(ISW) ISIS launched a major counter-attack in Kirkuk Province in
response to advances by Iraqi and Kurdish security forces towards Mosul. On the
morning of October 21, ISIS attackers struck central and southern Kirkuk City
and an under-construction power station in Dibis District, northwest of Kirkuk.
The three attackers in Dibis stormed the power station and killed or executed
16 workers, including four Iranians, before Kurdish security forces arrived and
clashed with the attackers. One attacker was killed while the other two
detonated Suicide Vests (SVESTs), wounding several Kurdish security forces. Another
report claimed that 12 people were killed and 34 were wounded in the Dibis
attack.
As many as 40 ISIS attackers supported by sleeper cells
targeted multiple government facilities and landmarks in central and southern
Kirkuk City, marking the first time that ISIS launched a major attack in the
city since January 2015. These targets included:
1. Police stations in Dumiz and al-Adala, and possibly in
Wahid Haziran and Tisaeen areas, all demographically-mixed with significant
Arab populations in southern Kirkuk City. The attackers detonated at least one
SVEST.
2. The Kirkuk police directorate, where ISIS attackers
attempted to enter the building before being repelled. The attackers detonated
either a SVEST or a Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) during
the attack.
3. A Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party headquarters
and the central government building.
4. A prison in Kirkuk, where some attackers may have
attempted to break prisoners out.
Several ISIS attackers also stormed an “education building”
in central Kirkuk, forcing Kurdish security forces to call in a Coalition
airstrike to target the ISIS fighters holed up in the building. Unconfirmed
reports indicate, however, the a Coalition airstrike may have targeted a Shi’a
Husseiniyah (place of worship) in Daquq District, just south of Kirkuk, killing
and wounding as many as 47 people and Peshmerga. ISW could not verify the
report at the time of publication.
ISIS’s attacks in Kirkuk province and elsewhere outside of
Mosul are a classic zone defense from ISIS’s 2015 playbook, in which ISIS
attacked separate locations while facing a counter-attack it could deflect. The
attack on Kirkuk City is a demonstration that ISIS still maintains lethal
attack capabilities there, and furthermore that it can still mount a
sophisticated defense. ISIS’s strike into Kirkuk was likely calculated to force
the PUK to withdraw its Peshmerga forces away from operations in the vicinity
of Mosul towards Kirkuk to arrest the progress of anti-ISIS operations east of
Mosul. ISIS also launched other attacks to force security forces to consider
withdrawing from Mosul to secure other parts of Iraq.
