Kurdish Peshmerga troops and tanks are deployed on the outskirts of Kirkuk, some 250km (155 miles) north of Baghdad December 3, 2012. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - When hundreds of al Qaeda fighters in armoured trucks attacked the northern Iraqi town of Shirqat with machine guns last week, the local army unit called for backup and set off in pursuit.
But after a two-hour chase through searing desert heat, most militants vanished into a cluster of Kurdish villages where the Iraqi army cannot enter without a nod from regional authorities.
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