BAGHDAD: Iraqi government forces said on Wednesday they had achieved their objectives in a lightning operation that saw them sweep through disputed Kurdish-held territory in a punishing riposte to an independence vote last month.
On Monday and Tuesday, federal troops and allied militia retook the northern province of Kirkuk and its lucrative oil fields, as well as formerly Kurdish-held areas of Nineveh and Diyala provinces.
The largely bloodless operation dealt a body blow to the finances of the autonomous Kurdish region, which had derived much of its revenues from exports of Kirkuk oil, and left Kurds in shock and disbelief just weeks after the nationalist fervour of the referendum.
Kurdish claims to the lost territories have long been a cherished national cause and their abandonment — almost without a fight — triggered recriminations against the Kurdish leadership.
Kurdish forces are now largely confined to their long-standing three-province autonomous region in the north and have lost nearly all of the territory they had taken since the US-led invasion of 2003, some of it in deadly fighting with the IS group.
“Security has been restored in sectors of Kirkuk, including Dibis, Al Multaqa, and the Khabbaz and Bai Hassan North and South oil fields,” the federal government’s Joint Operations Command (JOV) said.
“Forces have been redeployed and have retaken control of Khanaqin and Jalawla in Diyala province, as
well as Makhmur, Bashiqa, Mosul dam, Sinjar and other areas in the Nineveh plains.”
French geographer and Kurdistan specialist Cyril Roussel said that in the space of 48 hours, virtually all of the disputed territories held by Kurds had been brought back under federal control.
“The Kurds have lost almost all of the 23,000 square km that they had acquired since 2003,” Roussel said.
“All that remains in their hands is between 5,000 and 6,000 square km in Nineveh province and the Kupri district of Kirkuk province.
“That’s virtually a return to the Green Line — that is the three provinces of autonomous Kurdistan.”
JOC spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool hinted that federal forces could yet be deployed to the remaining pockets of disputed territory still in Kurdish hands.
“It’s not a military operation but the redeployment of forces to all areas to enforce the law,” Rasool said. “Further communiques will follow.”
Prime Minister Haider al Abadi said on Tuesday that the September 25 vote for Kurdish independence was now “a thing of the past”.
“Central authority must be imposed everywhere in Iraq,” he said.
In Kirkuk province, the Kurds now hold just a single oil field — the Khurmala field, which produces barely 10,000 barrels per day of low quality heavy crude. — AFP
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