Iraq oil cities see more violence

BASRA, Iraq, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- A new round of violence in and around Iraq’s two oil capitals, Basra and Kirkuk, highlights the threat of internal discord, not external threats.

Around 11 billion of Iraq’s 115 billion barrels of Iraq’s proven oil reserves are in the Kirkuk area; 80 percent of the reserves are in and around Basra.

Tensions are mounting in Kirkuk as the city, which is claimed by Kurds as historically theirs, faces a controversial referendum. Voters in it and other disputed territories are to decide whether to join the Kurdistan Regional Government’s jurisdiction.

Iraq’s Sunni Arabs are the leading opponents of this.

In Basra, the area is controlled by Iraqi Shiites. Exactly which group will rule the area is not decided by election so much as it is decided by militias affiliated with political and religious groups.

McClatchy Newspapers reports 13 people were injured Thursday when a suicide bomber attacked the Kirkuk headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The KDP is one of two major Kurdish parties that run the KRG and make up the ruling coalition in Baghdad.

In Basra, the head of education’s motorcade was hit by an improvised explosive device, though he was not traveling in the caravan, and a roadside bomb injured four of the Basra police chief and commander of Basra's operation center’s caravan.