Suicide bombing at Kirkuk checkpoint leaves causalities: Military

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A suicide bomber detonated at Kirkuk’s southern checkpoint while trying to infiltrate into the province, resulting in causalities, according to military sources on Tuesday.

One civilian is dead and nearly six individuals injured—four security members and two civilians—as a result of a car bomb in southern Kirkuk’s Maryam Bag checkpoint earlier in the morning, the 5th division of Iraq’s Federal Police announced.

“The car bomb was detonated while attempting to infiltrate the checkpoint and reach Kirkuk,” the division said, as the division’s intelligence wing had prior knowledge of the attack.

The bomber, per the Kurdistan 24 information, was coming from Kirkuk’s southern Rashad sub-district.

Despite causalities, the blast’s fallout damaged the checkpoint’s barricade and structure.

Terrorist activities have recently increased in surrounding areas of Kirkuk province, a disputed area between the Kurdistan Region and Iraqi federal government. Peshmerga officials repeatedly warned that the “security vacuum” in these areas have turned them into a hotbed for terrorist cells to cause instability.

Read More: ISIS kills four Iraqi forces, kidnaps three civilians in attacks in disputed areas

Coalition forces against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq on multiple occasions have reiterated the importance of security cooperation between the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga forces and Iraqi security apparatuses.

Kirkuk’s security remains precarious after the Hashd al-Shaabi assaults, pushing Kurdish Peshmerga forces from them on Oct. 16, 2017.

Though recent steps have been taken to increase coordination between the two governments on security matters, a burgeoning partnership remains to be seen to provide a more stable environment for the citizens of the majority Kurdish but ethnically diverse province.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany