ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – To protect themselves from Islamic State (ISIS) suicide car bombs, Kurdish Peshmerga on the Kirkuk front are building a concrete wall as well as digging deep trenches. “This [trench and concrete wall] is just for safety, for protecting Peshmerga forces, for protecting the city,” Kamal Kirkuki, Peshmerga commander on the Kirkuk frontline, told Rudaw. “We are making trenches and concrete walls continuously,” Kirkuki added. “We have entrenched more than 50 km in western Kirkuk.” “Trenches have been made in a way that they [ISIS militants] cannot pass even with tanks and with other suicide car bombs,” he said. "If they find a tactic to cross these trenches, Peshmerga will get there quickly and repel their attack." Kirkuki denied rumors that Peshmerga forces are digging these trenches to mark the Kurdistan Region border. “There are rumors that these trenches and these walls are the Kurdistan border. The Kurdistan border is not there,” Kirkuki continued. “Those people who have studied Kurdistan know that Kurdish territory is geographically wide and our border reaches to Hamrin Mountains and north of Tikrit,” he said. Regarding Kurdistan independence, Kirkuki emphasized that they will do everything to protect Kurdistan’s border if independence is declared. “If we gain independence and get our own borders we will entrench more, we will build walls, we will build forts and castles,” he said. Addressing the new wave of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) arriving in the region, Kirkuki said, “It is dangerous for two reasons. One is that the demography of the region will be changed by this.” Kirkuki said that the IDPs are in poor condition and the Kurdistan Region must help them, but noted, “There are 1,800,000 refugees in the Kurdistan Region, plus 600,000 in Kirkuk, which would be some 2,400,000 refugees. This number of refugees is enough to change the demography if they are not settled in refugee camps, and sent back to their areas.” In addition, Kirkuki said there are ISIS militants among the IDPs aiming to enter the Kurdistan Region to carry out terrorist attacks, a second risk from the IDP population. “We have arrested 100 ISIS militants sent by the Islamic State so far,” Kirkuki added. “We arrested two of them today.”
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