Coalition forces tighten the noose as Kirkuk attack ends
Turkey bolsters Mosul assault; 74 IS fighters reported killed after three days of clashes in town
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Iraqi forces battled on Sunday through booby-traps, sniper fire and suicide car bombs to tighten the noose around Mosul, while also quelling Islamic State attacks elsewhere in the country.
Iraqi security forces on Monday ended an attack by IS in Kirkuk, killing at least 74 jihadists in three days of clashes, the provincial governor said.
“The attack is over and life has returned to normal,” Najmeddin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk province, told AFP.
“The security forces have killed more than 74 Daesh (IS) terrorists and detained several others, including their leader.”
Karim said the initial confessions of the ringleader confirmed reports that around 100 fighters attacked Kirkuk early on Friday, some of them sleeper cells that joined up with militants infiltrating the city.
Some attackers are also believed to have fled the city on Saturday, later clashing with security forces in rural areas east of Kirkuk.
The attack led to three days of clashes that left at least 46 people dead, mostly members of the security forces.
The brazen raid on Kirkuk, which lies in an oil-rich area around 240 kilometers north of Baghdad, appeared to be an attempt by IS to divert
women were killed in an airstrike on Friday, according to lawmaker Hanan al Fatlawi
attention from Mosul.
But there was no sign it had any significant impact on the offensive to retake the city, with Kurdish forces engaged in a new push on Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the peshmerga had requested and received Turkish military assistance.
“They (Peshmerga) asked for help from our soldiers at Bashiqa base. We are providing support with artillery, tanks and howitzers,” Yildirim said on Sunday.
Ankara’s claim came a day after Baghdad turned down a suggestion by US Defense chief Ashton Carter — who met Kurdish leader Massud Barzani on Sunday — that Turkey be given a part in the battle.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi lawmaker has called on her government to investigate a suspected airstrike at a Shiite mosque during fighting in Kirkuk last week, saying US-led forces could have been involved — a suggestion dismissed by the coalition.
A human rights group echoed the call from Shiite MP Hanan al-Fatlawi, who said the attack killed 15 women on Friday in Daquq. The rights group said 13 women and children were killed and at least 45 wounded.