REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KIRKUK -- Kurdish security forces took control of Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk on Thursday after the Iraqi army withdrew from its military base in the area, as militant groups continue to make military advances following their capture of Iraq's second largest city of Mosul, a Kurdish security source said.
"The Kurdish Peshmerga has taken full control of the city of Kirkuk, after Iraqi federal soldiers withdrew yesterday," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The Peshmerga are the security forces mandated to protect the autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north. The Kurdish security forces' takeover of the city raises concerns that the central government's forces are losing their battle against militants in the region.
On Wednesday, Iraqi soldiers left their major military base, named K1, just 10 km northwest of Kirkuk, and some 250 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the source said, adding that after the soldiers abandoned their posts, dozens of civilians plundered the site and seized their weapons.
The troops withdrew a day after hundreds of gunmen on Tuesday stormed the predominantly Arab towns of Hawijah, Zab, Riyadh, Abbasi and Rashad in south and west of the city of Kikruk, according to earlier police reports.
The militants seized the towns without resistance by the Iraqi security forces, the police said, adding that the soldiers and policemen withdrew before the arrival of the militant groups, a sign reflecting that the Iraq's forces were ill-prepared to fend off the militants.
The ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk is among the disputed areas claimed by three of Iraq's diverse ethnic groups, the Kurds, the Arabs and the Turkomans. The Kurds want to incorporate the areas bordering the Kurdistan region, but their claim to the land is fiercely opposed by the central government in Baghdad.
The security catastrophe in Iraq started last week when bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and hundreds of gunmen who took control of several neighborhoods in western part of Mosul and expanded later to other areas after the Iraqi security forces withdrew from the city.
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