"Black Force" special police left key energy sites in Kirkuk, but the political tensions that produced the dramatic showdown remain unresolved.
Four Hashid soldiers were killed in an attack late Monday, when IS insurgents set multiple wellheads on fire.
"Black Force" special police took over the North Gas Company headquarters Sunday, and continue to occupy the IT-1 station, as tensions over Kirkuk energy resources escalate.
Proxy forces backed by Kurdistan's ruling KDP party and the PKK fought a four-hour battle Friday, foreshadowing a new phase of volatility for territory liberated from IS.
The "Black Force" special police unit of the PUK party briefly took over Kirkuk's IT-1 facility - a sign of deteriorating intra-Kurdish political rivalries.
On the Mosul outskirts, the IS group's Iraqi oil refining hub – recently seized by Iraqi forces – shows how the militants used savvy management to fuel their killing machine.
Two IED attacks have hit northern Iraqi oil fields in the past week.
Backed by U.S. special operations advisors and coalition air power, Iraqi forces enter a new phase of intense urban combat.
At a checkpoint outside one of Iraq's largest refineries, canine units catch suspected IS operatives driving a tanker truck.
After gunmen killed the general secretary of Hizbollah Iraq's Basra branch, and amidst a spate of IED bombings, paramilitary groups threatened to take security matters into their own hands.
