BAGHDAD/KIRKUK,
Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces took control on Friday of the last district in
the oil-rich province of Kirkuk still in the hands of Kurdish Peshmerga
fighters following a three-hour battle, security sources said.
The district
of Altun Kupri, or Perde in Kurdish, lies on the road between the city of
Kirkuk - which fell to Iraqi forces on Monday - and Erbil, capital of the
semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq that voted in a referendum
last month to secede from Iraq against Baghdad’s wishes.
A force made
up of U.S-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service units, Federal Police and
Iranian-backed fighters known as Popular Mobilisation began their advance on
Altun Kupri at 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), said an Iraqi military spokesman.
Kurdish
Peshmerga forces withdrew from the town, located on the Zab river, after
battling the advancing Iraqi troops with machine guns, mortars and rocket
propelled grenades, Iraqi security sources said. Neither side gave immediate
information about casualties in the fighting.
The Iraqi
central government forces have advanced into Kirkuk province largely unopposed
as most Peshmerga forces withdrew without a fight.
The
government advance has transformed the balance of power in northern Iraq and is
likely to scuttle the independence aspirations of the Kurds, who voted
overwhelmingly on Sept. 25 to secede from Iraq and take the oil fields of
Kirkuk with them.
The fighting
at Altun Kupri marked only the second instance of significant violent
resistance by the Kurds in Kirkuk province. Dozens were killed or wounded in
the previous clash on Monday, the first night of the government advance.
Altun Kupri
is the last town in Kirkuk province on the road to Erbil, lying just outside
the border of the autonomous region established after the fall of Saddam
Hussein in 2003.
Iraqi forces
are seeking to reestablish Baghdad’s authority over territory which the Kurdish
forces occupied outside the official boundaries of their autonomous region,
mostly seized since 2014 in the course of the war on Islamic State militants.
Iraq’s top
Shi‘ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on Friday for the state
to protect Kurds in northern Iraq, a rare political intervention by a figure
whose words have the force of law for most of Iraq’s Shi‘ite majority.
Sistani’s
call, issued at the Friday prayer in the holy Shi‘ite city of Kerbala by one of
his representatives, came amid reports of abuses against Kurds in areas
evacuated by the Kurdish Peshmerga including Kirkuk, Tuz Khormato and Khanaqin.
Tens of
thousands of Kurds fled Kirkuk and Tuz to the two main cities of the Kurdish
autonomous region, Erbil and Sulaimaniya, according to Kurdish officials.
The United
Nations expressed concern on Thursday at reports of forced displacement and
destruction of Kurdish homes and businesses, mainly in Tuz.
In Khanaqin,
near the Iraq-Iran border, a Kurdish demonstrator was killed and six others
wounded by Iraqi security forces on Thursday as the Kurds were protesting
against the takeover of their city, the local mayor said.
Iraq’s
post-Saddam constitution allows the Kurds self rule in three mountainous
northern provinces and guarantees them a fixed percentage of Iraq’s total oil
income, an arrangement that saw them prosper while the rest of the country was
at war.
Although
Kirkuk is outside the autonomous region, many Kurds consider it the heart of
their historic homeland and its oil to be their birthright. Its loss makes
their quest for independence appear remote, since it would leave them with only
about half the oil revenue they had sought to claim for themselves.
Kurdish
Peshmerga moved into Kirkuk without a fight in 2014, taking over positions left
by Iraqi army as it fled in the face of Islamic State militants.
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