Authorities erect checkpoints and impose nighttime curfew in contested city of Kirkuk after deadly clashesIraqi authorities in the northern city of Kirkuk have imposed a nighttime curfew to prevent a deadly dispute from developing into ethnic clashes before a referendum on Kurdish independence, local residents have said. | Jonathan Steele Read moreThe Kurdish authorities want to hold the vote on 25 September, despite opposition from the central government in Baghdad and the region’s non-Kurdish population. Kurdish security and the police erected checkpoints across the city after a Kurd was killed in a clash with the guards of a Turkmen political party office. The Kurdish dead and wounded were among those who had been celebrating, they said. Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militias have threatened to dislodged the peshmerga from Kirkuk should the Kurds proceed with the vote.

Source: The Guardian September 19, 2017 10:05 UTC