IS hits Kirkuk in response to Mosul

Islamic State’s assault on Kirkuk, which lies in an oil-producing region, killed six members of the security forces and two Iranians who were part of a team carrying out maintenance at a power station outside the city, a hospital source said. Crude oil production facilities were not targeted and the power supply continued uninterrupted in the city. Kirkuk is located east of Hawija, a pocket still under control Islamic State that lies between Baghdad and Mosul. 

With air and ground support from the US-led coalition, Iraqi government forces captured eight villages south and southeast of Mosul. Kurdish forces attacking from the north and the east also captured several villages, according to statements from their respective military commands overnight.

Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, addressing anti-Islamic State coalition allies meeting in Paris via video link, said the offensive was advancing more quickly than planned. In Kirkuk, Islamic State attacked several police buildings and a power station in the early hours of Friday and some of the attackers remained holed up in a mosque and an abandoned hotel. The militants also cut the road between the city and the power station 30 km (20 miles) to the north.

At least eight militants were also killed, either by blowing themselves up or in clashes with the security forces, security sources said. Kurdish forces had dislodged the militants from all the police and public buildings they had seized before dawn, they said. Islamic State claimed the attacks in online statements, and authorities declared a curfew in the city where Kurdish forces were getting reinforcements. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters took control of Kirkuk in 2014, after the Iraqi Army withdrew from the region, fleeing an Islamic State advance through northern and western Iraq.

Islamic State militants have taken 550 families from villages around Mosul and are holding them close to Islamic State locations in the Iraqi city, probably as human shields, the UN human rights office said.

“We are gravely worried by reports that ISIL is using civilians in and around Mosul as human shields as the Iraqi forces advance, keeping civilians close to their offices or places where fighters are located, which may result in civilian casualties,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein said in a statement. “There is a grave danger that ISIL fighters will not only use such vulnerable people as human shields but may opt to kill them rather than see them liberated.” 

Iraqi and Kurdish forces, with air and ground support from the US-led coalition, are pursuing operations to seize territory around Mosul in preparation for an offensive on the jihadists’ last major stronghold in Iraq. UN spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani, citing ‘verified information’ from local contacts, said 200 families were forced to walk to Mosul from Samalia village on October 17, and another 350 families left Najafia village for Mosul on the same day. “This would seem to indicate that the reason for these moves is to use them for the purposes of human shields,” she said. The office was also investigating ‘corroborated information’ that Islamic State militants had killed 40 civilians in one village outside Mosul. She declined to give details. Zeid said that Iraq must respect international law when screening civilians leaving areas controlled by Islamic State, a job that should only be done by Army and police.