A territorial dispute in northern Iraq threatens to disrupt oil output at a field containing as much crude as Norway, even as U.S.-backed forces prepare what could be a decisive blow against Islamic State militants in the nearby city of Mosul. Kirkuk, where Iraq first discovered oil in 1927, can produce more than 1 million barrels a day but is pumping at less than half its capacity while competing ethnic and political groups scramble to control its 9 billion barrels of reserves. 1. What’s behind the tensions in Kirkuk? Lying near a disputed city of the same name, the Kirkuk field is a tinderbox for potential conflict between the central government and Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurds, both of whom have for decades claimed it as their own. More recently, it also became became a flashpoint for rival Kurdish political parties and their heavily armed supporters. “As Islamic State becomes less […]