Iraqi Army retakes most disputed Kurdish areas
BAGHDAD: Iraqi government forces said on Wednesday they had achieved their objectives in a lightning operation that saw them sweep through disputed Kurdish-held territory in a punishing riposte to an independence vote last month.
On Monday and Tuesday, federal troops and allied militia retook the northern province of Kirkuk and its lucrative oil fields, as well as formerly Kurdish-held areas of Nineveh and Diyala provinces.
The largely bloodless operation dealt a body blow to the finances of the autonomous Kurdish region, which had derived much of its revenues from exports of Kirkuk oil, and left Kurds in shock and disbelief just weeks after the nationalist fervour of the referendum.
Kurdish claims to the lost territories have long been a cherished national cause and their abandonment -- almost without fight -- triggered recriminations against the Kurdish leadership.
Kurdish forces are now largely confined to their longstanding three-province autonomous region in the north and have lost nearly all of the territory they had taken since the US-led invasion of 2003, some of it in deadly fighting with the Islamic State.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday that the September 25 vote for Kurdish independence was now “a thing of the past”.
“Central authority must be imposed everywhere in Iraq,” he said.