Gunmen blow up oil well in Iraq's Kirkuk

Gunmen blew up an oil well on Wednesday in Iraq's northern province of Kirkuk, a provincial police chief told Xinhua.

"A group of saboteurs blew up a bomb in an oil well at Bai Hassan oil field northwest of the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, setting a huge fire," Brig. Sarhat Qadir, a police chief of Kirkuk province, said.

Kurdish security forces, known as Peshmerga, arrived at the scene and defused two more bombs planted in other oil installations in the oil field by the gunmen, who fled the scene before the troops' arrival, Qadir said.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack on the gas facility, but the Islamic State (IS) group has previously targeted oil facilities in the province.

Iraq has been hit by a new wave of violence since the IS terrorist group took control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions in June 2014.

Many blame the current chronic instability, cycle of violence, and the emergence of extremist groups such as the IS on the U.S., which invaded Iraq in March 2003 under the pretext of seeking to destroy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the country.

The U.S. invasion led to the ouster and eventual execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but no WMD was found. Endit