Iraq launches advance on Kurdish territory in bold strike after independence vote
Baghdad — Iraq’s central government forces launched an advance early on Monday into territory held by Kurds, seizing a swathe of countryside surrounding the oil city of Kirkuk in a bold military response to a Kurdish vote last month on independence. The government said its troops had captured Kirkuk airport, advanced to the city’s gates and taken control of northern Iraq’s oil company from the security forces of the autonomous Kurdish region, known as Peshmerga. Baghdad described the advance as largely unopposed, and called on the Peshmerga to co-operate in keeping the peace. But the Peshmerga said Baghdad would be made to pay "a heavy price" for triggering "war on the Kurdistan people". Washington called for calm on both sides, seeking to avert an all-out conflict between Baghdad and the Kurds that would open a whole new front in Iraq’s 14-year civil war and potentially draw in regional powers such as Turkey and Iran. A resident inside Kirkuk said members of the ethnic Turkmen comm...
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