According to Sahawan Abdullah, an Iraqi member of parliament from Kirkuk and head of the parliamentary Security Commission, IS units have infiltrated Kirkuk.
"There have been explosions and kidnappings in Kirkuk. The last [attack] involved the abduction of four Kurds in an Arab village. There have been similar incidents at the Dakuk border. Although Shiite militias are responsible for some these incidents, others are carried out by IS," Abdullah told Al-Monitor. "There is a vacuum because we don't have Kurdish security forces. The Kirkuk-Hawija border is empty now without any military presence. We heard IS has penetrated Kirkuk from the Hawija area. IS elements are freely moving between Rashad-Dakuk-Tuz Khormato without encountering any Iraqi army."
Abdullah believes that the central government cannot secure the area by itself and that a joint security force has to be set up. "Today conditions in the area are like those in the days of Saddam Hussein. It is very bad. There must be joint efforts by peshmerga forces and security units as in the days before IS," he said.
Shiwan Dawudi, a member of parliament from Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, says even if IS has lost territory, it is still active.
Dawudi told Al-Monitor, "True, IS has lost territory but the organization is still alive, their militants are around. For example, there were 2,000-2,500 armed IS militants in Hawija. But after the liberation of Hawija, about 300 IS militants were captured dead or alive. What happened to the rest? Where did they go? They retreated to the mountains and valleys around Kirkuk. ... Some joined sleeper cells and some hid among the people. They reorganized after a few months and resumed operations. Their action style has changed as well. They now want quality operations, Like guerrillas, they launch hit-and-run operations."
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