Capture of
the electricity-generating Mosul Dam, which was reported by Iraqi state
television, could give the forces of the Islamic State (Isis) the ability to
flood Iraqi cities or withhold water from farms, raising the stakes in their
bid to topple prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shia-led government.
“The
terrorist gangs of the Islamic State have taken control of Mosul dam after the
withdrawal of Kurdish forces without a fight,” said Iraqi state television of
the claimed 24 hour offensive.
Kurdish
officials conceded losses to Isis but denied the dam had been surrendered. A
Kurdish official in Washington told Reuters the dam was still under the control
of Kurdish “peshmerga” troops, although he said towns around the dam had fallen
to Isis.
“The
situation has taken a turn for the worse over the weekend,” said Karwan Zebari,
an official with the Kurdistan regional government’s office in Washington.
He said
peshmerga fighters were preparing for a “major offensive” on Sunday night to
take back control of towns near the dam.
The swift
withdrawal of the peshmerga troops was an apparent severe blow to one of the
few forces in Iraq that until now had stood firm against the Sunni Islamist
fighters who aim to redraw the borders of the Middle East.
Isis, which
sees Iraq’s majority Shia as apostates who deserve to be killed, also seized
three towns and the Ain Zalah oilfield, adding to four others already under its
control that provide funding for operations.
Initially
strong Kurdish resistance evaporated after the start of an offensive to take
the town of Zumar. The Islamists then hoisted their black flags there, a ritual
that has often preceded mass executions of their captured opponents and the
imposition of an ideology even al-Qaida finds excessively harsh.
The group,
which has declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria to rule over all
Muslims, poses the biggest challenge to the stability of Iraq since the fall of
Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The US state
department said in a statement that Washington was “actively monitoring” the
situation in Iraq and was helping facilitate coordination between Iraq’s
military and Kurdish forces.
On Sunday,
Isis members were also involved in fighting in a border town far away in
Lebanon, a sign of the group’s ambitions across the frontiers of the Middle
East.
It controls
cities in Iraq’s Tigris and Euphrates valleys north and west of Baghdad, and a
section of Syria stretching from the Iraqi border in the east to Aleppo in the
northwest.
Iraq’s
Kurds, who rule themselves in a northern enclave guarded by the peshmerga
units, had expanded areas under their control in recent weeks while avoiding
direct confrontation with the Isis, even as Iraqi central government troops
fled.
But the
towns lost on Sunday were in territory the Kurds had held for many years,
undermining suggestions that the Isis’s advance has helped the Kurdish cause.
Witnesses
said Isis fighters were also trying to take control of the town of Rabia near
the Syrian border and were engaged in clashes with Syrian Kurds who had crossed
the frontier after Iraqi Kurds withdrew.
The latest
gains have placed Isis near Dohuk province, one of three in the autonomous
Kurdish region, which has been spared any serious threat to its security while
war raged throughout the rest of Iraq.
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