deliver to this area or not."

For many at World Food Program, the Deir Ezzor air drops have become a source of pride.  The agency had never before dropped food from such a high altitude in a conflict zone, she said. The initial drops strayed from their target, sometime falling into the hands of the Islamic State. Some of the parachutes didn’t open.

The food agency was forced to halt for two months, carrying out trial runs in the Jordanian desert until they could perfect the operations.

Etefa said the food is distributed on the ground by representatives of the Syrian Red Cross, which oversees much of the humanitarian assistance throughout Syria. But she acknowledged that the UN food agency, which has no access to Deir Ezzor, can’t independently monitor how the food is delivered.

That said, she noted that there are indicators suggesting that civilians are being fed. Prices for basic food commodities in Deir Ezzor have fallen. For instance, in the first six months of 2016, when the air drops were started, prices of food staples dropped by 52.7 percent.

Critics say the airdrops are potentially aiding the Syrian military operation and several observers indicated that food may be diverted to the Syrian military, or locals who are loyal to the regime. The aid drops "pull civilians into your orbit. If they want the aid they have to deal with the government. But that is the story all over Syria," said Lund.

But it has also served another American objective: denying the İslamic State control over another critical city near the Iraqi border, according to Landis. "It’s in America’s interest not to allow ISIS to take Deir Ezzor and set up a new caliphate," he said. "It means the Americans will not have to defeat them in Deir Ezzor."

SEE ALSO: A photo of a Syrian father holding his twins' lifeless bodies epitomizes the devastation in the country

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Pictures of a colourful Ramadan iftar dinner taking place amid the rubble in the Syrian town of Douma have been widely shared online as a symbol of resilience in the face of death and destruction.

Photos and video of a heavily damaged street in the rebel-held suburb of Damascus emerged after being shared by rebel activists this week. The outdoor celebration was organised by the Adeleh Foundation, a rebel-affiliated charity group mostly run from Turkey. 

Dozens of residents can be seen enjoying the iftar meal, eaten after sunset on fasting days during the holy month of Ramadan, which ends this week, including many smiling children. 

Adeleh said it would organise meals up until Eid al-Fitr, which begins on Friday or Saturday - the holiday which follows Ramadan.

“We would have normally been cautious to host such events due to air strikes, but we are taking advantage of the latest de-escalation deal,” an Adelah spokesperson told the BBC.

An agreement declaring the establishment of four 'safe zones' across Syria was negotiated by Russia, Iran and Turkey last month, and is mostly holding. 

Douma has been a major flashpoint for conflict in the six-year-old civil war. It is currently controlled by Islamist rebel group Jaish al-Islam and has suffered air strikes since 2012 and a siege by pro-government forces since 2013.

Residents had become used to iftar gatherings taking place out of sight of warplanes in mosques and private homes, rather than out on the street. 

In May an aid convoy entered the area - where food and medicine are scarce and prices have skyrocketed - for the first time since October 2016. 

The images and video footage have been shared thousands of times online since they surfaced on Tuesday.

“Life despite death today in Douma,” one Syrian medical technologist tweeted.

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As US-backed Syrian Defense Forces clear ground around Raqqa, recently liberating roughly 386 square miles from Islamic State control, a Marine artillery battery is hard at work, shelling the ever-living crap of out of ISIS.

On June 21, the Corps released several images showing arty Marines dropping rounds around the clock.

In May, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit returned to the states after the unit’s artillery battery fired 4,500 rounds at ISIS in support of Kurdish and Syrian Arab Forces isolating Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria. The mission of the 11th MEU was handed over to another Marine unit in last month, presumably the 24th MEU, according to reporting by Marine Corps Times’ Jeff Schogol.

The recently released Marine Corps photos were taken by Sgt. Matthew Callahan, who is assigned to the 24th MEU, and they show just what arty “support” entails.

It means lobbing a ton of rounds from red-hot barrels of M777-A2 howitzers.

Check them out:

After setting up their guns on May 14, the Marines got to work.

On May 15, Marines fired M777-A2 howitzers in northern Syria in support of coalition partners there.

Though artillery positions provide support from a distance, their positions are often forward and isolated, requiring Marines to dig in and fortify the gun pits.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - If Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is confirmed dead, he is likely to be succeeded by one of his top two lieutenants, both of whom were army officers under late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Experts on Islamist groups see no clear successor but regard Iyad al-Obaidi and Ayad al-Jumaili as the leading contenders, though neither would be likely to assume Baghdadi's title of "caliph" or overall commander of Muslims.

Russia's defense ministry said last week Baghdadi may have been killed in an air strike in Syria and Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian parliamentarian on Friday as saying the likelihood that he had been killed was close to 100 percent.

But armed groups fighting in the region and U.S. officials say they have no evidence he is dead and many regional officials are skeptical about the reports of his death.

Obaidi, who is in his 50s, has been serving as war minister. Jumaili, who is in his late 40s, is head of the group's Amniya security agency. In April Iraqi state TV said Jumaili had been killed, but that was not confirmed.

Both joined the Sunni Salafist insurgency in Iraq in 2003, following the U.S.-led invasion which Saddam and empowered Iraq's Shi'ite majority.

They have been Baghdadi's top aides since airstrikes in 2016 killed his then deputy Abu Ali al-Anbari, his Chechen war minister Abu Omar al-Shishani and his Syrian chief propagandist, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani.

"Jumaili recognizes Obaidi as his senior but there is no clear successor and, depending on conditions, it can be either of the two (who succeeds Baghdadi)," said Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises several Middle East governments on IS affairs.

Baghdadi awarded himself the title of caliph — the chief Muslim civil and religious ruler, regarded as the successor of the Prophet Mohammad — in 2014. Obaidi or Jumaili would be unlikely to become caliph because they lack religious standing and Islamic State has lost much of its territory.

"They don't belong to the Prophet Mohammed's lineage. The group has no longer 'a land to rule' or 'Ardh al-Tamkeen'. And none is well versed in Islamic theology," said Fadhel Abu Ragheef, another Iraqi expert on the extremist group.

"A caliph has to have an Ardh al-Tamkeen, which he rules in accordance with Islamic law. Failing that, the successor will just be recognized as the emir," said Hashimi.

Emir is Arabic for prince, and is a title that jihadists often use to describe their leaders.

By contrast, Baghdadi, born as Ibrahim Awad al-Samarrai' in 1971, comes from a family of preachers and studied Islamic law in Baghdad.

The appointment of the new leader would require the approval of an eight-member shoura council, an advisory body to the caliph. But its members would be unlikely to meet for security reasons so would make their opinion known through couriers.

Six members of the council are Iraqis, one Jordanian and one Saudi, and all are veterans of the Sunni salafist insurgency. A ninth member, a Bahraini, was killed in an air strike in late May.

(By Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Timothy Heritage)

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