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Tensions rise between Iraqi and Kurdish forces over Kirkuk

T

TacticalHotdog

Member
BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces have demanded that Kurdish troops withdraw from oil fields and military bases around the contested city of Kirkuk, Kurdish officials and a senior militia leader said Friday, leading to a tense standoff around the city.

Kurdish peshmerga soldiers rallied to protect Kirkuk on Thursday night, as interior ministry troops and Shiite militias mobilized nearby. Volunteer and retired fighters bolstered the lines. Several positions were taken over by Iraqi forces, however, with Kurdish officers saying they received orders to withdraw.

The Kirkuk area, with about 10 percent of Iraq’s oil reserves, has long been contested between Baghdad and Irbil, but the province has become even more of a flash point since Kurdistan voted in favor of independence in a referendum last month.
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At the center of the military conflagration are areas that forces loyal to the central government in Baghdad occupied before the Islamic State’s advance in 2014, but lost as Iraqi forces collapsed en masse in northern Iraq.

Kurdistan sees Kirkuk — ethnically and religiously mixed and home to Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Assyrian Christians, Sunnis and Shiites — as a historically Kurdish city where demographics were shifted by a campaign of “Arabization” under Iraq’s former dictatorial ruler, Saddam Hussein. Baghdad contests that claim.

Relations between Baghdad and Irbil have deteriorated in recent weeks after the semiautonomous government in the north defied the vehement opposition of Baghdad, as well as that of the United States and its neighbors, to hold a vote on independence. Baghdad has blocked international flights to Irbil in retaliation and has threatened to take over border crossings.
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In Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi took to Twitter on Friday to dismiss reports that Iraqi forces were planning to attack Kurdistan as “fake news” with a “deplorable agenda.” Other commanders said Iraqi forces’ movements were related to securing the nearby town of Hawija, which was recently recaptured from Islamic State militants.

But the country’s interior minister, Qassim al-Araji, said that there was a “process of redeployment” underway that would see Iraqi forces return to the positions they held in the area before the Islamic State’s advance in 2014, when the Iraqi army collapsed in huge areas of the country’s north.

Najmaldin Karim, governor of Kirkuk, said that Baghdad has demanded that the peshmerga retreat from the K-1 military base and the oil fields run by Iraq’s North Oil Co. “They gave us an ultimatum,” he said. “There were troop movements of Shiite militias, some of them were disguised as the federal police, they were with elements of the army, they moved toward our vital infrastructure, power plants, gas and oil fields.”

Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War, said Araji’s statement could be viewed by Kurdish authorities as a “statement of intent” designed to signal allied Shiite militias that they should proceed with a military buildup to reclaim lands once held by Iraqi forces before they abandoned them in June.

“I think the Kurds are reading the tea leaves correctly,” Kagan said.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...c2cd0e-afa3-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html

Iraq has begun massing troops around Kirkuk as seen in this video report:
https://vimeo.com/238044933

The Kurds have been given an ultimatum to leave Kirkuk by 2 AM or face attack
They were given a deadline of 02:00 on Sunday (23:00 GMT on Saturday) to quit military facilities and oil fields.

Brief clashes also erupted between Kurdish forces and Shia militia backing the Iraqi government.

Tensions have been on the rise since Kurds held a referendum on independence last month, which Iraq called illegal.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41621754
The two most prominent western-backed forces fighting ISIS in Iraq are on the verge of fighting amongst themselves. What a clusterfuck.

Iraq has also started doing military exercises with Turkey after the referendum vote, so they will probably cooperate in preventing the Kurds from creating a state. As much as the West champions the Kurds as a ray of hope in the region, I doubt they will support them if push comes to shove in this situation
 
M

mlclmtckr

Banned
It's incredibly worrying that this is happening. Basically the Iraq government seems to want all of the land that the Kurds took from ISIS. And the Kurds do not want to give it back.

It does seem like Turkey (and to a lesser extent Iran) are the big question marks here. Because no matter how successful the Kurds in Iraq and Syria are in gaining autonomy, there's no way they can carve out territory from those bigger regional powers.
 
R

Razgriz-Specter

Member
mlclmtckr said:
It's incredibly worrying that this is happening. Basically the Iraq government seems to want all of the land that the Kurds took from ISIS. And the Kurds do not want to give it back.

It does seem like Turkey (and to a lesser extent Iran) are the big question marks here. Because no matter how successful the Kurds in Iraq and Syria are in gaining autonomy, there's no way they can carve out territory from those bigger regional powers.
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Wasn't there something recently that said shockingly Turkey was in support of this?
 
M

mlclmtckr

Banned
Razgriz-Specter said:
Wasn't there something recently that said shockingly Turkey was in support of this?
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Well Turkey does support the Kurds in Iraq and Syria from time to time, or at least tacitly allow them to operate. They're the natural buffer between IS and Turkey. But they have at other times fucked with them quite a lot, blockaded Rojava and funded rival militias. Basically there are alliances of convenience.

But after this war, when Kurdish nationalism starts to look towards the North and East, I don't see Erdogan being too kind to them.
 
S

slider

Member
Don't know if it'll reach boiling point but I'd guess that hard deadline might move to the right a bit.

Hoping for a peaceful outcome. God knows the region doesn't need more conflict / turmoil.
 
Turbo Killer

Turbo Killer

Member
I hope the Iraqi army kicks their ass and puts them in their place, as an Assyrian I have no love for these assholes and the shit they are pulling in northern Iraq.
 
Y

Yeoman

Member
Turbo Killer said:
I hope the Iraqi army kicks their ass and puts them in their place, as an Assyrian I have no love for these assholes and the shit they are pulling in northern Iraq.
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Nobody on this forum will have any idea what you're talking about because of the western world's inexplicable Kurdish fetish.

Give the world a bunch of images of women with guns and apparently it will forget about your genocides, female genital mutilation, and land grabbing escapades.
 
Turbo Killer

Turbo Killer

Member
Yeoman said:
Nobody on this forum will have any idea what you're talking about because of the western world's inexplicable Kurdish fetish.

Give the world a bunch of images of women with guns and apparently it will forget about your genocides, female genital mutilation, and land grabbing escapades.
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Thank you, it pisses me off when people talk about the poor fucking Kurds and how they have been given a raw deal. I honestly don’t expect anybody on this board to give a damn about the Christian minority in Iraq when the US has bigger things to worry about nationally.

These fuckers allowed ISIS in Christian areas so they can look like fucking heroes later on and take the land for themselves.
 
C

ChainedMaster

Banned
Turbo Killer said:
Thank you, it pisses me off when people talk about the poor fucking Kurds and how they have been given a raw deal. I honestly don’t expect anybody on this board to give a damn about the Christian minority in Iraq when the US has bigger things to worry about nationally.

These fuckers allowed ISIS in Christian areas so they can look like fucking heroes later on and take the land for themselves.
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Uh..both the Iraqi forces and the peshmerga fled from ISIS at that stage.
 
M

mlclmtckr

Banned
Yeoman said:
Nobody on this forum will have any idea what you're talking about because of the western world's inexplicable Kurdish fetish.

Give the world a bunch of images of women with guns and apparently it will forget about your genocides, female genital mutilation, and land grabbing escapades.
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The Assyrian genocide is absolutely horrific and unforgivable. And FGM is barbarous and disgusting. But the genocide was also 100 years ago and FGM is a specifically Iraqi Kurdish practice and is in decline. That is not to excuse or minimize these atrocities at all, but only to point out that those women you see on the news with rifles are not the same people that perpetrated those atrocities.

They're not even the people in this story, really, since most of those pictures are of YPJ fighters and the force in Kirkuk is (obviously) peshmerga.

Right now in Syria there is a polyethnic, secular, feminist socialist government in the Kurdish north, and they are helping a lot to defeat IS. That is admirable and fills me with hope. I don't see any reason to lump those "women with guns" who are fighting for a secular feminist state in with the people who perpetrated a genocide in the 1910s.
 
M

mlclmtckr

Banned
The deadline has passed with no large-scale conflict. Some people on Twitter are saying the deadline was extended 24 hours, but I don't know if that's confirmed.
 
T

TacticalHotdog

Member
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...lds-iran-shuts-border-crossings-idUSKBN1CK0BX
Iraqi Forces have begun movement, but there have been no signs of armed conflict so far.
https://twitter.com/RudawEnglish/status/919693432662249477
https://twitter.com/RudawEnglish/status/919696576175575041
https://twitter.com/RudawEnglish/status/919697802778828800
However, the governor of Kirkuk is urging people to take up arms against Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi and Iraqi army
Rudaw is livestreaming the situation right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLjoqjPmAV0
 
T

TacticalHotdog

Member
Iraqi State TV claims that Iraqi forces have taken control of "vast areas" of Kirkuk without conflict so far
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi gave orders to the security forces “to impose security in Kirkuk in cooperation with the population and the Peshmerga,” the TV said.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-in-kirkuk-region-state-tv-idUSKBN1CK0XL?il=0

On Rudaw's stream there are still a large crowd of people standing in the middle of the street, some armed and some unarmed. At least the fervor appears to have died down compared to an hour ago.
 
A

Aaronrules380

Member
Valhelm said:
This is starting to look like civil war.

And given the close ties between Iraq and Iran, the American response to this incident could have some very, very serious implications.
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It’d Really nice to have a sane, competent individual in the White House around now
 
O

Oriel

Member
Valhelm said:
This is starting to look like civil war.

And given the close ties between Iraq and Iran, the American response to this incident could have some very, very serious implications.
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Starting to?! There's been non-stop civil war in Iraq since the 2003 US invasion. It's an artificial entity that is unworkable, ungovernable and should be broken up into Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish states.
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
Oriel said:
Starting to?! There's been non-stop civil war in Iraq since the 2003 US invasion. It's an artificial entity that is unworkable, ungovernable and should be broken up into Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish states.
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You know very well what I mean. A full-scale conflict between Baghdad and the KRG would be something not seen in the context of post-invasion Iraq, with the potential to be even more devastating than the Islamic State insurrection if not the good fortune that the KRG is less likely commit genocide.
 
O

Oriel

Member
Valhelm said:
You know very well what I mean. A full-scale conflict between Baghdad and the KRG would be something not seen in the context of post-invasion Iraq, with the potential to be even more devastating than the Islamic State insurrection if not the good fortune that the KRG is less likely commit genocide.
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The Kurds have been fighting the Iraqi state for decades. This is nothing new. I wish the Kurds all the best in liberating themselves from Arab/Turkish/Iranian domination. Fuck the IRGC controlled regime in Baghdad.
 
T

TheRealTalker

Banned
Eternal Gamer said:
Most of Kirkuk are arabs, I don't see the kurds gaining any support inside the city, they better cut their loses and retire.
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yeah but aren't the Sunni arabs?

I saw a video of the Kurdish referendum on the news that showed arabs in that region approving for a Kurdish state in order to free themselves from persecution and murder from Iranian backed militia
 
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