Islamic State militants launched their biggest offensive yet
outside the Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk and tried to
penetrate the city itself, in a spate of brazen attacks by the
extremist group on Kurdish forces across Iraq.
A senior Kurdish commander, Brig. Gen. Sherko Fatih, was among
at least six Kurdish forces killed in the surprise attack southwest
of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, which officials said began just after
midnight Friday.
As fighting raged outside the city, fighters from Islamic State,
also known as ISIS, staged a bold attack within Kirkuk itself.
Local officials said militants tried to break in to the Kirkuk
Palace Hotel after detonating a car bomb in front of the hotel, a
rare incursion into the city center.
Kirkuk governor Najmaldin Karim said Kurdish forces and local
police foiled the hotel break-in, killing three militants. The
Kurdish force known as Peshmerga "foiled today a break-in operation
by ISIS toward oil and gas installations from three directions that
aimed at reaching the center of Kirkuk," Mr. Karim said.
After hours of fighting, Peshmerga officials also said they
pushed the militants back from the areas where they had advanced
southwest of Kirkuk, focusing particularly on cutting their access
to roads leading to oil infrastructure.
Still, the strings of attacks on Friday are a fresh setback for
the Kurdish forces at the front line of the fight against Islamic
State in Iraq. The militants have fought the Peshmerga and other
Kurdish forces around Erbil, the capital of the semiautonomous
Kurdistan region in the north, and areas further south closer to
Baghdad. But attacks around Kirkuk, the oil-rich city under the
control of Kurdish forces, are rare.
Also Friday, Islamic State suicide bombers targeted Peshmerga
forces in Jalawla, a Kurdish-controlled town in Diyala province,
killing seven Peshmerga fighters. Bomb attacks struck Baghdad and,
north of it, the city of Samarra. In western Anbar province, an
Islamic State stronghold, militants launched fresh attacks on
security forces holed out in Fallujah, security officials said.
Officials in Baghdad and Erbil broadly characterized the attacks
across the country as signs Islamic State was lashing out, after
losing some momentum and ground in Iraq in recent weeks.
In Syria, Kurdish fighters backed by Syrian rebels and months of
coalition airstrikes seized back the city center of Kobani, a
Kurdish city on the Turkish border, in a highly symbolic victory
for both the Kurds and the international coalition against Islamic
State.
Iraqi Parliament speaker Salim al-Jabouri said the Islamic State
offensive on Friday came as "cover for the repeated defeats
suffered by ISIS." Mr. Jabouri called the Kirkuk attacks "a
desperate attempt to undermine stability and social peace witness
by Kirkuk."
U.S. officials say the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Islamic
State has recently begun to wear on the leadership and operational
structure of the militant group, which seized chunks of Iraq and
Syria last year.
In Iraq, security forces and Shiite militias battling the Sunni
extremist group have made progress in some provinces, but Islamic
State controls much of Anbar province in the west and has kept
control of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.
In the north, the militants are still lodged in villages some 30
kilometers on the outskirts of Erbil. Islamic State attacked the
area southwest of Kirkuk, the same area under attack on Friday,
about two months ago but the offensive then was less sweeping,
local officials said. In recent weeks, the group has gathered
suicide bombers and foreign fighters in the same area, in apparent
preparation for the new attack, the officials said.
Early Friday, under the cover of dark and a particularly foggy
night, Islamic State launched the Kirkuk attack from three areas
south and west of the city, local officials said: Tal al-Ward,
al-Khalid, and Maryam Beik. Airstrikes by the international
anti-Islamic State coalition began to hit Islamic State vehicles in
the area shortly after, the officials said.
Peshmerga sent in reinforcements and were joined by special
counter-terrorism forces from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan--the
Iran-allied Kurdish force blacklisted by the U.S.--in southern
Kirkuk for counter-attacks, said Wista Rasool, operations commander
in southern Kirkuk province.
By Friday afternoon, the Kurdish forces re-seized key villages
and roads leading to oil infrastructure in the city, Mr. Rasool
said. Another local security official said the Islamic State
commander leading Friday's offensive was killed in the
counter-attack.
Dozens of residents across Kirkuk fired guns into the air to
celebrate the apparent success of the counter-attack by Kurdish
forces, eyewitnesses said, showing how ominous a threat the Islamic
State advance on their city was.
Ghassan Adnan in Baghdad contributed to this item.
Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@wsj.com
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