AFP, Kirkuk :
Jihadist gunmen, some of them wearing suicide vests, attacked the Iraqi city of Kirkuk Friday, an apparent effort to divert the thousands of troops and militiamen closing in on their Mosul stronghold.
The assault, together with another further north, left at least 22 people dead and came as pro-government forces were making major gains on the fifth day of their advance on the last major urban centre held by the Islamic State group in Iraq.
An AFP correspondent saw a group of men carrying rifles and grenades and wearing “Afghan-style clothes” walk down a street in Kirkuk, an ethnically divided city to the south of Mosul under Kurdish control. At least five suicide bombers struck government targets in the city, including the main police headquarters, in a coordinated attack that began in the middle of the night.
The Islamic State jihadist group claimed the attack, according to the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency.
Gunfire and explosions echoed across the city all morning, residents said, and live footage on local television showed street battles in several neighbourhoods.
“Around morning prayers, I saw several Dawaesh (IS fighters) enter Al-Mohammadi mosque,” Haidar Abdelhussein, a teacher who lives in the Tesaeen neighbourhood, told AFP.
“They used the loudspeakers to shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is greatest) and ‘Dawla al-Islam baqiya’ (Islamic State will remain),” he said.
The governor of Kirkuk, Najmeddin Karim, told AFP he suspected the involvement of IS sleeper cells. According to Amaq, the jihadist group claimed to control half of the city but reports from witnesses and security officers suggest that may be an exaggeration. Kirkuk lies 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad, in an oil-rich region. The large city is ethnically and religiously divided but currently under Kurdish control.
·Kurdish peshmerga fighters have played a major role in the advance on Mosul-Iraq’s biggest military operation in years-and both they and federal security forces have made gains on several fronts.
Political and military leaders have praised what they say is faster than expected progress, with IS offering deadly but so far ineffective resistance as forces backed by air strikes steamroller towards the edge of Iraq’s second city.
The jihadists defending the city where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a “caliphate” in June 2014 are vastly outnumbered and the final outcome is hardly in doubt.
Jihadist gunmen, some of them wearing suicide vests, attacked the Iraqi city of Kirkuk Friday, an apparent effort to divert the thousands of troops and militiamen closing in on their Mosul stronghold.
The assault, together with another further north, left at least 22 people dead and came as pro-government forces were making major gains on the fifth day of their advance on the last major urban centre held by the Islamic State group in Iraq.
An AFP correspondent saw a group of men carrying rifles and grenades and wearing “Afghan-style clothes” walk down a street in Kirkuk, an ethnically divided city to the south of Mosul under Kurdish control. At least five suicide bombers struck government targets in the city, including the main police headquarters, in a coordinated attack that began in the middle of the night.
The Islamic State jihadist group claimed the attack, according to the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency.
Gunfire and explosions echoed across the city all morning, residents said, and live footage on local television showed street battles in several neighbourhoods.
“Around morning prayers, I saw several Dawaesh (IS fighters) enter Al-Mohammadi mosque,” Haidar Abdelhussein, a teacher who lives in the Tesaeen neighbourhood, told AFP.
“They used the loudspeakers to shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is greatest) and ‘Dawla al-Islam baqiya’ (Islamic State will remain),” he said.
The governor of Kirkuk, Najmeddin Karim, told AFP he suspected the involvement of IS sleeper cells. According to Amaq, the jihadist group claimed to control half of the city but reports from witnesses and security officers suggest that may be an exaggeration. Kirkuk lies 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad, in an oil-rich region. The large city is ethnically and religiously divided but currently under Kurdish control.
·Kurdish peshmerga fighters have played a major role in the advance on Mosul-Iraq’s biggest military operation in years-and both they and federal security forces have made gains on several fronts.
Political and military leaders have praised what they say is faster than expected progress, with IS offering deadly but so far ineffective resistance as forces backed by air strikes steamroller towards the edge of Iraq’s second city.
The jihadists defending the city where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a “caliphate” in June 2014 are vastly outnumbered and the final outcome is hardly in doubt.
