Weekly Security Update 02 - 09 October 2013

From last week wider reporting has also raised some interesting question marks about the attack that took place in Erbil.  The bomb attack against the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Interior that killed six Kurdish security guards (asayish) and wounded more than 60 people represents a rare event in the relatively secure northern enclave. The region had not experienced such an attack since 2007, which targeted the same ministry. Al-Qaeda’s ISI reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack as a retaliation to KRG President Barzani’s stated willingness to assist the Iraqi government and Kurdish militias in Syria in combating terrorism, however some commentators are suggesting otherwise and that it was more than a Syrian spillover or “the one that got through.” Although the investigation continues and conspiracy theories abound, local sources indicate that the bombing was part of a well-orchestrated escape from the KRG’s anti-terror prison linked to the Ministry of Interior in Erbil. Accordingly, the aim of the terrorists-escapees was to release one of their leaders affiliated with ISIS who had been detained in the security prison for years. The modus operandi was nearly identical to the Abu Ghraib prison break in Baghdad in July 2013, also perpetrated by ISI.  Regardless, Barzani sabre rattling and the continued desire by the Kurdish populations, both in Iraq and Syria, to carve out and claim niche territories in the north will continue to rile and provoke both Sunni rebel groups and Islamists, with inevitable results.

What is becoming very clear on the ground is that the KRGs security apparatus has gone into overdrive on the back of these attacks and some security measures may well serve to further alienate certain minority groups, specifically Sunni Arabs.  Only this week many checkpoints along the Erbil to Sulamaniyah highway were refusing entry to non-Kurdish speakers and those members of the Sunni community who could not have Kurdish representatives vouch for them.

Further southwest in Mosul we have seen a week where bombings and shootings have targeted both the journalistic community and schools. On Oct 5 unidentified gunmen killed two Iraqi television journalists as they were filming in Mosul on Saturday.  The journalists worked for Iraqi television channel al-Sharqiya News, which is often critical of the government and is popular among the Sunni minority. It was not clear who was behind the killings however a local source from Mosul said insurgents in the city changed their tactics and targets from time to time, and may now have set their sights on journalists, after a previous spate of attacks against the ISF and local politicians.