Error occured during this request! Please try again later.
Kurdistan
Kurdish Peshmerga officers march in formation as they take part in a graduation ceremony in the Kurdish town of Soran, northeast of Erbil, February 12, 2020. Photo: Safin Hamed / AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Peshmerga officials have called for a “swift” security deal between Erbil and Baghdad to address the security vacuum in the disputed territories where jihadists killed four Kurdish villagers on Wednesday.
Four young Kurds were killed and two more injured in an attack by suspected Islamic State (ISIS) militants on the village of Chakhmakha, northwest of Kirkuk, on Wednesday.
CCTV footage seen by Rudaw’s reporter purportedly shows two gunmen infiltrating the village on Tuesday evening. A gunman can be seen firing through the window of a youth recreation club, shooting those inside.
Chakhmakha is located on a stretch of disputed land between Dibis and the district of Khanaqin, close to the Iraq-Iran border.
“Terrorists have seized the opportunity of a security vacuum in the disputed areas,” the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministry of Peshmerga said in a statement Thursday.
“Therefore, we are declaring that this is the responsibility of the Iraqi government and army and other relevant sides to protect the lives and properties of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen and other components. Their safety lies on the shoulders of those forces responsible to protect these areas.”
“We are assuring every side that we can provide security and restore stability to the region in coordination between the Peshmerga Ministry and the Iraqi government,” the statement added.
The expulsion of the Peshmerga from the disputed territories by Iraqi forces in late 2017 led to the creation of a security gap in these areas, allowing ISIS sleeper cells to regroup and conduct insurgent activities such as bombings, ambushes, kidnappings, extortion, and arson.
Despite the territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq in December 2017, the disputed territories have seen multiple car bombings and the torching of cropland in Nineveh, Saladin, and Kirkuk provinces.
As a result of the worsening security situation and ISIS resurgence, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Peshmerga began talks in February 2019 for a joint mechanism to administer the disputed territories.
Five months later, at the beginning of July 2019, outgoing Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi claimed Erbil and Baghdad had reached a military agreement concerning the disputed territories.
“The Iraqi Government and the Ministry of Peshmerga have reached an agreement regarding the security of the disputed areas. They have decided to protect the Iraq-Syria border and the Iraq-Iran border covering a total of 500 kilometers,” Abdul-Mahdi said.
Kurdish officials have warned multiple times that ISIS is re-emerging and have demanded the continuation of international support for Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
ISIS took control of vast swaths of Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014. The US-led coalition helped the Iraqi Security Forces (SDF) and the Kurdish Peshmerga to defeat the group in Iraq in 2017, and partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to eliminate the group’s last strongholds in Syria in early 2019.
Forced underground, ISIS has returned to its earlier insurgency tactics. In late January, militants abducted nine civilians in the Garmiyan region of Diyala, where they regularly establish fake checkpoints. The fate of the civilians remains unknown.
Four Kurdish hostages were released by the group this week in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in ransom.
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment