KIRKUK: Iraqi security forces have killed 48 of the gunmen who stormed parts of Kirkuk in a shock attack claimed by the Islamic State group, the city’s police chief said.
“Forty-eight Daesh (IS) terrorists have been killed in the clashes,” Brigadier General Khattab Omar Aref told AFP, adding that some of them blew themselves up when the security forces cornered them.
Special counter-terrorism and intelligence units were hunting down some of the dozens of IS fighters who stormed public buildings in the early hours of Friday.
Clashes have been taking place almost uninterrupted since and the city, which lies some 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad, remains under curfew.
