Subscribe 

The epicenter of Iraq’s next civil war

Tensions in the ancient city of Kirkuk are threatening to boil over as Kurdish forces move to turn their battle lines with ISIS into the border for a Kurdish state. The city traditionally has had a mix of Iraq’s main ethnic and confessional groups—Kurds, Turkmens (many of whom are Shia), Shia Arabs and Sunni Arabs. But […]

Jesse Rosenfeld reports for the Daily Beast :

Tensions in the ancient city of Kirkuk are threatening to boil over as Kurdish forces move to turn their battle lines with ISIS into the border for a Kurdish state. The city traditionally has had a mix of Iraq’s main ethnic and confessional groups—Kurds, Turkmens (many of whom are Shia), Shia Arabs and Sunni Arabs. But the province is rich in oil and natural gas that the Kurds deem essential as they plan for economic independence, especially since the Kurdistan Regional Government signed a major oil deal with Turkey. They don’t intend to share it. And hostilities with Shia Arabs are growing increasingly dangerous.

Even though ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, is practically on the city’s doorstep, Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, has opposed arming the city’s Arab and Turkmen population since Kurdish forces took control of the region from the Iraqi government last summer. The Kurdish advance came after ISIS took the city of Tikrit, which lies to the south between Kirkuk and Baghdad.