Kirkuk Minute April 13, 2023

Kirkuk 

• On April 7, for the fourth time, Kurdish and Turkmen residents of the villages of Topzawa and Tarkalan demonstrated against the occupation of their agricultural land and the construction of housing projects for army officers by the Defense Minister. The 320th decree by the Council of prime ministership changed the lands’ type from agricultural to residential zoning. The lands belonged to Kurdish and Turkmen farmers, but were occupied in 1987 by the Iraqi regime and expropriated by the Ministry of Defense. The original owners have not received any compensation almost four decades later. 

• Four ISIS (Da’esh) terrorists were arrested in Kirkuk for “transporting military equipment, clothing, and food to Da’esh leaders.” Security forces said the captives had previously killed a trucker and used his corpse for a suicide bombing. 
• The Kirkuk administration has refused to declare April 10, the day of the liberation of Kirkuk in 2003 and the fall of the Ba’ath regime, an official holiday. However, the acting governor of Kirkuk, Rakan al Jabouri, declared April 12 a public holiday on the occasion of the martyrdom of Imam Ali. 
• On April 12, heavy rains caused floods across the province, washing away a military vehicle near the Laylan district with its driver. After hours, the vehicle was found, but the driver remains missing. In the city, floods covered most of the Panja Ali neighborhood. Police forces have rescued several people in the Daquq center as many families nearby left their homes.
  
  

Khanaqin 

• On April 12, Mazen Azawi, a leader of an Iranian-aligned component of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), announced that more than one hundred Da’esh terrorists had fled from Khanaqin to the Kirkuk area within a year. Azawi, in an interview with Shafaq News, said, “The security and information coordination that was activated last year between the Peshmerga forces on the outskirts of Khanaqin and the army blocked the infiltration and crossing of Da’esh elements.”
• On April 11, the Integrity Commission announced the arrest of the deputy director of the Khanaqin clerk’s office on charges of stealing from the office. According to the statement, the deputy director of the Khanaqin clerk’s office stole 69 million dinars ($67k) from the office’s revenue.