ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A suicide bomber's belt exploded on Thursday morning as guards at the national security directorate building in the Qoria neighbourhood of Kirkuk fired at him, a police official in the city has told Rudaw.
“A suicide bomber tried to enter the national security building, but the guards shot at him from a distance and his explosive belt went off,” Colonel Yousif Salih, head of police in the Domiz neighbourhood of Kirkuk told Rudaw’s Sirwan Abbas on Thursday.
Iraq’s Security Media Cell said two security personnel were injured in the explosion.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Islamic State (ISIS) activities in Kirkuk province have increased in recent months.
“ISIS is very active in the region, to the point that they have complete control at night,” a Peshmerga volunteer in Kirkuk’s Sargaran town told Rudaw English on Wednesday, a day after the abduction of a local farmer by ISIS.
The extremist group said in one of its Telegram channels that it attacked a military base in Kirkuk on Wednesday using mortar bombs. Iraqi security officials have not yet said whether or not the attack took place.
At least one policeman was killed and three others were injured in an attack on the town of Daquq in Kirkuk on February 11. The mayor of Daquq told Rudaw English that ISIS conducted the attack.
A Peshmerga ministry official warned in January of ISIS’ growing strength and reorganization in Iraq in territories claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad, including Kirkuk.
Remnants of the group have been able to continue conducting attacks after they were defeated in 2017 in territories disputed between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where security is patchy. Kirkuk was under Kurdish control until October 2017, when Iraqi forces retook the disputed territories following the KRG’s failed independence referendum.
In late January, Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Services (ICTS) announced the killing of seven ISIS militants in Kirkuk. The Peshmerga ministry said in a statement released February 3 that they had deployed forces to Makhmour and Mount Qarachogh “as a result of security threats imposed by ISIS.”
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