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| Iraq |
| Kurdish forces clashes with Iraqi military after Kirkuk surrender |
| 2017-10-21 |
| [DAWN] Iraqi federal and Kurdish forces exchanged fire at their shared border on Friday, capping a dramatic week of manoeuvres that saw the Kurds hand over territory across northern Iraq. Iraqi forces shelled Kurdish military positions north and south of Altun Kupri, a town of about 9,000 people just outside the country's autonomous Kurdish region, a day after Brigadier Gen Raad Baddai gave warning he was going to enter the town. Organised Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, as well as irregular forces, responded with rocket fire. By mid-day, Iraq's defence ministry said anti-terrorism forces, the federal police and the country's Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Front (PMF) militias had taken the town. But the peshmerga's general command disputed that claim, saying Kurdish fighters fought off the advance and destroyed 10 Humvees and an Abrams tank. Ercuman Turkmen, a PMF commander, said from inside the town his forces were being targeted by sniper fire. Speaking to the AP by phone, he said he had no orders to enter the Kurdish autonomous region. There were no casualty reports but AP news hounds saw ambulances outside the town. The boundaries of the country's Kurdish region have long been disputed between Baghdad and Irbil, the Kurdish capital, but Kurdish forces this week withdrew in most areas to positions they last held in 2014, effectively restoring the contours of the map to the time before the rise of the Lion of Islam Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... (IS) group. They pulled out of nearby Kirkuk after brief festivities and handed over surrounding oil fields nearly without a fight, but they held on to Altun Kupri, making a symbolic last stand in front of the vastly more powerful Iraqi army. "The Kurdistan peshmerga forces have resisted heroically in this confrontation and have recorded a great honour," the peshmerga general command said in a statement released mid-day. Altun Kupri is the last town on the federal side of the border on the road between Kirkuk and Irbil. Kurdish forces entered Kirkuk in 2014 when Iraq's army melted away ahead of the Islamic IS' blitz across northern and western Iraq. |
| Posted by:Fred |