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Eli Lake

As Kirkuk's Governor Is Forced to Flee, Iran Moves In

Baghdad and Washington say the invasion has been no big deal. The Kurds beg to differ.
A man without a home.

A man without a home.

Photographer: Marwan Ibrahim/AFP/Getty Images
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Najmaldin Karim, the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk Province, will not be returning to the city that elected him in 2011 and 2014. It's too dangerous.

In an interview Wednesday, he told me he fled his home on Tuesday in the early evening and has no plans at the moment to return. "If I go back, my life is in danger," he told me. "Even the night when all this happened, I had to maneuver carefully to go to safety."