Saturday, October 07, 2006
Security crackdown in Kirkuk
Security
Thousands of Iraqi police and soldiers launched a major security crackdown in the restive Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk on Saturday, searching homes for weapons after all residents were ordered off the streets for an undisclosed period of time. Kirkuk police chief Major General Shirko Shakir said cars and pedestrians had been cleared from the city's streets after an indefinite curfew was imposed on Friday night and Iraqi security forces began sweeping through neighbourhoods. Iraqi police Major General Jamal Taher said a 15 km trench had been dug south of the city in the last week to try to prevent insurgents and car bombs from entering the city.
A volatile ethnic mix of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, Kirkuk has maintained a tense calm with an argumentative, yet active, provincial council working through various issues, until an insurgent campaign burst to life over the summer. In recent months, a string of car bombs has rocked Kirkuk, targeting its various communities and threatening to plunge a city known for its surrounding vast oil reserves into chaos. The militant Sunni Islamic group Ansar al-Sunna, an ally of Al-Qaeda, has been singled out in particular for its role in these deadly attacks.
