ERBIL, Iraq — Iraqi Kurdistan appears to be in a state of all-out war as its peshmerga forces have engaged in heavy clashes with Islamic State (IS) militants along a nearly 1,050-km (652-mile) line stretching all the way from the Syrian border in the west to areas close to the Iranian border in the east.
For the first time in the past couple of months, IS fighters attacked areas near Gwer district on the evening of Aug. 6 just some 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital city, Erbil. They seized some villages in the Gwer area, according to Kurdish officials, and fighting is still ongoing in the area.
The chairman of the Peshmerga Affairs Committee in the Kurdistan parliament, Ari Harsin, told Al-Monitor Aug. 7 that the center of Gwer is under peshmerga control. He said peshmerga forces had succeeded in taking back some villages in Gwer, but this assertion could not be immediately verified.
As news of IS’ advance toward Gwer spread on Wednesday night, Erbil residents panicked. The mass influx of residents of the Gwer and Makhmour areas into Erbil intensified the general anxiety. Some people left for nearby mountainous towns to the east and long queues formed at gas stations. At the same time, many civilians took to the streets to boost morale and some engaged in a campaign of shaming those who were leaving the city. Many volunteers, especially men from Gwer and Makhmour, also joined the front lines in the area and the peshmerga ranks have been reinforced. Senior Kurdish officials also went to Makhmour, less than an hour’s drive from Erbil, and appeared on TV to calm and reassure the population that the peshmerga forces were in control.
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