Five rockets found 'set to launch’ in Kirkuk: security media cell

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Five rockets were found "set to launch” in Kirkuk province’s Altun Kupri district on Monday, Iraq's Security Media Cell has announced.

The rockets were found near the village of Ihsar, the cell added, saying "the seized materials were dealt with by explosive experts."

The area is close to where Kurdish Peshmerga forces have previously been targeted.

Peshmerga forces in the vicinity of Prde were targeted by rocket fire in late March.

Major General Abdulkhaliq Talaat, the Kurdistan Region representative for the Joint Operations Command told Rudaw's Sangar Abdulrahman on Monday afternoon that the area is partly under the control  of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic). 

According to Talaat, the Katyusha rockets would not be able to reach Erbil and were either aimed at Iraqi or Kurdish Peshmerga forces. 

“In those areas there is the Iraqi army, [there are] many checkpoints between Prde and Kirkuk [city], some of which are supervised by Hashd al-Shaabi … those who go there to set up the rockets apparently are very heedless, and they can reach those areas easily," he added. 

"They have power and most of those places are at the hands of those militias that targeted the Erbil airport.”

Rockets have struck multiple locations in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region in recent months, largely believed to have been launched by militias affiliated to Iran-backed units of the PMF.

 

A spate of rockets were fired at the Kurdistan Region capital of Erbil in mid-February, killing two and injuring several others. The city has been subject to several rocket attacks over the past year, namely targeting the international airport, where US-led coalition troops are based. 

Iraqi security forces regularly seize weapons and ammunition, including rocket launchers, in operations across Iraq. A rocket launcher and three Katyusha rockets were found southwest of Baghdad on May 28, while security forces seized a rocket launcher near Tal Afar in western Nineveh on May 20.

The recent establishment of joint coordination centres between federal Iraqi forces and the Peshmerga will help in intelligence-gathering on areas where the PMF is present, Talaat added.

Updated 1:20pm