Mobilization leader reiterates readiness to fight for Kirkuk

Qais al-Khazaali, secretary general of Asaeb Ahl al-Haq, a component of the Popular Mobilization Forces, said that Kirkuk is an Iraqi city, adding that “we are ready to fight to defend it”. Speaking during a tribal gathering in Najaf, he was quoted by Alsumaria News saying that “ attempts to divide Iraq is an Israeli scheme to distract us,” as he put it.

The PMF is a Shia-dominated paramilitary force fighting Islamic State militants alongside the government. It is widely believed it enjoys a generous military and financial backing from Iran, a major regional Israel adversary.

“Any force that stands in the face of Iraqi forces at disputed areas will be stricken,” according to Kazaali. “So will be the case with Nineveh Plain, Sinjar, Tal Afar and Rabia,” he added, referring to other areas in Nineveh province where Baghdad and Erbil dispute sovereignty. “No one can prevent the Mobilization from entering any Iraqi region, and there shall be a day when it enters Kirkuk and other disputed regions with the army”.

He, however, vowed to avoid any clash with the Kurdish population.

Oil-rich Kirkuk has been a subject of contentions between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region government. The city has been at the center of an intense political crisis that flared after Kurdistan voted for independence from Iraq in the referendum held on September 25th. Baghdad had objected to running the vote in Kirkuk, and removed ousted its Kurdish governor over his complicity.

Mobilization leaders and forces have occasionally engaged in war of words and field clashes over disputed regions since PMF and Kurdish Peshmerga forces engaged in a government-led campaign to retake areas occupied by Islamic State militants since 2014.