Kirkuk | Jihadists killed a police officer early on Wednesday before setting fire to two wells in an oil field in Kirkuk, a province disputed by the Kurds in Baghdad, a security official told AFP.
“The attackers of the Islamic State (IS) group also injured two other police officers,” said the official. “They then detonated wells 177 and 183 of the Bay Hassan field”, adds the Ministry of Petroleum.
The first fire was “brought under control in record time,” said the ministry’s statement, but “the firefighters are still busy facing the second”, he adds, several hours after the attack.
The Bay Hassan field, passed under Kurdish control in 2014 amid the chaos of the ISIS breakthrough, is, like all the oil reserves in Kirkuk province – around 250,000 barrels per day – disputed by Erbil and Baghdad.
Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest oil producer, derives almost all of its income from black gold. In April, according to the ministry, it exported 88.39 million barrels for 5.5 billion dollars.
ISIS, which lost the territory it held in Iraq at the end of 2017, still retains a nuisance power in the country.
Its clandestine cells generally operate at night, in remote areas and with small arms, almost systematically targeting the security forces.
They also take advantage of disputed areas, where Kurdish and federal forces have de facto set up no man’s land separating them, to find shelter.