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ABU GHADDUR, Iraq U.S.-backed Iraqi forces on Sunday launched a multi-pronged assault to retake the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, marking the next phase in the countrys war on the Islamic State group.

Tal Afar and the surrounding area is one of the last pockets of IS-held territory in Iraq after victory was declared in July in Mosul, the countrys second-largest city. The town, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of the Syrian border, sits along a major road that was once a key IS supply route.

The city of Tal Afar will be liberated and will join all the liberated cities, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a televised speech early Sunday. He was dressed in a black uniform of the type worn by Iraqi special forces.

He called on the militants to surrender or die.

By early afternoon, Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah, who commands the operation, said the forces had recaptured a series of villages east, southwest and northwest of town.

The U.S.-led coalition providing air and other support to the troops praised what it said was a capable, formidable, and increasingly professional force.

They are well prepared to deliver another defeat to IS in Tal Afar, like in Mosul, the coalition said in a statement.

On the front lines, pillars of smoke could be seen rising in the distance as U.S. and Belgian special forces worked with Iraqi troops to establish a position on the roof of a house. They later fired mortar rounds and launched drones.

Lt. Gen. Riyad Jalal Tawfiq, of the Iraqi army, said IS had deployed small teams of attackers as well as suicide car bombs and roadside bombs.

The Coalition estimates that approximately 10,000-50,000 civilians remain in and around Tal Afar. In past battles, IS has prevented civilians from fleeing and used them as human shields, slowing Iraqi advances.

Hours after announcing the operation, the United Nations expressed concerns over the safety of the civilians, calling on warring parties to protect them.

Iraqi authorities have set up a toll-free number and a radio station to help guide fleeing civilians to safety.

A stepped up campaign of airstrikes and a troop buildup has already forced tens of thousands to flee Tal Afar, threatening to compound a humanitarian crisis sparked by the Mosul operation.

Some 49,000 people have fled the Tal Afar district since April, according to the United Nations. Nearly a million people remain displaced by the nine-month campaign to retake Mosul.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, described the situation inside Tal Afar as very tough, with food and water running out and many lacking basic necessities.

Families are trekking for 10 to 20 hours in extreme heat to reach mustering points, she said. They are arriving exhausted and dehydrated.

Iraqi forces have driven IS from most of the major towns and cities seized by the militants in the summer of 2014, including Mosul, which was retaken after a grueling nine-month campaign.

But along with Tal Afar, the militants are still fully in control of the northern town of Hawija as well as Qaim, Rawa and Ana, in western Iraq near the Syrian border.

Tal Afar has been a stronghold for extremists in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Many senior leaders of IS and its predecessor, al-Qaida in Iraq, were from Tal Afar.

Iraqs state-sanctioned and mostly Shiite militias largely stayed out of the operation to retake Mosul, a mostly Sunni city about 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the east, but have vowed to play a bigger role in the battle for Tal Afar, which was home to both Sunnis and Shiites, as well as ethnic Turkmen, before it fell to IS, a Sunni extremist group. The militias captured Tal Afars airport, on the outskirts of the town, last year.

Their participation in the coming offensive could heighten sectarian and regional tensions. The towns ethnic Turkmen community maintained close ties to neighboring Turkey. Turkish officials have expressed concern that once territory is liberated from IS, Iraqi Kurdish or Shiite forces may push out Sunni Arabs or ethnic Turkmen.

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Iraq launches operation to take back IS-held town near Mosul - The Denver Post

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's Kurds may consider the possibility of postponing a planned Sept. 25 referendum on independence in return for financial and political concessions from the central government in Baghdad, a senior Kurdish official said.

A Kurdish delegation is visiting Baghdad to sound out proposals from Iraqi leaders that might convince the Kurds to postpone the vote, according to Mala Bakhtiar, executive secretary of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Politburo.

The United States and other Western nations fear the vote could ignite a fresh conflict with Baghdad and possibly neighboring countries, diverting attention from the ongoing war against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson formally asked Massoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), 10 days ago to postpone the referendum.

"What thing would Baghdad be prepared to offer to the (Kurdish) region" in return for postponing the referendum, Bakhtiar, speaking about the talks with the Shi'ite Muslim-led Baghdad ruling coalition, said in an interview.

On the economic side, Baghdad should be ready to help the Kurds overcome a financial crisis and settle debts owed by their government, he told Reuters in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya.

He estimated the debt at $10 to $12 billion, about equal to the KRG's annual budget, owed to public works contractors and civil servants and Kurdish peshmerga fighters whose salaries have not been paid in full for several months.

At the political level, Baghdad should commit to agree to settle the issue of disputed regions, such as the oil-rich area of Kirkuk where Arab and Turkmen communities also live.

The Kurdish delegation would then convey the proposals to Kurdish political parties to make a decision on whether they are good enough to justify a postponment of the vote, he said, insisting on the Kurdish right to hold the vote at a later date.

"We don't accept to postpone the referendum with nothing in return and without fixing another time to hold it," he said.

Baghdad stopped payments from the Iraqi federal budget to the KRG in 2014 after the Kurds began exporting oil independently from Baghdad, via a pipeline to Turkey.

The Kurds say they need the extra revenue to cope with increased costs incurred by the war against Islamic State and a large influx into KRG territory of displaced people.

The self-proclaimed IS "caliphate" effectively collapsed in July when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul from the militants in a nine-month campaign in which Kurdish peshmerga fighters took part.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists remain, however, in control of territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria. The United States has pledged to maintain its support of allied forces in both countries until the militants' total defeat.

The Kurds have been seeking an independent state since at least the end of World War One, when colonial powers divided up the Middle East and left Kurdish-populated territory split between modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Turkey, Iran and Syria, which together with Iraq have sizeable Kurdish communities, all oppose an independent Kurdistan. Prime Minister Abadi's government has rejected the planned referendum as "unilateral" and unconstitutional.

Barzani, whose father led struggles against Baghdad in the 1960s and 1970s, told Reuters in July the Kurds would take responsibility for the expected "yes" outcome of the referendum, and implement the outcome through dialogue with Baghdad and regional powers to avoid conflict.

"We have to rectify the history of mistreatment of our people and those who are saying that independence is not good," Barzani said in an interview in the KRG capital Erbil.

"Our question to them is, 'If it's not good for us, why is it good for you?'".

Iraq's majority Shi'ite population mainly lives in the south while the Kurds, largely secular Sunnis, and Sunni Arabs inhabit two swathes of the north. Central Iraq around Baghdad is mixed.

Kurdish officials have said disputed areas, including the Kirkuk region, will be covered by the referendum, to determine whether they would want to remain in Kurdistan or not.

The Kurdish peshmerga in 2014 prevented Islamic State from capturing Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, after the Iraqi army fled in the face of the militants. The peshmerga now effectively run the Kirkuk region, also claimed by Turkmen and Arabs.

Hardline Iran-backed Iraqi Shi'ite militias have threatened to expel the Kurds from this region and three other disputed areas - Sinjar, Makhmour and Khanaqin.

Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Mark Heinrich

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Iraq's Kurds might put off independence vote in return for concessions from Baghdad: official - Reuters

SINGAPORE/DUBAI (Reuters) - Iraq has informed its customers that it plans to change its price benchmark for Basra crude in Asia to DME Oman futures from January, the country's latest move to reform its oil sales.

The proposed change by state-oil marketer SOMO would mark a major shift by OPEC's second-largest producer away from fellow members Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran, which have been using price assessments from global agency S&P Global Platts as their benchmark for decades.

It throws down the gauntlet on setting prices for more than 12 million barrels per day of Middle East crude in Asia, challenging the role of the world's top exporter Saudi Arabia.

"In an effort to realize the intrinsic value of our crude exports to Asia as to be in alignment with the recent market perception, we are contemplating a change of the current pricing formula for the Asian market," SOMO said in a letter dated Aug. 20 and sent to its customers, according to a copy seen by Reuters on Monday.

It asked customers for opinions on the plan by Aug. 31.

SOMO and the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Iraq has been reforming its oil sector - including launching crude sales through auctions on DME to achieve higher prices and setting up trading and shipping joint ventures - in what is seen as a drive to gain influence and bring in more revenue as the country seeks to rebuild its economy.

"DME has shown good practice and better transparency than Platts, they also have an auction system," one source familiar with the matter said.

The move also appears to reflect SOMO's aim to lead a change in crude pricing rather than following Saudi Arabia, OPEC's biggest producer whose crude official selling prices (OSPs) set the trend for other major Middle East producers.

Iraqi crude grades are not used in any of the Middle East price benchmarks. Platts assesses its Dubai price based on deliveries of Dubai, Oman, Abu Dhabi's Upper Zakum and Qatari Al-Shaheen crude.

"The Iraqis probably want to get in on the game of being a benchmark grade," a Singapore-based oil trader said.

SOMO has proposed pricing crude loading in the current month using DME Oman prices from two months previously, according to SOMO's letter to its customers.

"Such a mechanism is intended to reflect the real value of Iraqi crude oil based on the trading month in the Asia market," SOMO said in the letter.

The change in the benchmark will affect the pricing of about 2 million barrels per day of crude that are shipped to Asia, or close to two-thirds of Iraqi crude exports from the southern port of Basra, the outlet for most of the country's crude.

"Lately they (the Iraqis) have managed to achieve good premiums via the DME action, so there is some added value," said an industry source at a Middle East producer.

Since April, Iraq has sold 1-2 cargoes of Basra crude per month through an auction platform on the DME as a test for future Iraqi oil sales.

The Oman crude futures, launched in 2007 by the DME, is the only liquid futures contract for Middle East crude in Asia.

SOMO is not expected to change the way it prices its oil for Europe and the United States, said one of the sources. It prices its European exports against dated Brent, and uses Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI) as the benchmark for its U.S. oil sales.

Reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore and Rania El Gamal in Dubai; Editing by Richard Pullin and Susan Fenton

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Iraq plans to shift Basra crude price benchmark for Asia from January - Reuters

WNYC

These Teens Hanging Out Are From Syria, Iraq...and New Jersey WNYC A group of American teenagers from the Maplewood and South Orange suburbs of North Jersey spent the summer hanging out with newly resettled refugee teenagers from Syria and Iraq, now living in the area around urban Elizabeth, NJ. "It was nearly ...

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These Teens Hanging Out Are From Syria, Iraq...and New Jersey - WNYC

Each year the Nebraska State Fair honors veterans from throughout the state, thanking them for their service to the country.

This year, Chris Marcello of Grand Island will serve as grand marshal for the parade on Sept. 4, a day set aside as the State Fairs Salute to Our Veterans Celebration.

Marcello will be a guest of the State Fair that day. Along with leading the parade, there will be a reception in his honor. The parade is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.

I know quite a few people who work at the Veterans Administration and they nominated me for this honor, Marcello said.

Marcello joined the Nebraska National Guard on March 5, 1997. He was deployed to Bosnia (SFOR13, stabilization or security force) in 2003, then to Ar-Ramadi (or Ramadi), Iraq, in 2005-2006.

He was also part of mobilized hurricane relief for hurricanes Gustav and Ike. He was later deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2010-11.

Marcello lives in Grand Island with his wife and four children. He works as a Grand Island police officer. He has worked for the Grand Island Police Department for four years.

Marcello is still a member of the National Guard with the Alpha Troop 1-134th Cavalry out of Hastings. He has the rank of the first sergeant.

I have always been in the cavalry unit in the state, he said.

While attending high school in Blue Hill, Marcello said, he joined the National Guard when he was a junior.

I went to basic training in the summer between my junior year and senior years in high school, he said. I finished the second half the summer after my senior year before I went to college.

His motivation to join the National Guard was to help him attend college. He attended the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where he majored in criminal justice, with a psychology minor.

Marcello said he was motivated to pursue a career in law enforcement because of a DARE officer he knew when he was a high school student.

He was a pretty good guy, he said. He was a State Patrolman. I liked the way he did things and I always looked up to him. I knew I wanted to be a police officer.

After college, Marcello said, he held a number of odd jobs between deployments with the National Guard. I went overseas and then would come back and get a job, he said.

In between deployments, Marcello applied to join various law enforcement departments in the state. But because his unit was repeatedly deployed, it made it hard for him to secure a job in law enforcement.

It would be hard to hire somebody if they know they would be leaving again, he said.

It was when he was living in Omaha that Marcello decided to apply for employment with the Grand Island Police Department.

A friend of mine, who I was in the Army with, applied over here (Grand Island) and got hired, Marcello said. He told me to try it out. I did and I got hired.

When he is not working as a police officer or training with the National Guard, Marcello is the troop leader for his sons Cub Scout Troop 114 in Grand Island. We just got finished with summer camp, he said.

Marcello and his wife, Tami, have two sons and two daughters who range from 2 to 9 years old.

Marcello is a night patrol officer with the Police Department. He said night patrol is challenging, but he has learned to shut it off, go home and be with my family.

For Marcello whether its serving in the National Guard or working as a police officer its all about serving the people.

I know that sounds cliche or corny, but when you go home after a hard days work, you actually did something, he said. You made a difference.

Even though police work sometimes is not the most friendly of environments when dealing with the public, Marcello said there is always going to be that one person who you helped out. That is important for me.

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Iraq vet to lead fair parade - Grand Island Independent