Daesh militants attack Iraq´s Kirkuk in Mosul diversion

KIRKUK, Iraq: Kirkuk woke up Friday to the sound of shooting and praise for the "Daesh (Islamic State)" blared through mosque loudspeakers by dozens of heavily-armed militants raiding the Iraqi city.

Some of them carried grenades and wore explosives vests or belts as they fanned across several neighbourhoods of the city in the early hours of the morning.

The assault, claimed by the Daesh, appeared to be an attempt to divert attention from the massive Iraqi offensive against their bastion of Mosul, to the northeast.

An AFP reporter attended the interrogation of a suspected attacker who said moments after his arrest by Kurdish forces that the attack was designed to ease the pressure on the Mosul front.

"Today´s attack was one of caliph Baghdadi´s plans to demonstrate that the Daesh is remaining and expanding and reduce the pressure on the Mosul front," he said.

The young man, wearing a grey track suit, had his hands cuffed behind his back and gave his name as Hani Aydan Mustafa but his role in the organisation was not clear.

Two years ago in Mosul, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.

One of its main slogans was to remain and expand but it has been shrinking steadily since last year and the loss of Mosul could mark the end of its days as a land-holding force in Iraq.

The attack on Kirkuk, a strategic city some 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad, demonstrated the group´s continued ability to time its attacks and grab headlines.

"Around morning prayers, I saw several Daesh (IS fighters) enter Al-Mohammadi mosque," Haidar Abdelhussein, a teacher who lives in the Tesaeen neighbourhood, told AFP.

War zone

"They used the loudspeakers to shout ´Allahu Akbar´ (God is greatest) and ´Dawla al-Islam baqiya´ (Daesh remains)," he said.

The raid saw at least five suicide bombers target government buildings, including Kirkuk´s main police headquarters. Ensuing clashes left at least six policemen and 12 militants dead.

A senior police officer said the main obstacle to flushing out holdout attackers was the risk of sniper fire.

A journalist for a local Turkmen television station was killed by an IS sniper and health officials said 51 wounded residents were evacuated to nearby hospitals.

A curfew was in place and sporadic gunfire could still be heard as night fell on the streets of Kirkuk, which was turned into a war zone with armoured vehicles taking position and groups of security forces perched on roofs or crouching behind walls.

Daesh is unlikely to hold positions in Kirkuk very long and the attack had no immediate impact on the operation to retake Mosul, the biggest Iraqi military operation in years.

The governor of Kirkuk, Najmeddin Karim, told AFP he suspected the involvement of Daesh sleeper cells.

Kurdish peshmerga fighters have played a major role in the advance on Mosul and both they and federal security forces have made gains on several fronts.

Political and military leaders have praised what they say is faster than expected progress, with Daesh offering deadly but so far ineffective resistance as forces backed by air strikes steamroll towards the edge of Iraq´s second city.

The militants defending the city are vastly outnumbered and the final outcome is hardly in doubt.

But they have been launching countless suicide bombers against advancing Iraqi forces to make the anti-Daesh drive as slow and painful as possible.

Power plant attack

Also on Friday morning, gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed a power plant being built by an Iranian company near Dibis, a town southeast of the Mosul offensive´s main area of operations, and just 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Kirkuk.

"Three suicide bombers attacked the power plant at around 6:00 am (0300 GMT), killing 12 Iraqi administrators and engineers and four Iranian technicians," Dibis mayor Abdullah Nureddin al-Salehi told AFP.

A police lieutenant colonel confirmed the casualty toll from the attack, which was also claimed by Daesh.

The militant group controlled more than a third of Iraq two years ago but its self-proclaimed "caliphate" has been shrinking steadily since.

A 60-nation US-led coalition and neighbouring Iran have been helping Iraqi forces to regain one city after another and Mosul is now the group´s last major stronghold in the country.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said Friday he was confident that Turkey would take part in the battle to retake Mosul, following tensions between Ankara and Baghdad over the presence of Turkish troops in northern Iraq.

"Iraq understands that Turkey as a member of the counter-ISIL coalition will play a role in counter-ISIL operations in Iraq and secondly that Turkey since it neighbours the region of Mosul has an interest (in) the ultimate outcome in Mosul," Carter said, using an alternative acronym for Daesh (IS).

The group claimed responsibility for at least five suicide car bomb attacks against Kurdish forces attacking their positions northeast of Mosul.

"Up to 10,000 peshmerga are involved in this operation from three fronts, making it one of the largest ground-led assaults in the war against ISIL," the peshmerga command said in a statement.

Iraqi forces have not provided figures for their losses but the statement said "a number of peshmerga have paid the ultimate sacrifice".

The coalition announced that a US service member accompanying elite Iraqi forces northeast of Mosul was killed on Thursday.

According to the United Nations, 5,640 people were displaced in the first three days of the operation Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared on October 17.

"The number of vulnerable people moving to areas of safety is expected to rise as hostilities intensify closer to urban areas," it said.

It said up to 1.2 million people may still be inside Mosul, trapped by the estimated 3,000 to 4,500 Daesh fighters digging in for a major urban assault by the advancing Iraqi forces.

The aid community fears an exodus of massive proportions that could peak as winter sets in without sufficient shelter capacity for the displaced.