Iraqi government forces had captured the major Kurdish-held oil city of Kirkuk, as a response to the Kurdish referendum on independence. This could flow into a civil war, if not treated properly.
A convoy of armored vehicles from Iraq’s elite U.S.-trained Counter-Terrorism Force seized Kirkuk’s provincial government headquarters less than a day after the operation began.
A dozen Iraqi armoured vehicles arrived at the provincial government headquarters in Kirkuk and took up positions nearby, alongside local police. They pulled down the Kurdish flag and left the Iraqi flag flying.
Thousands of Kurdish civilians fled the city of 1 million people for fear of reprisals. A Kurdish father of four who was driving out of Kirkuk towards the Kurdish regional capital Erbil to the north said: “We no longer feel safe. We hope to return to our home but right now we feel it’s dangerous for us to stay.”
Crowds of ethnic Turkmen who opposed Kurdish control of the city were celebrating. Some drove in convoys with Iraqi flags and fired shots in the air.
The overnight advance was the most decisive step Baghdad has taken yet to block the independence bid of the Kurds, who have long governed an autonomous tract of northern Iraq and voted three weeks ago to secede.
Kirkuk, one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse cities in Iraq, is located just outside the autonomous Kurdish zone. Kurds consider it the heart of their homeland; they say it was cleansed of Kurds and settled with Arabs under former President Saddam Hussein to secure control of the oil.
As Iraqi forces advanced into their territory, Kurdish operators briefly shut some 350,000 barrels per day of oil output at two large Kirkuk fields, citing security concerns, oil ministry sources on both sides said. But production resumed shortly thereafter following an Iraqi threat to seize fields under Kurdish management if they did not do so.
It was not immediately clear whether or when the Iraqi government would seek to retake control of all Kirkuk oilfields, a vital source of revenue for the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Fighting between Baghdad and the Kurds could open an entirely new front in Iraq’s 14-year-old civil war and potentially draw in regional powers such as Turkey and Iran.
Washington arms and trains both Iraqi federal forces and the Peshmerga to fight Islamic State militants.
The Kurdish secession bid was strongly opposed by neighbours Iran and Turkey. Washington, allied with the Kurds for decades, pleaded in vain for them to halt a vote that could break up Iraq.
There were signs of internal strife among the Kurds, who have been divided for decades into two main factions, the KDP of regional government leader Barzani and the PUK of his late rival Jalal Talabani.
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