With the Battle for Kirkuk, A New Iraq Civil War May Be Just Beginning

THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY ENEMY

With the Battle for Kirkuk, A New Iraq Civil War May Be Just Beginning

The U.S. has armed and trained the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi government troops who are now pitted against each other. What side is the Trump administration on? Does it know?

Florian Neuhof
10.16.17 1:55 PM ET

Iraqi government forces, some trained by the U.S. and some backed by Iran, have expelled Kurdish Peshmerga troops—longtime U.S. allies—from the disputed city of Kirkuk. The oil-rich metropolis has long been seen as the potential epicenter of Iraq’s next civil war.

The clash comes only months after the defeat of the so-called Islamic State in the Iraqi city of Mosul, and it is just a year since I watched a combined Iraqi and Kurdish force, working together, commence those operations to free Iraq’s second most populous city from ISIS.

In fact, combat against ISIS is not entirely finished in Iraq. Fighters still linger in the deserts near the Syrian border. But it’s as if the Iraqi and Kurdish troops—both trained and equipped by the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition—could not wait to turn their guns on each other.

Progress was swift as Iraqi forces advanced on the hitherto Kurdish-held city from the south and west, taking a military base and oil installations in the process. By the afternoon, special forces that had been instrumental in defeating ISIS in Mosul entered the governorate building in Kirkuk.
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In a statement issued on Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi said he had ordered government forces to forward “to reimpose federal authority in the province.”

Kurdish Peshmerga troops either retreated ahead of the Iraqi advance or pulled back after clashing with Iraqi troops in the early stages of the operation. As the Kurdish front collapsed, accusations of betrayal were levelled at one of the main Kurdish political parties that controls most of the troops stationed in Kirkuk.

Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), had given the Peshmerga “the green light to use every power to stand against” Iraqi forces if they are forced to fight, Hemin Hawrami, a senior assistant to Barzani said on Twitter.