Iraqi forces widen push to recapture territory from Kurds

Bloomberg

Iraqi forces pressed their campaign to retake oil-rich territory from Kurdish fighters, widening a conflict that has roiled markets and could stoke tensions outside the country’s borders.
Militiamen in the Popular Mobilization Forces operating alongside federal government troops captured the town of Sinjar without resistance, Rayan Al-Kildani, a spokesman, said. “The next step is to continue imposing security, order, and the presence of federal troops in remaining Nineveh plain towns,” Al-Kildani said by phone.
The offensive was triggered by a non-binding Kurdish referendum on independence that was approved overwhelmingly in September and made more politically charged by the regional government’s decision to include Kirkuk, even though it lies outside the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. The area is home to the country’s oldest oil field.
As Kurdish territorial losses mounted, Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish region, lashed out at his rivals. A “certain political party had unilaterally paved the way” for the Iraqi offensive, he said in a statement. His comments were a tacit jab at the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a major force that had been largely excluded from the decision to press for independence. Fighters under its control gave up their positions in Kirkuk rather than defend them.
Barzani “can’t fight a war with them,” Ayham Kamel, head of the Eurasia Group’s Middle East and North Africa practice, said by phone, referring to the PUK. “I don’t think he can win one. If he blames the PUK right now, and the PUK tries to be more aggressive, he’s done. He’s done in a concrete way.”
The Iraqi push to retake territory widened a rift among Kurds that had been developing since the announcement of the referendum. The two sides had pushed aside years-old rivalries to oust IS from some of its strongholds in Iraq.