By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Los Angeles Times
IRBUL, Iraq — With an offensive underway to oust Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul, militants staged a surprise attack early Friday about 95 miles south in Kirkuk.
“It was expected that (Islamic State) sleeper cells would make a move in Kirkuk one day,” Kirkuk Gov. Najmaldin Karim told the Kurdish news agency Rudaw, emphasizing that Islamic State had not seized any government buildings. “Now that the Mosul offensive has started, they want to boost their own morale this way.”
The attack targeted the Dubiz power plant, a police station, neighborhoods and some outlying villages, according to Kamal Karkuki, a Kurdish peshmerga commander in west Kirkuk.
At least 11 workers, including two Iranians, were killed when militants stormed the power plant and blew themselves up, the Associated Press reported.
“This is further evidence of Daesh brutality and desperate tactics that harm innocent civilians,” said Army Maj. Michael J. Burns of the U.S-led coalition known as the Combined Joint Task Force, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “Daesh continues to take the lives of civilians in an attempt to hold on to the last vestiges of control, hurting others to protect themselves.”
Officials urged residents to stay inside early Friday as they battled what Karkuki described as a small group of militants. Images broadcast on local television showed what appeared to be dead or injured fighters on the street in Kirkuk.
Islamic State released statements claiming to control half of the city, a strategic oil hub that is home to about 900,000 people, but Karkuki said that the city “is still under the control of the security forces.”
He said there were three main groups of attackers at the power plant, police station and neighborhoods.
At the power plant about 20 miles northwest of Kirkuk, four militants attacked and all were killed, he said, one when he detonated a suicide vest. No Peshmerga or police were injured in the attack, he said, and the power plant was not damaged. Rudaw reported that 10 power plant workers were killed.
Karkuki said the attack was a diversionary tactic to draw forces away from the battle outside Mosul, but that it would not work.
“They cannot control our city like Mosul or Hawija or Ramadi,” Karkuki said. “We have enough peshmerga here fighting against them. They have no chance.”
He said the attack also showed that as Iraqi security forces’ defenses have strengthened in the north, the militants will turn to guerrilla tactics to penetrate and attack, and that forces must be on alert.
“Now they cannot cross our line to get to Kirkuk, so they use tactics to pose as (displaced people) and attack from inside. We must be very careful and take it very seriously. We will not allow them to stay in Kurdistan,” he said.
He said the attack showed why Kirkuk, which has drawn hundreds of thousands of displaced people from Mosul and surrounding towns, needs a new camp with security screening to prevent Islamic State from infiltrating the city.
“Many ISIS come to us under the name of (displaced people),” Karkuki said, “Not all, but some.”
Officials and residents at camps for displaced people south of Mosul said Islamic State militants, after shaving their beards and attempting to pose as civilians, have been caught there by camp security in recent days.
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