Kurdish military units known as Peshmerga said Thursday they had taken full control of the northern city of Kirkuk, had aided Iraqi troops fleeing the area and offered safe passage in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region for civilians fleeing the ISIS insurgency. An official in the provincial governor's office said western parts of Kirkuk province were still under the control of ISIS.
"Peshmerga forces have helped Iraqi soldiers and military leaders when they abandoned their positions. We helped them to reach Baghdad via the Kurdistan region," said a Peshmerga spokesman, Lt. Gen. Jabbar Yawar, said.
He said Peshmerga forces haven't been ordered to move into areas controlled by ISIS and would hold a defensive posture.
"There is no need for Peshmerga forces to move into these areas. Iraqi Army forces are no longer present there, and the situation in these areas is highly unstable, as they are under ISIS control."
In a fresh sign of rifts between the Kurdish Regional Government, which has sought self-rule, and the central Iraqi government in Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Yawar said warnings by Kurdish authorities to their Iraqi counterparts that ISIS could overtake major provinces were ignored.
"Baghdad did not heed the KRG's warnings and now, unfortunately, our predictions have come to pass," he said.
The decision by Kurdish fighters to deploy in the northern province where ethnic Kurds are a majority was the latest sign of the rising anarchy in the country. Nationwide, ethnic Kurds make up 20% of Iraq's 32.5 million people.
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