Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrives at the Iranian embassy for lunch with former European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Vienna November 18, 2014. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran says it will not be possible by a November 24 deadline to reach a comprehensive deal with world powers aimed at resolving the stand-off over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, the Iranian Students News Agency ISNA reported on Sunday.

"Considering the short time left until the deadline and number of issues that needed to be discussed and resolved, it is impossible to reach a final and comprehensive deal by Nov. 24," ISNA quoted an unnamed member of Iran's negotiating team in Vienna as saying.

"The issue of extension of the talks is an option on the table and we will start discussing it if no deal is reached by Sunday night," the person said.

The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China began a final round of talks with Iran on Tuesday, looking to clinch a pact under which Tehran would curb its nuclear work in exchange for lifting economically crippling sanctions.

Iran rejects Western allegations that it has been seeking to develop a nuclear bomb capability.

Iranian and western diplomats close to the negotiations in Vienna told Reuters the two sides remained deadlocked on the key issues of Iran's uranium enrichment capacity and the lifting of the sanctions.

The Iranian official was quoted as saying the sides "were trying to reach a framework accord on major issues like ... the number of centrifuges, enrichment capacity and the timeframe of lifting sanctions."

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting of the Security Council at the Kremlin in Moscow, November 20, 2014. REUTERS/Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/Kremlin

By Gabriela Baczynska

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin blamed the West for worsening relations with Russia since the Ukraine crisis and said Moscow would not allow itself to become internationally isolated behind another 'Iron Curtain'.

In an interview published by state news agency TASS on Sunday, Putin also said Western sanctions against Moscow, combined with the slide in the rouble and oil price falls would have no "catastrophic consequences" on Russia's economy.

The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and ratcheted them up over Moscow's backing for separatists fighting Kiev troops to split east Ukraine.

"We understand the fatality of an 'Iron Curtain' for us," Putin was quoted as saying. "We will not go down this path in any case and no one will build a wall around us. That is impossible!"

Russia's ties with the West are at their worst since the Cold War because of Ukraine, where more than 4,300 people have been killed since violence erupted in the east mid-April.

As the West pressures Moscow over Ukraine, Putin accused Washington and Brussels of disregarding Russia's interests.

"When Russia starts... safeguarding people and its interests, it immediately becomes bad (in the view of the West), he said.

"You think it's over our position over east Ukraine or Crimea? Absolutely not! If it wasn't for that, they would have found a different reason. It has always been like that."

OIL AND POWER

The sanctions hit Russia's weak economy and sparked a slide in the rouble, which shed about a third of its value this year. Economic woes are exacerbated by a sharp drop in the global price for oil, one of Russia's main exports.

"If the price of energy is lowered on purpose, this also hits those who introduce those limits," Putin said, adding that major producers such as the United States and Saudi Arabia could be in cahoots to lower prices and harm the Russian economy.

He said big supply, which he blamed for the price fall, came from the U.S. shale fields, Libya and Saudi Arabia, as well as from Iraq, including what he said were black market sales by Islamic State militants who hold swathes of that country.

But he struck a defiant tone on possible consequences for the Russian stagnant economy.

"It's far from certain that sanctions, sharp falls in the oil price (and) the depreciation of the national currency will cause negative effects or catastrophic consequences only for us. No such thing will happen!"

Putin also did not rule out running for the presidency again in 2018 when his current term expires, though he denied he wanted to rule until death. He first came to Russia's top job as acting president on the last day of 1999, remaining the country's paramount leader ever since.

(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

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BEIRUT (AP) — Teenagers carrying weapons stand at checkpoints and busy intersections in Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul. Patched onto the left arms of their black uniforms are the logos of the Islamic Police.

In Raqqa, the Islamic State group's de facto capital in Syria, boys attend training camp and religious courses before heading off to fight. Others serve as cooks or guards at the extremists' headquarters or as spies, informing on people in their neighborhoods.

Across the vast region under IS control, the group is actively conscripting children for battle and committing abuses against the most vulnerable at a young age, according to a growing body of evidence assembled from residents, activists, independent experts and human rights groups.

In the northern Syrian town of Kobani, where ethnic Kurds have been resisting an IS onslaught for weeks, several activists told The Associated Press they observed children fighting alongside the militants. Mustafa Bali, a Kobani-based activist, said he saw the bodies of four boys, two of them younger than 14. And at least one 18 year old is said to have carried out a suicide attack.

In Syria's Aleppo province, an activist affiliated with the rebel Free Syrian Army said its fighters encountered children in their late teens "fairly often" in battles against the rival Islamic State group.

It is difficult to determine just how widespread the exploitation of children is in the closed world of IS-controlled territory. There are no reliable figures on the number of minors the group employs.

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FILE - In this file photo taken Thursday, June 19, 2014, Islamic State group militants stand by a ca …

But a United Nations panel investigating war crimes in the Syrian conflict concluded that in its enlistment of children for active combat roles, the Islamic State group is perpetrating abuses and war crimes on a massive scale "in a systematic and organized manner."

The group "prioritizes children as a vehicle for ensuring long-term loyalty, adherence to their ideology and a cadre of devoted fighters that will see violence as a way of life," it said in a recent report. The panel of experts, known as the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, conducted more than 300 interviews with people who fled or are living in IS-controlled areas, and examined video and photographic evidence.

The use of children by armed groups in conflict is, of course, nothing new. In the Syrian civil war, the Free Syrian Army and Nusra Front rebel groups also recruit children for combat, said Leila Zerrougui, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for children and armed conflict.

But no other group comes close to IS in using children in such a systematic and organized way. And the effect is that much greater because IS commands large areas in which the militants inculcate the children with their radical and violent interpretation of Shariah law.

"What is new is that ISIS seems to be quite transparent and vocal about their intention and their practice of recruiting children," said Laurent Chapuis, UNICEF regional child protection adviser for the Middle East and North Africa, using an alternate acronym for the group. "Children as young as 10, 12 years old are being used in a variety of roles, as combatants as messengers, spies, guards, manning checkpoints but also for domestic purposes like cooking, cleaning, sometimes providing medical care to the wounded."

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This undated image posted online and made available on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014 by Raqqa Is Being Sla …

"This is not a marginal phenomenon. This is something that is being observed and seems to be part of the strategy of the group," Zerrougui said in a phone interview from New York.

She said some children join voluntarily for various reasons but others are targeted.

"They are abducting children and forcing them to join, they are brainwashing children and indoctrinating them to join their group. All the tools used to attract and recruit children are used by this group," she said, adding that children as young as 9 or 10 are used for "various roles."

In areas of Syria and Iraq under their control, the Sunni extremists have closed schools or changed the curriculum to fit with their ideology. Their goal, according to the U.N., is to use education as a tool of indoctrination to foster a new generation of supporters.

A video recently published by an IS media arm shows what it says is a graduation ceremony for boys, who appear to be in their teens. Dressed in military uniforms, they are lined up to shake hands with a sheikh. Another scene shows the boys posing with AK-47s, their faces hidden under black masks. The video touts the children as a "generation of lions, protectors of religion, dignity and land."

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In this undated image posted online and made available on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, by Raqqa Is Being …

Residents of IS-controlled areas said the militants are teaching children at school to become fighters.

One resident in the Iraqi city of Fallujah described seeing his 6-year-old son playing with a water pistol in front of the house and screaming: "I am a fighter for the Islamic State!"

"I waved him to come to me and I broke the gun in two pieces," said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of his life.

He also said he and his son recently stopped at an IS checkpoint. His son shouted, "We love the State!" and one of the fighters asked, "Which state?" When the son replied, "the Islamic State," the fighter "told him, 'Good boy,' and let us through," the resident said. The incident persuaded the man to move his family to the northern city of Kirkuk, now in Kurdish hands.

"The boys are studying, not to learn, but to become mujahedeen," he said.

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This undated image posted online and made available on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, by Raqqa Is Being Sl …

Earlier this year in Syria, the Islamic State group abducted more than 150 Kurdish boys, held them in a school in Aleppo province and showed them videos of beheadings and attacks, while subjecting them to daily instruction on militant ideology for five months, the U.N. and Kurdish officials said. The boys were later released.

In Raqqa province, an anti-IS activist collective has documented the presence of at least five known youth training camps, one specifically for children under 16 in the town of Tabqa. The collective, named Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, has released a video showing children crawling under barbed wire as part of their military training. The video could not be independently confirmed but is consistent with AP reporting on the subject.

Residents in IS-controlled areas in Iraq, such as Mosul and Fallujah, say it is not uncommon to see gun-toting boys in their late teens standing at checkpoints and even younger ones riding in militant convoys, usually accompanying their fathers in parades.

Another resident of Fallujah said many boys as young as 11 volunteer to join the group, but that IS often seeks the parents' consent for those under 16. He said others join under pressure or in exchange for money.

"Once they're done training, their skills and abilities are tested before they decide where to send them off. Many want to be on the front lines," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Abdullah al-Falluji.

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In this undated image posted online and made available on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, by Raqqa Is Being …

In a report released earlier this year, Human Rights Watch interviewed four former IS child fighters in Syria who described military training with the group. One, Bassem, who joined the group at 16, said he left after being seriously wounded by shrapnel in battle. A 17 year old, Amr, told the group that children in his unit signed up for suicide missions — and that he reluctantly did so as well under pressure.

Thousands of foreign fighters have flocked to IS areas from all over the world, many of them with their families.

A video emerged this month showing two boys, both speaking perfect French, holding guns aloft and claiming to be in Raqqa. They stand on a dusty street; a man walks by and takes no notice of their weapons. The boys, who look much younger than 10, say they're from Strasbourg and Toulouse. French prosecutors have opened a formal investigation to identify the children.

"Over there, you're in a country of infidels. Here, we're mujahedeen. We're in Syria, we're in Raqqa here," one of the boys says in the video. "It's war here."

___

Salama reported from Baghdad. Associated Press writer Lori Hinnant in Paris contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON -- The Islamic Republic of Iran would like to make one thing clear: We've got this.

Up until June 10, Iranian officials had been content to shape events in Iraq quietly through their hold on local Shiite militias and the prime minister at the time, Nouri al-Maliki.

Then the Iraqi government lost Mosul, the nation's second-largest city, to the growing Sunni extremist force now known as the Islamic State, or ISIS. The U.S. eventually responded: It forced a new government to take power, sent in airpower and military advisers, and launched an international effort against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria.

But months before the U.S. showed that it was willing to invest heavily in the region again, Iran decided the rise of ISIS gave it the chance to stop being coy about its control of the Iraqi government.

The Iranian influence has only grown more visible now that the U.S. is embroiled in Iraq again. Control of the critical Interior Ministry was awarded last month to a representative of the Badr militia, one of the top Iranian proxies in Iraq.

The picture above shows Badr's leader, Hadi al-Amiri, chuckling with General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran's internationally oriented paramilitary Quds Force. The publication of the photograph is a signal from Iran of just how powerful it is in Iraq, a high-ranking U.S. official said. Iran is embracing the Iraqi government and the Shiite militias.

Hossein Dalirian @Hosseindalirian Follow Gen. #Soleimani commander of the #Qods_Force and commander of the #Badr Corps in #Iraq 7:23 AM - 5 Nov 2014 18 RETWEETS 19 FAVORITES

A reporter for Iran's semi-official Tasnim News Agency helped spread the photograph on Twitter.

The U.S., meanwhile, is still developing its policy against ISIS -- and it knows, according to administration officials, Syrian opposition figures and outside analysts interviewed by The Huffington Post, that as a latecomer to the game, it has entered an arena in which Tehran's rules dominate.

Suleimani, a favorite of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, plays a big part in setting those rules. He was given the star treatment in The New Yorker last year for his activities in Syria. Once reclusive, Suleimani has become increasingly visible in Iranian reports of triumph against ISIS, potentially to reaffirm his stature at home in the face of regional chaos.

Iran was ready to face down ISIS with the help of allies it has cultivated for years: the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, supplemented by the Iranian-aided Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah and the intensely brutal Shiite militias of Iraq.

Suleimani at a meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran in 2013. (AP Photo/Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, File.)

While the U.S. worked slowly after the ISIS takeover of Mosul in June, Suleimani and his government wasted no time.

Within 48 hours, Iran had sent senior advisers, weapons, ammunition and critical intelligence to the beleaguered Baghdad government, Iraqi government officials recently told the Financial Times.

"We had to defend ourselves,” Gen. Qassem Atta, the head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service said, noting that his government had sought U.S. aid but had been rebuffed. "We had no choice ... but to go to Iran."

In a surreal turn of events for two countries that have not had diplomatic relations since 1979, the U.S. and Iran are seeing their interests align: Both support the central Iraqi government and the Kurds in the north, and both hope to eradicate ISIS.

Kurdish peshmerga forces and Shiite Badr militia fighters take positions against ISIS 55 miles south of Kirkuk, Iraq, on Oct. 30. (Ali Mukarrem Garip/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

But for Iran, the U.S. may be the enemy of its enemy, but it is no friend. Until just a few years ago, Iraqi Shiite militias under the influence of Iran were routinely shellingBaghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone.

The area was and remains home to the largest U.S. embassy in the world and to much of the Iraqi government.

On Oct. 1, four mortars landed in the Green Zone. Their source was unknown, and the Islamic State was quick to claim that it was behind the attack. But to U.S. officials, the incident seemed eerily familiar.

The possibility that those four shells could become 400 or 4,000 is at the forefront of U.S. policymakers' minds as they craft strategy in Iraq and Syria, administration officials have told The Huffington Post. The shells are a significant threat in themselves, but they also represent the broader fear Iran will use the militias to harm U.S. troops now being sent to Iraq as advisers.

Because of the Shiite militias' effectiveness against ISIS -- they have been instrumental in the Iraqi government's efforts to retake territory -- and the risk that they will turn on the U.S., the administration is loath to confront them or their Iranian backers directly.

This is why the purest expression of the dilemma facing the U.S. strategy is contained in the Suleimani-al-Amiri photo. An administration official told The Huffington Post it was taken just after Shiite militias, some Iraqi military personnel and Iranian fighters swept through southern Baghdad, demolishing houses and bringing the hammer down in Sunni areas. It was a good day for Iran and its Iraqi partners -- and not such a good day for Sunni-Shiite relations.

The Suleimani photo illustrates how the two major goals of the U.S. -- militarily defeating the Islamic State and bringing political reconciliation among Sunnis and Shiites -- require distinct strategies that run counter to each other.

In order to roll back ISIS, a Sunni militant group, the U.S. is essentially working alongside Iranian-backed Shiite militias. The only way those militias can win is ugly, as Amnesty International has documented and U.S. officials know -- and their behavior undermines any chance at reconciliation with Iraq's Sunnis.

Winning those Sunnis over from ISIS is key, U.S. officials say. The Sunnis provided critical support for the extremist group earlier this year, helping it overwhelm the Iraqi army because of their own dissatisfaction with the Shiite-run central government.

A video that purports to show Suleimani, the Iranian general, celebrating a victory against ISIS with Shiite militia fighters in Iraq. The video reportedly went viral at the State Department.

Analysts and officials have indicated recently that Iranian influence on U.S. policy has grown because the Obama administration wants to keep Tehran happy so it can reach a deal on its nuclear program. Former Obama Syria adviser Frederic Hof, now a fellow at the Atlantic Council, suggested in a blog post Wednesday that this concern may be behind "the virtual erasure of Syria" from the administration's latest rhetoric about the ISIS fight. Hof told The Huffington Post in an email that the administration started to see Iran, rather than Russia, as the key player in Syria just last year. Now, he said, "Iran's support for the regime is critical" for Assad's survival.

Keen to undermine ISIS in Iraq and Syria and to present a final resolution to the global panic over a potential Iranian nuclear weapon as negotiators seek a deal before a Nov. 24 deadline, the White House reportedly has assured Iran it will respect its interests in both countries where the U.S. is currently bombing ISIS -- defining the broad lines of the U.S. involvement in ways acceptable to Iran.

In Iraq, that means accepting the power of the Shiite militias and, according to administration officials quoted in the Wall Street Journal, passing messages to Tehran through Baghdad.

In Syria, that means promising not to bomb Assad's forces to ensure that no harm comes to the Iranian officers aiding them, the WSJ heard from officials. The administration is therefore in the difficult position of explaining to U.S.-backed Syrian moderate rebels that it is unlikely to help them against Assad, who they see as their main foe.

Congressional staffers were briefed this week on a new report about Iran's aggressive role in Syria, The Huffington Post has learned. Iran skeptics on Capitol Hill may use the report to demand that the administration get tougher on Tehran.

The White House has publicly denied any cooperation with Iran in the ISIS fight. But Press Secretary Josh Earnest said earlier this month that the two countries had discussed their respective battles against the group.

"We won't share intelligence with them, but their interest in this outcome is something that's been widely commented upon and something that on a couple of occasions has been discussed on the sidelines of other conversations," Earnest said, after the WSJ revealed that Obama had sent a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in October that tied the nuclear negotiations to the Islamic State fight.

Secretary of State John Kerry (R) with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (L) on Sept. 26 in New York City. Along with representatives from Russia, China and the European Union, Kerry is leading the international community's negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. The current deadline for a final deal is Nov. 24. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, noted that Iraq remains a sovereign country and that Iranian influence there should not be overstated.

The relationship between the U.S. and the Iraqi government "speaks for itself, and is not one we calibrate in response or reaction to Iraq’s relationship with other regional actors," Baskey said in an email to The Huffington Post.

"As for Iran’s activities in Iraq, it is Iran’s choice as to whether it will step up and play a constructive role in the region, which we and the international community have consistently urged," he continued. "Alternatively, Iran’s leaders can choose to continue to contribute to the current instability by backing illegal militias in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, actions that have contributed significantly to the sectarian conflict that helped make Iraq so vulnerable over the past several years."

Of course, that group of "illegal militias" includes the one that dominates Iraq's Interior Ministry.

Green lemon @green_lemonnn Follow #Iraq Wonder who's back! New set of pics of H. Qassem Soleimani with Hadi Al Amiri (Badr SG) and Sh. Adnan Shahmani 1 5:09 AM - 25 Oct 2014 28 RETWEETS 16 FAVORITES

More photographs claiming to show Suleimani, the Iranian general, with al-Amiri of the Badr militia, which runs Iraq's Interior Ministry, and Adnan Shahmani, a parliamentarianlinked to a militia associated with the Tayyar al-Rasuli political party.

Some foreign policy experts suggest the U.S. could just embrace Iran as a partner in this fight.

"Now is not the time for false virtue or moral absolutism. The working principle now has to be first threats first. And the first threat to American interests today is ISIS and its cohorts," Lesie Gelb, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations,wrote last month in a Daily Beast essay supporting U.S. cooperation with Iran and Assad.

But strategic and diplomatic concerns -- chiefly the fact that Iran is the biggest security concern for most traditional U.S. allies in the Middle East, from Israel to the Sunni states helping fight ISIS -- mean that cooperation with Iran simply is not feasible, analysts told The Huffington Post.

Iran itself has no interest in serving U.S. purposes in the region. It still sees Washington as a rival with excessive regional influence that is more dangerous than ISIS. The role it played in helping eject the U.S. from Iraq earlier this decade is among its proudest achievements, and not one it wants to see rolled back with increased U.S. troop presences.

"What you have is a very temporary arrangement of convenience, and it is one where the longer-term objectives are fundamentally different," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said the administration faces "the strange dichotomy" of dealing with ISIS alongside Iran at one end of the Middle East, and protecting its Arab allies from an Iranian military build-up in the Persian Gulf at the other.

Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the founder of the Syria Comment blog, said the U.S. dilemma is particularly complex because compromise with Iran's regional allies to focus on the ISIS threat means different things in different arenas.

"In Iraq, the United States has a partner, because it's not ashamed, it's not afraid to work with the sectarian Shiite government, because 60 percent [of Iraq] is Shiite," Landis told The Huffington Post. "Even if they're as brutal as Assad, America can say they're the majority. In Syria, they can't. They've demonized Assad and there's been such a bloody civil war, so they can't back him up."

Landis added that he believes this is why the administration has pursued what it describes as an "Iraq first" policy.

Speaking at the G-20 summit earlier this month, Obama underscored his opposition to Assad but said the administration is not presently discussing ways to remove him.

Two Syrian women who live in Iran hold their country's flag and a picture of Syrian President Bashar Assad after casting their votes for their country's presidential election at the Syrian Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, May 28. Though he has been blasted by the international community, Assad retains support among some Syrians, particularly those who belong to the same Alawite sect of Shiite Islam. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Analysts and Syrian opposition figures warn against a conciliatory approach toward Iran, even if it might be the most pragmatic option given the looming deadline for a nuclear deal. They say the U.S. may end up doing Tehran's dirty work for it: If Washington does not plan for what it wants left behind after ISIS, it could simply be removing the most powerful Sunni rival to Iran's proxies.

Iran's established influence in the region could therefore guarantee its ability to hold sway -- including in ways that could feed further Sunni extremism -- long after the U.S. loses interest in the fight there, according to Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former French government adviser.

Tehran's thinking, Bahout told The Huffington Post, is likely that "Syria has become such a mess and we have enough cards among these sectarian militias, Iraqi and Lebanese, that we can transform [the region] into a quagmire of open low-intensity fighting for years…[and] sink our adversaries."

And that might be just fine for Suleimani and the forces he leads. His Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is heavily involved in the Iranian economy -- and for them, reconciliation with the West and the subsequent opening of the Iranian economy would be bad for business.