13 persons arrested near Kirkuk

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: 13 wanted men and suspected gunmen were arrested during a crackdown operation in Howaiyja district in southwest Kirkuk, the chief of the local police said on Wednesday. “Police forces waged a security raid in the wee small hours of the morning in villages in Howaiyja district, southwest of Kirkuk, where they arrested 13 wanted men and suspected gunmen as well as elements of the al-Naqshabandiya group,” Brigadier Sarhad Qader told IraqiNews.com. Al-Naqshabandiya, formed before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, is a group that introduces itself as an Islamic spiritual dogmatic organization, but its ideologies changed into ones of armed struggle against the occupation forces. Kirkuk, 250 km (156 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, sits on the ruins of a 5,000-year-old settlement. Because of the strategic geographical location of the city, Kirkuk was the battle ground for three empires, Assyria, Babylonia and Media which controlled the city at various times. Kirkuk is the centre of the northern Iraqi petroleum industry. It is a historically and ethnically mixed city populated by Assyrians, Kurds, Arabs and Iraqi Turkmen. The population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2008. SH (S) 1