A senior Iraqi paramilitary leader has repeated warnings to Kurdish troops against staying in the disputed province of Kirkuk, saying that his forces will fight to maintain the province’s affiliation with Iraq.
Qais al-Khazaali, secretary general of Asaeb Ahl al-Haq, a component of the Popular Mobilization Forces, said that Kirkuk is an Iraqi city, adding that “we are ready to fight to defend it”. Speaking during a tribal gathering in Najaf, he was quoted by Alsumaria News saying that “ attempts to divide Iraq is an Israeli scheme to distract us,” as he put it.
The PMF is a Shia-dominated paramilitary force fighting Islamic State militants alongside the government. It is widely believed it enjoys a generous military and financial backing from Iran, a major regional Israel adversary.
“Any force that stands in the face of Iraqi forces at disputed areas will be stricken,” according to Kazaali. “So will be the case with Nineveh Plain, Sinjar, Tal Afar and Rabia,” he added, referring to other areas in Nineveh province where Baghdad and Erbil dispute sovereignty. “No one can prevent the Mobilization from entering any Iraqi region, and there shall be a day when it enters Kirkuk and other disputed regions with the army”.
He, however, vowed to avoid any clash with the Kurdish population.
Oil-rich Kirkuk has been a subject of contentions between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region government. The city has been at the center of an intense political crisis that flared after Kurdistan voted for independence from Iraq in the referendum held on September 25th. Baghdad had objected to running the vote in Kirkuk, and removed ousted its Kurdish governor over his complicity.
Mobilization leaders and forces have occasionally engaged in war of words and field clashes over disputed regions since PMF and Kurdish Peshmerga forces engaged in a government-led campaign to retake areas occupied by Islamic State militants since 2014.
On the other hand, Islamic State has started sending its militants and equipments from a region in western Anbar to the desert, a security source said on Monday.
Speaking to AlSumaria News, the source said “the defeats against IS after liberation of Annah, Anbar, and then Hawija, Kirkuk, the group started sending the rest of militants and equipments from Qaim to Anbar’s western desert.
“The U.S.-led Coalition and army jets continue their shellings against the group in western desert, last of which was destroying a camp in the west of Anbar,” the source, who preferred anonymity, added.
Earlier on the day, Iraqi army warplanes bombarded a camouflaged IS camp in the form of cracks made in the ground at the 160th kilometer region in the center of Anbar’s desert, the military media said. 15 vehicles belonging to the group and ten oil barrels were destroyed in the raid.
More than 200 Syrian IS families coming from Mayadin, where confrontations take place between the militant group and the Syrian army, reportedly accessed Qaim on Sunday.
Iraqi army announced the total recapture of Annah, hours after recapturing neighboring Rayhana area, in September. Troops also liberated Akashat region, between Rutba town, on borders with Jordan, and Qaim, on borders with Syria.
Anbar’s western towns of Qaim and Rawa have been held by the extremist group since 2014, when it occupied one third of Iraq to proclaim a self-styled Islamic “Caliphate”. Iraqi troops were able to return life back to normal in the biggest cities of Anbar including Fallujah, Ramadi and others after recapturing them in 2015 and 2016.