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Iraqi city of Kirkuk under attack by militants Iraqi city of Kirkuk under attack by militants
(about 1 hour later)
Militants armed with assault rifles and explosives have attacked a police compound in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk early in an assault that was quickly claimed by the Islamic State group and likely aimed at diverting the authorities’ attention for the battle to retake the Isis-held Mosul. Islamic State militants have launched a commando raid on the Iraqi city of Kirkuk in an apparent attempt to distract Iraqi and Kurdish forces converging on the group’s stronghold of Mosul.
Multiple explosions rocked the city and gun battles were under way, said witnesses in Kirkuk. The attack was repelled by local security forces, who said six of the militants had been killed in the operation.
Isis said its fighters were behind the attack, which the extremist group said targeted the Iraqi government. The claim was carried by the Isis-run Aamaq news agency and could not immediately be verified. Isis claimed responsibility for the assault on its news agency service, Aamaq.
Local Kurdish television channel Rudaw aired footage showing black smoke rising over the city as extended bursts of automatic gunfire rang out. However, the governor of Kirkuk, Najmadin Karim, was quoted as saying the militants had not seized any government buildings. “Security forces, the peshmerga and the counter-terrorism forces have established complete control over the security situation in Kirkuk,” Najmeddine Karim, the city’s governor, said. “Daesh [Isis] sleeper cells carried out attacks against security sites and headquarters this morning in Kirkuk.”
There were no immediate reports of casualties. Kirkuk, 236km (146 miles) north of Baghdad, is an oil-rich town that has emerged as a potential source of tension in a post-Isis Iraq.
The attack comes as the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces are making a major push to drive Islamic State militants from Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul. In another attack reported by AFP on Friday, three bombers infiltrated a power plant being built by an Iranian company near Dibis, a town about 40km north-west of Kirkuk.
Kirkuk is an oil-rich city 180 miles (290km) north of Baghdad that is claimed by both Iraq’s central government and the country’s Kurdish region. It has long been a flashpoint for tension and has been the scene of multiple attacks by Islamic State militants. “Three suicide bombers attacked the power plant at around 6am, killing 12 Iraqi administrators and engineers and four Iranian technicians,” Dibis mayor Abdullah Nureddin al-Salehi told AFP.
Iraqi and Kurdish forces backed by US-led coalition support launched a multi-pronged assault this week to retake Mosul and surrounding areas from Islamic State. The operation is the largest undertaken by the Iraqi military since the 2003 US-led invasion. Iraqi forces, alongside Sunni tribal fighters, Kurdish peshmerga paramilitaries and Shia militias, this week launched a long-awaited campaign to wrest back control of Mosul, the largest urban centre under Isis control. The arrayed forces have made steady advances in clearing militants from surrounding towns and villages, before what is likely to be a protracted street battle to reclaim the embattled city from up to 6,000 Isis fighters.
Iraqi officials said they had advanced as far as the town of Bartella, nine miles (15km) from Mosul’s outskirts, by Thursday. Friday’s Isis attacks appeared to be aimed at distracting some of the forces arrayed for the assault on Mosul. Kirkuk is a town with a mixed Shia, Sunni and Kurdish population, and there are fears that once Isis is defeated the vacuum could become a flashpoint for power and territory struggles over its oilfields.
Iraq’s prime minister Haider al-Abadi, announced the launch of the Mosul operation last weekend. He has since said that the offensive was going faster than planned.