Kirkuk police chief told the media on Sunday the local police will be in charge of the security for two out of the three electoral districts of Kirkuk for October 10th parliamentary race while other Iraqi security forces will safeguard the third electoral district in the suburbs.
Brigadier General Kawa Gharib said Kirkuk has been divided into three districts per electoral districts in a meeting for Kirkuk security committee, made up of local security services, on Saturday.
“Police will be in charge of first and second electoral districts and the third will be assigned to military forces,” said Gharib. “This is for the sake of a smooth electoral and security process.”
“We have launched all required preparations and our forces are on alert till then,” Kirkuk police chief said. “We will protect polling stations, offer all facilites for voters and transport the ballot boxes.”
The military forces will be assigned to safeguard the polling stations out of town.
Over one million voters of Kirkuk will head to 315 polling stations on October 10th in order nominate 12 representatives out of 120 nominees of Kirkuk in the Iraqi parliament. One seat of quota is allocated for the Christian committee.
In each electoral district, a woman is nominated per electoral law as women quota.
Regarding the escalation of attacks by militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ISIS, Kirkuk police chief said, “Kirkuk is stable and an operation launched today will bring good news.”
Kirkuk joint operations’ command said in a statement today four IS militants were killed in an air strike of Iraqi army warplanes. Federal police launched a raid south of Kirkuk were guns and ammo were found in IS hideouts.
Kirkuk, Iraq’s second largest reserves, located 238 kilometers north of Baghdad, is an ethnically mixed province for 1.2 million Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs, and Turkmen. It has long been at the center of disputes between Baghdad and the Erbil.
Four policemen were killed by an attack of the extremist militants of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ISIS, the second fatal attack in a week, security official told KirkukNow.
Three policemen were killed on Saturday when IS militants stormed a base of regiment 2 of brigade 20 of Iraqi police in the village of Shabiha in Tea valley of al-Rashad sub-district, southwest of Kirkuk, the anonymous security source said.
The bodies were sent to the general hospital of Daquq district.
Back up troops were targeted by IED. Several casualties were reported and a military vehicle burnt. One of the injured passed away today Sunday in Daquq hospital, the source said today.
Currently, Iraqi army, local and federal police, Brigade 61 of Special Forces along with Shiite paramilitary of Popular Mobilization Forces PMF, are under Kirkuk joint operations’ command, an umbrella for the security forces running the security of Kirkuk province.
