By: Alexander Sehmer
August 5, 2016
Brazilian Army troops outside of the Olympic stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Source: Reuters)
Islamic State (IS) fighters attacked the Bai Hasan oil field in Kirkuk, northern Iraq on July 31, killing at least four people, including oil workers and security guards. Two coordinated attacks saw suicide bombers hit the oilfield and a nearby gas compressor station, causing a fire to break out (Iraq Oil Report, July 31).
The attack temporarily closed the oil field, but the facility – despite the fire, which at that point was not yet fully extinguished – was reportedly back in operation less than 24 hours later (Rudaw, August, 1). In the following days, Kurdish security forces rounded up suspects of an alleged IS sleeper cell, arresting four people linked to the attack. Security forces tracked down the suspects using a mobile phone signal (Rudaw, August 4).
The presence of IS agents in Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) territory is not a new phenomenon. Several radical Kurdish clerics with links to IS were arrested last year, and there are claims that as many as 500 Kurds joined the group in 2014 (Rudaw, February 27, 2015; see also Terrorism Monitor, March 20, 2015). These agents, however, have staged few significant operations in the past.
The Bai Hasan attack was a serious blow, especially in the context of efforts against IS in Iraq. Even so, it was not as disruptive as it might have been.
The KRG has had responsibility for Bai Hasan since July 2014, after IS fighters drove out the Iraqi army from large parts of northern Iraq. Declining oil prices and a disagreement with Baghdad over oil revenues, which has seen the central government block funds due to the Kurds, have left the KRG mired in an economic crisis (Kurdistan24, January 16). As a consequence, the KRG can ill afford for Bai Hasan, which produces 175,000 barrels a day, to be offline.
Though curtailed by U.S. airstrikes, IS has also benefited from oil sales, using smuggling networks in western Iraq and reportedly paying-off KRG middlemen (Ekurd Daily, March 31). Possibly the group hoped to reap some financial benefit from the Bai Hasan attack – the attackers held the facility for more than an hour before peshmerga fighters were able to recapture it – but more likely it was a calculated move aimed at weakening the KRG economically. With efforts against IS in Iraq continuing, there are likely to be more such attempts.
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