Jitters in Kirkuk Over Iraqi Troop Movements

  • 6 years ago
Jitters in Kirkuk Over Iraqi Troop Movements
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters in Washington on Friday
that with American troops "integrated among these forces," he was concerned about an escalation to "a shooting situation." But he said American forces were "working too, to make certain we keep any potential for conflict off the table." Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the coalition in Baghdad, said American troops remained focused on advising and training Iraqi forces.
Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, said Friday on Twitter
that the reports were "fake news," writing, "Our forces cannot and will not attack our citizens, whether Arab or Kurd." Kurdish officials continued to say on Friday that they were concerned about an Iraqi military buildup, but also said that they were withdrawing from certain areas to avoid conflict with Iraqi troops.
Jafar Shakhe Mustafa, the commander of Kurdish forces in the city of Kirkuk, said in a separate interview
that the withdrawals were intended to avoid conflict with Iraqi forces, "who stood with us in fighting Daesh." The extremist group Islamic State is also known as Daesh, ISIS or ISIL.
Hemin Hawrami, a spokesman for Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish region, said pesh merga forces in Kirkuk city had been reinforced
by several thousand volunteers as part of a "rapid reaction plan" in response to reports of a buildup of Iraqi forces outside the city.
The only troop movements that could be confirmed were the withdrawals of Kurdish forces from two small districts south of the city, a move
that one Kurdish commander said was coordinated with the Iraqi military and allowed them to take over the vacated positions.
Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, and Iraqi government troops are part of the American-led coalition
that has driven Islamic State militants from most of the territory they seized in 2014 in northern and western Iraq.

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