US army soldiers sit next a military vehicle in the town of Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq, December 27, 2016.
© Ammar Awad / Reuters
A senior commander of the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces - PMF) Iraqi state-sponsored Shia militia said that the United States forces in Kirkuk do not play any role in the establishment of security in the region and have been locked up in the K1 military base.

"The K1 base in Kirkuk in which the US forces have been deployed has turned into a large prison," Ali al-Hosseini told the Arabic-language Baghdad al-Youm news website on Thursday.

Ali al-Hosseini also added that the United States personnel are not running any operations in Kirkuk as the region is under the full control of the Iraqi security forces, including the Iraqi Army, the Federal Police and Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces - PMF). Al-Hosseini called on the Iraqi government to evacuate the United States military forces from the K1 and turn the base into a tourist or economic area.

A prominent geopolitical analyst had already warned back in January that the United States of America, supported by its Western/NATO and regional Wahhabi allies and vassals, has transferred a large number of its forces from the Iraqi Kurdistan region to Kirkuk in a bid to take control of the oil-rich Iraqi region.

"The United States military has transferred a large number of its forces from its base in Erbil to K1 base in Kirkuk and they have been deployed at the airbase and are making new moves inside Kirkuk and nearby areas," Mo'ayed al-Ali told the Arabic-language al-Ma'aloumeh news website.

Mo'ayed al-Ali also added that the measures are without a doubt aimed at gaining control of Iraqi crude resources in the Kirkuk area and deploying oil firms from the United States and other US-allied countries in the province despite the Iraqi parliament's vote to end the United States (severely destabilizing) military presence.