Kurds Take Iraq's Kirkuk, Bomb Targets Minister

Kurdish forces took control of the disputed Iraqi oil hub of Kirkuk on Thursday to protect it from jihadists, after which a bomb targeted a Kurdish security minister, officials said.

Iraqi Kurds want to incorporate Kirkuk province into their autonomous region, a move Baghdad strongly opposes in a bitter, long-running dispute with them.

"We tightened our control of Kirkuk city and are awaiting orders to move toward the areas that are controlled by ISIL," Brigadier General Shirko Rauf of the Kurdish peshmerga security forces told AFP.

He was referring to jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which has spearheaded a major offensive this week that has overrun all of one province and parts Kirkuk and two other provinces.

Shirko later said that Jaafar Mustafa, the Kurdish minister responsible for the peshmerga, was targeted in a bombing as he returned from visiting units southwest of Kirkuk city.

Mustafa survived, but the roadside bomb killed a peshmerga fighter.

Kirkuk Governor Najm al-Din Karim said peshmerga forces had filled in gaps left by Iraqi soldiers who withdrew from their positions in the province.

"Army forces are no longer present, as happened in Mosul and Salaheddin," Karim said.