Iraqi forces moved slowly towards the Faysh Khabur region in Kurdistan in what appears to be an attempt to secure a border crossing into Syria and then move further up the border towards Turkey. Casualties were reported even into Syria. The Kurdistan Region Security Council called the fighting a “violation of the Constitution.”
Peshmerga forces also said they repelled an attack by Shi’ite militia forces near Altun Kupri (Pirde).
The U.N. Security Council advised the Iraqi government to set a timetable for talks with the Kurds. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also called upon the two governments to avoid conflict and expressed U.S. disappointment in the ongoing fighting.
The Kurdistan Regional Government has already offered to freeze their move for independence, but Baghdad is continuing to assault Kurdish forces and insists that an “annulment of the referendum and respect for the Constitution” is required first, even while Iraqi forces may be violating the Constitution in this fight against the Kurds.
Further South along the Syrian border, Iraqi troops launched an assault on Islamic State militants. Troops seemed to be advancing quickly and without reporting casualties among the militants.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is in Tehran to meet with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Meanwhile, Sec. Tillerson advised Baghdad to resist Iranian influence.
The United States admitted to killing 51 more civilians in strikes on Syria and Iraq.
At least 65 were killed and 88 were wounded:
Fighting between Kurdish and Iraqi forces in the Faysh Khabur arena has left seven Iraqi personnel dead. A Peshmerga commander and two bodyguards were killed in a mortar attack. Separately, two Peshmerga were killed and six were wounded. One civilian was killed and four were wounded across the border in Syria, when mortars fell there; two of the injured were security personnel. Hospitals in Mosul reported 45 militiamen were killed and 75 others injured.
Fourteen militiamen were killed during a failed advance in Altun Kupri (Pirde).
A bomb in Shat al-Taji wounded three people.
