KIRKUK, IRAQ // A suspected extremist gunman captured during a surprise attack on the oil-rich city of Kirkuk on Friday said the raid was planned to divert attention from a major offensive on Mosul.
He made the admission during interrogation by Kurdish forces.
“Today’s attack was one of caliph Baghdadi’s plans to demonstrate that the Islamic State is remaining and expanding and to reduce the pressure on the Mosul front,” he said, his hands cuffed behind his back.
He gave his name to the Kurdish security forces as Hani Aydan Mustafa, but his role in ISIL was not clear.
He had been living in Kirkuk since fleeing his hometown of Beiji during an offensive by pro-government forces last year to retake it from ISIL and was caught as he was about to enter a mosque in the southern neighbourhood of Domiz.
Several senior officials, including Kirkuk governor Najmeddin Karim, said Friday’s brazen attack by dozens of ISIL gunmen was likely to have involved sleeper cells.
Security officials said at least six policemen and 12 ISIL fighters were killed in clashes that continued into the evening. Some senior security sources set the number of dead extremists much higher.
“My duty was to enter the mosque and proclaim the takbeer to invite Kirkuk residents to welcome victory,” said the arrested ISIL suspect, referring to the Arabic phrase Allahu Akbar – God is greatest. Each group in the attack had a specific task. Among the fighters were women responsible for documenting the operation.
The assault, together with another farther north, came as pro-government forces were making major gains on the fifth day of their advance on Mosul, the last major urban centre held by ISIL in Iraq.
A group of men carrying rifles and grenades and wearing what were described as “Afghan-style clothes” walked down a street in Kirkuk. Several of the extremists involved in the attack wore suicide vests.
Five suicide bombers struck government targets in the city, including police headquarters, in a coordinated attack that began in the middle of the night.
North of Kirkuk, at least 11 workers were killed when ISIL stormed a power plant in Dibis and then blew themselves up.
The attackers asked to be taken to Iranians who worked at the plant. One of the workers took them to the Iranians before escaping.
The militants then murdered the Iranians and the other workers, and detonated their explosive vests when police arrived, said Dibis police chief Maj Ahmed Kader Ali.
ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack through its affiliated Amaq news agency.
Gunfire and explosions echoed across the Kirkuk all morning, and live footage on television showed street battles in several neighbourhoods. Iraqi journalist Abdelkader Mohammed, 30, was shot dead by a militant sniper and an air raid killed 15 women at a Shiite shrine at Dakuk, near Kirkuk.
“Around morning prayers, I saw several Daesh fighters enter Al Mohammadi mosque,” said Haidar Abdelhussein, a teacher who lives in the Tesaeen neighbourhood. “They used the loudspeakers to shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘Dawla al Islam baqiya’ [Islamic State will remain].”
The governor of Kirkuk, Najmeddin Karim, said he suspected the involvement of ISIL sleeper cells. The attacks appeared to be well coordinated, using the modus operandi known as “inghimasi”, which describes operations carried out by gunmen who wear explosive vests or belts and intend to make a suicidal last stand.
A curfew was slapped on the entire city as members of the Kurdish security forces who control Kirkuk and other men took to the roofs with assault rifles.
According to Amaq, the extremists claimed control of half of the city but reports from witnesses and security officers suggested that was an exaggeration.
Kirkuk lies 240 kilometres north of Baghdad, in an oil-rich region. The large city is ethnically and religiously divided but 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.
The extremists controlled more than a third of Iraq two years ago but its “caliphate” has been shrinking steadily since.
A 60-nation US-led coalition and neighbouring Iran have been helping Iraqi forces to regain one city after another.
According to the peshmerga command, up to 10,000 of their number are fighting on three fronts in one of the largest ground-led assaults against ISIL and “a number of peshmerga have paid the ultimate sacrifice”.
According to the United Nations, 5,640 people were displaced in the first three days of the operation. But the number is expected to rise as hostilities intensify closer to urban areas. Up to 1.5 million people may still be inside Mosul, trapped by the estimated 3,000 to 4,500 ISIL fighters digging in for a major assault by the advancing Iraqi forces.
Aid organisations fear refugee numbers peaking as winter sets in without sufficient shelter capacity for the displaced.
* Agence France-Presse
