Alwaght- Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) clashed late on Friday with Kurdish militias, Peshmerga, in Tuz Khurmatu city in northern province of Saladin.
Iraq Oil Report cited spokesman for the Tuz Khurmatu mayor as saying that State-sponsored PM forces, also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, and Peshmerga militias exchanged fire "using light weapons and rocket-propelled grenades."
"It's not a conventional urban war, but there has been shooting since about 8 o'clock this evening," Mohammed Fayaq added.
Tuz Khurmatu, considered as "disputed areas", is located some 70 kilometers from Kirkuk. The mostly Shiite-populated city has a population of 200,000 people.
Disputed regions label covers some parts of Kirkuk, Diyala, Nineveh and Saladin provinces on which the Iraqi government and Kurds struggle for control and demographic structure determination.
At least eight people have been injured, according to an official at a local hospital.
Saladin Deputy Governor Muhammed Abdulvahid told Tukey's state-run Anadolu Agency that unidentified attackers opened fire at security forces as they were defusing a bomb which was planted near a mosque in Tuz Khurmatu.
Popular Mobilization Force, in response, opened fire at the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party headquarters in the city.
A Tuz Khurmatu resident told turkeys DHA news agency that the area was strategically important, stressing that if Iraqi forces decided to conduct a military operation to take the oil-rich Kirkuk province it would start from Tuz Khurmatu.
Tensions between Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan Region (KRG) escalated after the semiautonomous region hold an independence referendum on 25 September defying regional and international oppositions.
Iraqi central government has taken a set of measures to isolate KRG and push the region to renounce the breakaway vote, including banning international flights from landing in the northern Iraqi region.
