KIRKUK, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’,— Kurdish Peshmerga forces detained a group of Shiite militia fighters south of Kirkuk Thursday on suspicion of kidnapping, military officials told Rudaw on condition of anonymity.

A group of nine Shiite militants travelling with six captives, including two Kurds, was stopped at a Peshmerga checkpoint in the Kirkuk suburb of Dubz. They were arrested after the identities of the captives, who were reported missing in September, were established.

Tensions have been high between the Peshmerga and Shiite militias in the so-called disputed territories which were recently freed from Islamic State (IS), partly in joint operations. Shiite militia groups were originally deployed to the area to support the Iraqi and Kurdish fight against IS, but have remained in the volatile territories despite a retreat by the militants, Kurdish officials say.

In November, two convoys of Shiite paramilitary forces arrived in Kirkuk’s southern outskirts, as assaults intensified in the area against ISIS. Sources told Rudaw that the Al-Ahbab and Al-Nasr brigades have been stationed just 15 km south of the oil-rich city with heavy artillery and medium range missiles.

Kirkuk’s police chief told Rudaw that clashes between ISIS and Kurdish security forces in the outskirts of the city continue as the jihadists attack the city suburbs with mortars.

“They attack Peshmerga positions in the outskirts and the Peshmerga respond,” Police Major Sarhad Qadir told Rudaw, though describing the overall situation as calm.

Airstrikes targeting IS positions in the suburbs of Kirkuk resumed on Friday afternoon.

Kirkuk is one of the disputed areas between Erbil and Baghdad and covered by the constitutional article numbered 140 through decoding conflict around it through the three phases, beginning with normalization of the situation in which the transition census concludes with a referendum population and gives them a choice between joining Kurdistan region or stay as an independent province.

Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk city and other disputed areas through having back its Kurdish inhabitants and repatriating the Arabs relocated in the city during the former regime’s time to their original provinces in central and southern Iraq.

The article also calls for conducting a census to be followed by a referendum to let the inhabitants decide whether they would like Kirkuk to be annexed to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region or having it as an independent province.

The former regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had forced over 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to “Arabize” the city and the region’s oil industry.

Kirkuk is the under full control of Kurdistan’s Peshmerga forces, after Iraqi army withdrew from the city in July 2014, under pressure of IS group attacks on Mosul and the Kirkuk province.

Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, rudaw.net | Ekurd.net | Agencies

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