Iraq says PKK responsible for major nationwide bazaar fires

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi and Kurdish interior ministries on Monday accused the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of being responsible for a series of major bazaar fires across Erbil, Duhok, and Kirkuk provinces. 

Iraq and the Kurdistan Region’s bazaars were the subject of major fires in recent months, injuring hundreds of people, burning hundreds of shops and storage units, and causing millions of dollars in damage. The suspicious frequency of the blazes led officials and citizens to suspect arson. 

A joint presser by the Iraqi and Kurdish interior ministries to reveal the results of a bilateral investigation labeled the PKK as the perpetrators of the fires, announcing that three suspects have been arrested in connection with the incidents and have confessed to being PKK members.

Two of the three arrested perpetrators that were “recruited” by the Kurdish group are members of the Peshmerga’s Unit 70 forces, affiliated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), as well as the Sulaimani-based Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG), said Hemin Mirany, chief of staff to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) interior ministry. 

“The sponsoring and executing party of this topic is the PKK, which is a banned organization,” said Miqdad Miri, spokesperson for Iraq’s interior ministry. 

“Their purpose in this matter was to hit the commercial interests of one of the countries they are opposing directly,” Miri said, likely referring to Turkey, and to “impact the economy and security situation in the provinces of the [Kurdistan] Region directly, and create a state of discontent among the people in the provinces.” 

Miri explained that that the bazaar fires were a “systematic” and “organized” operation, in which the suspects had used a flammable paste and put it inside boxes of candy, cigarettes, and other goods. The material goes up in flames after five to six hours of being placed. 

The fires incurred around $300 million in material damage, he said. 

“After thorough investigations, it was revealed that these incidents were not naturally occurring. They are incidents aimed at knocking the economic status of people, angering the people, harming the people’s income, and then through that attempt to ruin the people’s relationship with their government,” Mirany said. 

The PKK is a Kurdish group that has waged an armed insurgency against the Turkish state for decades in the struggle for greater Kurdish rights and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara. Iraq in March also listed the group as a “banned organization” following a meeting with Turkish officials. 

The Kurdish group had future plans to target other locations in Erbil, Duhok, Kirkuk, and Baghdad, according to Miri. One of the sites they were planning to target was the Ceyhan pipeline from Kirkuk to Turkey, and they were also planning on carrying out similar operations in two neighboring countries. 

Miri listed at least seven fires of which the suspects were responsible for, adding that there were two other attempts to burn a mall in Kirkuk in October and April. 

In April, Erbil Governor Omed Khoshnaw said that authorities had suspected arson after the city’s famous Langa bazaar caught fire twice in less than two months. 

Also in April, a massive fire swept through central Duhok’s Chale bazaar, burning over 300 shops. 

A month later, shopkeepers in Kirkuk’s Ottoman-era Qaysari bazaar said they were suspicious about the source of the fire because it broke out in different areas of the bazaar at the same time. 

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