We then stopped at an informal camp where some refugee's were staying. While they can obtain better services inside the formal camps, some of the Yazidi prefer the freedom to be outside, and without the restrictions that living in a formal camp entails.


As we got closer to West Kirkuk, we stopped at restaurant for some tasty lamb kebab for lunch.


After the ~3 hour drive from Duhok, we arrived at the Peshmerga base where Dr. Kirkuki had his office. Dr. Kirkuki was formerly the Speaker of the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament.


We discussed with Dr. Kirkuki the current state of the battle against ISIS near Kirkuk as well as the greater goal of Kurdish independence. Since the takeover of Kirkuk by Peshmerga forces after the Iraqi Army abandoned the city during the first Northern iraq offensive by ISIS in 2014, there had been increasing calls by the Kurdish Government for an independent Kurdish State from Iraq.

From the Al-Anfal genocide under Saddam Hussein to the current battle against ISIS, Dr. Kirkuki said it was not possible for the Iraqi Kurds to continue to be under the rule of the Sunni or Shia Arabs that they had been subjugated by since the Sykes–Picot Agreement was implemented after WWI.

Dr. Kirkuki's zone on the frontline with ISIS was 44 kilometres long and 38 kilometres deep. Currently the Peshmerga forces were 1-2 kilometres from ISIS on the frontline but were as close to 50 metres at one stage, and were able to see the ISIS militant faces and talk directly to each other.

Attacks from ISIS occurred on the frontline almost everyday, and the previous night there had been a large scale attack by the militants. Luckily the Peshmerga had received prior intelligence of the attack, and after communicating with the Joint Coalition Coordination Center (JCCC) in Erbil, many ISIS militants were killed and maimed by Coalition airstrikes before they could reach and attack the Peshmerga forces.

Dr. Kirkuki then walked us through the progess made against ISIS (red dots) near Kirkuk and the advances made by the Peshmerga (blue dots) over the past 18 months.



In one large battle, ISIS had fired 252 Katyusha rockets and used several armoured bulldozers to attack Peshmerga positions. In January 2015, an ISIS Humvee filled with TNT was neutralised after the Peshmerga killed the militants driving it while Dr. Kirkuki was present. Seven minutes after he departed to meet another Peshmerga unit, the Humvee loaded with TNT detonated, killing many of the Peshmerga soldiers.

A large battle with ISIS in January 2015 had resulted in 452 militants killed. After this, Dr. Kirkuki said that ISIS had lost most of its professional soldiers, and since then their tactics had not been as successful.

The nearby town of Hawija, only 22 kilometres from where we were, is controlled by tribal fighters affiliated with ISIS. Dr. Kirkuki said as the priority was to avoid civilian casualties, the ISIS militants were mixing with the local Sunni Arab's, and even wearing civilians clothes to avoid detection.

Strangely, Dr. Kirkuki had said that as the Peshmerga had advanced south outside of Kirkuk against ISIS, they had been attacked on three separate occasions by aircraft from the Iraqi Airforce. On a subsequent fourth occasion the Peshmerga retaliated and fired back, and since then there had been no further Iraqi Airforce attacks. This was interpreted as a signal that the Central Iraqi Government did not want the Kurds to expand their territory further into disputed areas.

A Chinese-made drone fitted with cameras that ISIS had used for reconnaissance (and lost) on the frontline.