ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – At least four civilians were wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded in the city of Kirkuk on Sunday, security forces have said.
The explosion took place while a Shiite religious procession for the holy Ashura period was being held in the southern Kirkuk neighbourhood of Raparin, local police chief Bri. Gen. Haval Abdul-Muhsin told Rudaw.
Abdul-Muhsin put the number of civilians injured in the explosion at seven. Iraqi Security Media Cell said that four civilians wounded in the attack.
It is not yet known who planted the IED.
“We don't know who conducted the attack yet. Investigation is still ongoing,” Abdul-Muhsin said.
Kirkuk is part of territory disputed by the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) seated in Erbil.
The city has long been home to a diverse mix of Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, and Christian inhabitants. Its make-up has been disrupted ever since Iraq’s former President Saddam Hussein forcibly transferred people to and from Kirkuk and the surrounding areas during his reign, exacerbating communal tensions.
Baghdad and Erbil jointly administered Kirkuk and other disputed territories until 2014, when Iraqi forces were overrun by Islamic State (ISIS) militants who seized control of over a third of the country. Peshmerga forces quickly moved in to secure the province, which remained fully under Kurdish control until October 2017, when Iraqi forces retook the territories following the KRG’s failed independence referendum.
The status of Kirkuk and its surrounding areas has remained unsettled, allowing a security vacuum to form. Though ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in December 2017, its remaining militants have been able to exploit this vacuum to continue launching attacks and harassing the local population.
Iraq's defence ministry and the KRG Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs agreed last month to establish three joint coordination rooms with the aim of eliminating ISIS cells active in disputed Diyala, Kirkuk and Nineveh province territory.
