Iraqi, Kurd forces in Kirkuk standoff as tensions rise

Thousands of Iraqi soldiers and allied militia are locked in an armed standoff with Kurdish forces in the disputed oil province of Kirkuk amid a sharp row between Baghdad and the autonomous region of Kurdistan. 

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters say Iraq's central government has given them a 2am on Sunday (23:00 GMT on Saturday) deadline to surrender key military positions they took during the fightback against ISIL over the past three years.

Thousands of heavily armed troops and members of the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) - paramilitary units largely made up of Iran-trained Shia militias - have massed around Kirkuk, already retaking a string of positions to the south of the city after Kurdish forces withdrew. 

The Kurds have deployed thousands of Peshmerga fighters to the area around the city itself and have vowed to defend it "at any cost."

Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford, reporting from the westernmost Peshmerga position in Kirkuk, said dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles of Shia militias had been stationed in the area, not far from the Kurdish forces.