ISIS tries to divert forces away from Mosul
Islamic State fighters launch predawn attacks on Kirkuk, killing 14, in an apparent attempt to draw Iraqi forces away from their offensive to retake Mosul, the last rebel stronghold in the country.
KIRKUK, Iraq — Islamic State militants launched a wave of predawn attacks in and around the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Friday, killing at least 14 people and setting off fierce clashes with Kurdish security forces that were still raging after sundown.
The assault appeared aimed at diverting attention from the Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul and raised fears the extremists could lash out in unpredictable ways as they defend the largest city under their control and their last urban bastion in Iraq.
Multiple explosions rocked Kirkuk, and gunfire rang out around the provincial headquarters, where the fighting was concentrated. Smoke billowed over the city, and the streets were largely deserted out of fear of militant snipers. IS said its fighters targeted the provincial headquarters in a claim carried by its Aamaq news agency.
North of the city, three suicide bombers stormed a power plant in the town of Dibis, killing 13 workers, including four Iranian technicians, before blowing themselves up as police arrived, said Maj. Ahmed Kader Ali, the Dibis police chief.
Sniper kills reporter
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bahram Ghasemi, condemned the assault, which he said also wounded three Iranian workers, according to the official IRNA news agency.
The Turkmeneli TV station, which earlier had shown live footage of smoke rising from outside the provincial headquarters, said in a news bulletin that one of its reporters, Ahmet Haceroglu, was killed by a sniper while covering the fighting.
There was no immediate word on casualties among other civilians or the Kurdish forces in Kirkuk.
Kirkuk is some 100 miles from the IS-held city of Mosul, where Iraqi forces launched a widescale offensive on Monday. IS has in the past resorted to suicide bombings in and around Baghdad in response to battlefield losses elsewhere in the country.
Kirkuk is an oil-rich city claimed by both Iraq’s central government and the largely autonomous Kurdish region. Kurdish forces assumed full control of the city in the summer of 2014, as Iraq’s army and police crumbled in the face of a lightning advance by IS.
Kemal Kerkuki, a senior commander of Kurdish peshmerga forces west of Kirkuk, said the town where his base is located outside the city also came under attack early Friday, but that his forces repelled the assault.
By Thursday, the Iraqi forces had advanced as far as Bartella, a historically Christian town some 9 miles from Mosul’s outskirts.
Possible human shields
Ravina Shamdasani, of the U.N. human rights office, said it had “verified information” that ISIS forced 550 people to relocate to Mosul from the neaby villages of Samalia and Najafia on Monday, part of an “apparent policy of preventing civilians from escaping to areas controlled by Iraqi security forces.”
Shamdasani reiterated concerns ISIS could use civilians as human shields, and said the office was investigating reports that the group had killed at least 40 civilians for suspected disloyalty.