Iraqi forces in fierce Kirkuk clash with IS
Turkey hits Syrian Kurd group
KIRKUK, Iraq: Security forces battled for a second day yesterday with Islamic State group gunmen who infiltrated Kirkuk in a brazen raid that rattled Iraq as it ramped up an offensive to retake Mosul. A toxic cloud released by a fire IS militants started at a sulfur plant south of Mosul earlier this week killed at least two civilians and forced some US service members to wear masks. A day after the shock attack on the Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk, snipers and suspected suicide bombers were still at large, prompting Baghdad to send reinforcements.
Special counter-terrorism and intelligence units were hunting down some of the dozens of IS fighters who stormed public buildings early on Friday. “We have 46 dead and 133 wounded, most of them members of the security services, as result of the clashes with Daesh (IS),” an interior ministry brigadier general told AFP.
The toll was confirmed by a source at the Kirkuk health directorate, which called for blood donations to assist with the emergency.
The Kirkuk police chief said 48 attackers had been killed so far and several others wounded, including a Libyan believed to be among the raid’s leaders. “The security forces control the situation now but there are still pockets of jihadists in some southern and eastern neighborhoods,” Brigadier General Khattab Omar Aref told AFP. The large-scale “inghimasi” attack, a term for jihadist operations in which gunmen, often wearing suicide vests, intend to sow chaos and fight to the death rather than achieve any military goal, caught Kirkuk off guard.
The large city, which lies in an oil-producing region around 240 km north of Baghdad, woke up on Friday to find militants roaming the streets of several neighborhoods. They used mosque loudspeakers to broadcast praise of their self-proclaimed “caliphate”, which has been shrinking steadily since last year and is looking closer than ever to collapse.
Abu Omar, a 40-year-old butcher, spent 24 hours locked up in his home with his wife, mother and three children. “It felt as if this day lasted a year,” he said. “We could hear shooting and explosions all the time but we didn’t dare venture outside to see what was happening.” One attacker captured by the Kurdish security services on Friday claimed that the Kirkuk raid was planned by IS supremo Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as a diversion from the offensive on Mosul. “Today’s attack was one of caliph Baghdadi’s plans to demonstrate that the Islamic State is remaining and expanding and reduce the pressure on the Mosul front,” he said, according to an AFP reporter who saw his initial interrogation.
Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi announced late Friday that he was sending reinforcements to Kirkuk, but there was no sign of any major impact on operations around Mosul. Pentagon chief Ashton Carter arrived in Iraq yesterday to review the offensive, which his country and around 60 other nations support. Mosul is the most populous city in the “caliphate” Baghdadi declared in June 2014, and the operation to recapture it is Iraq’s largest in years.
With 3,000 to 4,500 IS men facing tens of thousands of Iraqi forces backed by massive US-led air power, the outcome of the battle is in little doubt. But militants have been launching dozens of suicide car bombs against advancing forces, inflicting casualties and slowing their progress. Yesterday, Iraqi federal forces moved into Qaraqosh, which lies just east of Mosul and was Iraq’s largest Christian town before its population fled the jihadists in 2014, the joint operations command said. Kurdish forces were also leading a major push northeast of Mosul, but complained that air support from the USled coalition was insufficient and leaving them exposed.
In his meetings in Baghdad yesterday, the US defense secretary had been expected to attempt to convince the government to lift its opposition to the participation of Turkish forces, who have a base north of Mosul. But Abadi reiterated his rejection of Turkish participation in the offensive, saying that “this is something the Iraqis will handle”.
Separately, Turkey hit Kurdish militia targets in northern Syria for the second time in less than 72 hours, the military said yesterday, as Ankara vowed further action. Rockets struck 70 People’s Protection Units (YPG) targets Friday, the Turkish armed forces said in a statement that did not reveal whether any militia fighters had been killed. The strikes came after two Ankara-backed Syrian opposition fighters were injured when YPG forces opened fire south of the flashpoint town of Jarabulus, the military said, quoted in the official Anadolu news agency.
Turkey views Syria’s YPG and Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) as terror groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), staging an insurgency in Turkey since 1984. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu threatened further action against the YPG and PYD, saying that if they “continued to attack (Syrian opposition fighters) fighting against Daesh”, the Islamic State group, Turkey would “do what is necessary”.
Quoted by Anadolu, the minister again accused the YPG of seeking to create its own larger “canton” rather than focusing on the fight against IS, pointing to “attacks on moderate opposition” as evidence of this. The PKK is proscribed as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union. Late Wednesday, Turkish jets struck YPG positions and the armed forces claimed they killed up to 200 fighters from the group, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the toll lower.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Friday the US was making a mistake supporting the Syrian Kurdish fighters. “Unfortunately their use by the United States against Daesh (IS) and being supplied with arms is a big mistake. We have made it clear to them,” he said. On Aug 24 Ankara launched an operation in northern Syria to remove IS from its border and stop the YPG’s westward advance. Turkey has sent dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops into Syria to support rebels seeking President Bashar Al-Assad’s ouster, and the army says 1,265 sq km have been secured since August.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that Turkish-backed rebels would next advance on Al-Bab after having recaptured from IS Jarabulus and Al-Rai in the early days of the operation. “We have to prepare a terror-free zone,” he said during a televised speech from Bursa, northwestern Turkey. He reiterated Turkey’s position that it would not work with the YPG in any USled coalition operation to expel IS from its de facto capital, Raqqa.
Erdogan again voiced his opposition to the creation of a “terror corridor” - referring to the joining of the Kurdish “cantons” of Afrin and Kobane. Separately the Turkish military said it hit 52 IS targets in northern Syria, while the Dogan news agency said seven Ankara-backed rebels were killed in clashes with the group. — Agencies