Kirkuk: Iraq’s fault line

ENAR

Brigadier General Sarhad Qader, the police chief of the troubled Iraqi city of Kirkuk, sighed as he flipped through the photos of the officers killed in bombings earlier in January. There was an older man with a dignified, thick moustache, a pale woman with bright pink lipstick and others, all wearing light blue uniforms against empty backdrops.  Kirkuk’s police are being hunted, he said. 72 hours after our meeting, the fortified police headquarters complex was hit by a devastating attack. A powerful suicide car bomb detonated, breaching the perimeter. Gunmen rushed in. Dozens were killed and Qader was sent to the hospital. As usual, there was no outright claim of responsibility, but like similar attacks, it has the hallmarks of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Ten years after the American invasion of Iraq and just a year since US troops finally left, Kirkuk finds itself at the frontline of a blooming