MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, media reported that Daesh militants had launched an attack on several venues across the city.
"They [IS militants] headed for a police station but the police repelled them and killed them. Their bodies still lay there. They did not take any police station or any government department," Kirkuk governor Najmaldin Karim was quoted as saying by the Rudaw news outlet.
After the clashes with security forces, six militants had been killed. Police urged civilians to stay indoors until the situation would be under full control.
Kirkuk lies some 108 miles away from Mosul, considered to be the terror group’s main stronghold in Iraq. The Iraqi government announced an operation to retake Mosul from Daesh, a group outlawed in Russia, on Monday and has been making rapid gains on several fronts since then.
