With ISIS on the run, new wars could erupt in Iraq

[garbon]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/with-isis-on-the-run-new-conflicts-could-erupt-among-the-militants-opponents/2016/08/11/ead5ca88-5829-11e6-8b48-0cb344221131_story.html

The front line south of this bleak and dusty town looks much as it did two years ago, when the Islamic State was the enemy and controlled a village less than a mile away.

Now, however, the Kurdish peshmerga fighters holed up behind sandbags and barbed wire are peering across the line at Shiite militias, ostensibly their allies in the fight against the Islamic State.

Whether their alliance will outlast the Islamic State is in question. The militants' defenses have been crumbling fast across Iraq. An offensive for the city of Mosul, the Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq, is likely by the end of the year, U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials say.

If the battle goes well, the defeat of the Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq, at least in terms of the territory it controls, is on the horizon.

And so too are new problems — and potentially new conflicts. For the past two years, Kurdish peshmerga, Iraqi Army forces, Shiite militias and some Sunni ones have largely overlooked long-standing differences to confront the menace posed to them. But their feuds and grievances — over vital issues such as the distribution of power, land, money and oil — have not been resolved.

The manner in which the war has been fought — by an assortment of locally armed groups with often-competing agendas — has compounded the existing problems with new and potentially more intractable disputes, such as the question of who will govern the areas vacated by the militants, and how.

"The moment there is what you might call victory against ISIS, then you are up against all the problems that caused this crisis in the first place," said Yezid Sayigh of the Carnegie Middle East Center, using an alternate term for the Islamic State.

In the process of rolling back the Islamic State, Kurdish peshmerga forces have conquered areas that were under Iraqi government control, expanding the area ruled by the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government by about 50 percent.

Shiite fighters under the umbrella of the Hashd al-Shaabi — which includes powerful militias backed by Iran alongside groups of ordinary volunteers — have pushed far north into areas that were wholly Sunni. Syrian Kurdish forces with the People's Protection Units have crossed the border from Syria to help out in the fight and have occupied positions adjoining those of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga, their fierce rivals in an even more complex, intra-Kurdish feud.

The Sunni grievances that helped fuel the militants' rise have not been addressed, raising the risk that the cycle of Sunni disenfranchisement, alienation and insurgency that contributed to the rise of the Islamic State will begin again, said Sayigh.

It is a complicated and messy battlefield that could easily unleash new conflicts as the victors of the war turn on one another in a scramble to control the territories left behind.

Filling a vacuum
The ethnically and religiously mixed town of Tuz Khurmatu is one place where the tensions have erupted in armed conflict late last year and again in April when at least 12 died in clashes between Kurdish and Shiite fighters.

The town is made up mostly of Turkmen Shiites but has a sizeable Kurdish and Sunni Arab population. Since Kurds and Shiite militias drove the Islamic State out from nearby villages nearly two years ago, Tuz Khurmatu has been administered by the Kurds. But Shiite militias maintain offices there and control most of the surrounding villages. Front lines crisscross the area, and it is not considered safe to traverse them. In recent months, several suicide bombings blamed on the Islamic State have helped keep tensions high.

[Ignoring Turkey, U.S. backs Kurds in drive against ISIS in Syria]

But the militants are not considered the most serious threat any longer, said Maj. Mahmoud Fares Mahmoud, who commands the Kurdish post on the outskirts of Tuz Khurmatu that was involved in some of the shootouts with the militias.

"To be honest, the biggest threat now is the Hashd al-Shaabi," he said, referring to the Shiite militias, whose flags are visible about a mile away. "It's very hard to deal with them. They are savage, barbaric people. They don't recognize any alliances or treaties, so you can't trust them.

"We regret that we invited them here and made an alliance with them," he added.

The Iraqi government and its allies in the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi are just as mistrustful of the Kurds, whose president, Masoud Barzani, has publicly stated that the borders of a new Kurdistan are being "redrawn in blood" and that he will not relinquish any territory taken by the peshmerga in the fight against the Islamic State.

"This is totally nonsense," said Kareem Nouri, a spokesman for the Badr Organization, one of the Shiite groups around Tuz Khurmatu. "No one has any intention of allowing anyone to redraw the borders."

The central government hopes to reassert its authority over the areas controlled by Kurds after the Islamic State is defeated, according to government spokesman Saad Hadithi.

"Any change brought about by any one person taking advantage of the circumstances is a temporary thing," he said. "It is against the constitution and we will not accept it."

The battle for Mosul may, however, only make things more complicated. For the first time since the war against the Islamic State was launched two years ago, the entire spectrum of forces ranged against it will be joining together, including Kurdish peshmerga, the Shiite militias known collectively as Hashd al-Shaabi, a selection of small Sunni tribal forces, a couple of Christian ones and U.S. troops, who have begun deploying southeast of Mosul to serve as advisers to the mission.

Although the city of Mosul is mostly Sunni Arab, the surrounding towns and villages in the province of Nineveh are populated by the full range of Iraqi ethnicities, including Sunni and Shiite Turkmen, Kurds, Christians, Arabs, Yazidis and a small group called Shabbaks whose religion is similar to that of the Shiites. All have conflicting visions of how the province should be run after it is fully liberated, and there are multiple proposals for ways to divide it into smaller provinces.

Iraqis are hoping to avoid future conflicts, said Assad al-Asaadi, the spokesman for the Hashd al-Shaabi movement.

"We will have a lot of work to do after Daesh, it is true, and it won't be easier than fighting Daesh," he said, using another name for the Islamic State. "But for the coming problems, war will be our last option, because we are sick of war."

The different factions are barely communicating, raising fears of a dash to assert control over the liberated areas, according to a senior Kurdish official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive subjects.

"Nobody is talking to one another," he said. "All anyone cares about is to be the first one to hoist their flag in the center of the city. It's going to be a huge mess."

U.S. officials acknowledge the concerns and say they are aware of the potential for conflict after Mosul is recaptured.

"The fall of Mosul is not if, but when, and when that happens, we want the planning in place to fill the political vacuum and get the people back into the city," said U.S. military spokesman Col. Chris Garver. "That planning needs to happen."

[Berkut]

Yeah, the power vaccum that ISIS exploited is still going to be there. Indeed, if I were them, I would be thinking about how to pull back, hole up, and simply survive until such time as the inevitable internal friction gives me room to try again.

[Josquius]

The Syrian and iraqi kurds hate each other?
Now this is interesting.

[Valmy]

The Syrian and iraqi kurds hate each other?
Now this is interesting.

The Iraqi Kurds hate each other. Tribal divisions run deep.

[jimmy olsen]

I hope we support the kurds.

[Razgovory]

I hope we support the kurds.

Which ones?

[11B4V]

Meet the bomber the US is sending to crush ISIS

http://www.cnet.com/pictures/the-b-52-bomber-turns-60-photos/

[The Brain]

Mission accomplished.

[DGuller]

ISIS is on the run?  Obama can't catch a break. 

[garbon]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/frees-hundreds-abducted-civilians-north-syria-095550606.html?nhp=1

IS frees hundreds of 'human shields' in Syria

Islamic State group jihadists have released hundreds of civilians they used as human shields while fleeing a crumbling stronghold in northern Syria, but the fate of others remained unknown Saturday.

On another front, scores of civilians were killed on Saturday in air raids by the Syrian regime and its Russian ally, and in shelling attacks by the rebels in the battleground province of Aleppo, a monitoring group said.

At least 51 civilians including four children were killed in Aleppo city and the surrounding countryside, while another 22 civilians were killed in the neighbouring province of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The last remaining IS fighters abandoned the city of Manbij near the Turkish border on Friday after a rout the Pentagon said showed the extremists were "on the ropes".

The retreat from the city which IS captured in 2014 was the jihadists' worst defeat yet at the hands of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an Arab-Kurdish alliance backed by US air power.

Fleeing fighters took around 2,000 civilians, including women and children, Friday to ward off air strikes as they headed towards the IS-held frontier town of Jarabulus, according to the SDF.

At least some captives were later released or escaped, the alliance said Saturday, but the whereabouts of the rest was unknown.

"There are no more IS fighters" left in Manbij, an SDF member said.

Kurdish television showed footage of jubilant civilians in Manbij, including smiling mothers who had shed their veils and women embracing Kurdish fighters.

One woman burned a black robe that the jihadists had forced residents to wear, while men who had lived for weeks under a shaving ban cut their beards.

- Booby-trapped houses -

"The battle was very hard," a Kurdish source told AFP, adding the jihadists had laid mines in the city.

"One SDF fighter entered a house on Friday and saw a shoe placed on a Koran. When he removed it there was an explosion and he was killed," the source said.

One resident told AFP there was not a single house inside his neighbourhood that had not been booby-trapped.

"We ask the people in charge... to do something" to remove the mines, Jamal Abul Ababiyya said, adding that mines were wounding people every day.

AFP footage showed the city's streets strewn with rubble and a wall still painted with the jihadists' black and white flag.

A female SDF fighter, a traditional keffiyeh scarf loosely tied around her hair, beamed as she spoke of the city's "liberation".

"We're inside Manbij after its liberation from IS... and taking civilians to secure places," Nayruz Serekaniye said.

The Britain-based Observatory also reported that several hundred of the civilians taken from Manbij were no longer being held by IS.

"Among the civilians taken by IS there were people used as human shields but also many who chose voluntarily to leave the town due to fear of reprisals" by the SDF, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The SDF began an assault in May on Manbij, on a key jihadist supply route between the Turkish border and IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa.

The jihadists, who have suffered a string of losses in Syria and Iraq, have often staged mass abductions when they come under pressure to relinquish territory they hold.

IS has also booby-trapped cars and carried out suicide bombings to slow advances by its opponents.

- Hundreds killed -

SDF forces captured Manbij on August 6 but continued to battle pockets of jihadist resistance there.

According to the Observatory, 437 civilians, including more than 100 children, were killed in the battle for Manbij and surrounding territory.

Around 300 SDF fighters died, along with more than 1,000 jihadists, it said.

Pentagon deputy press secretary Gordon Trowbridge said on Friday that IS "is clearly on the ropes".

"It has lost the centre of Manbij, it has lost control of Manbij," he said.

Since the battle for Manbij began, US-led strikes have destroyed more than 50 IS heavy weapons and more than 600 fortified fighting positions, Trowbridge said.

But the job of clearing the city will be difficult after the jihadists left behind hundreds of mines and booby traps, he added.

Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 and has since killed more than 290,000 people and drawn in world powers on all sides of the war.

Rebels and government forces clashed Saturday in Syria's second city Aleppo, a fortnight on from the launch of a major rebel offensive on July 31.

In Aleppo city and the neighbouring countryside, air raids by the Syrian regime and its Russian ally, as well as shelling by the rebels left at least 51 civilians dead on Saturday, according to the Observatory.

The latest toll brought to over 230 the number of civilians killed in the embattled city since the rebel offensive began.

Strikes by the Russian and Syrian air force continued despite a pledge by Moscow to observe a three-hour daily ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid deliveries.

[Eddie Teach]

I hope we support the kurds.

Which ones?

The good ones.

[Zoupa]

The sweet dominoes of democracy.

What a clusterfuck.

[Martinus]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/frees-hundreds-abducted-civilians-north-syria-095550606.html?nhp=1

IS frees hundreds of 'human shields' in Syria

I don't think yahoo is supporting ISIS, just stupid, but this is a really odd phrasing.

That's like saying the nazis freed Auschwitz prisoners when they were running away from the allied armies.

[garbon]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/frees-hundreds-abducted-civilians-north-syria-095550606.html?nhp=1

IS frees hundreds of 'human shields' in Syria

I don't think yahoo is supporting ISIS, just stupid, but this is a really odd phrasing.

That's like saying the nazis freed Auschwitz prisoners when they were running away from the allied armies.

I think it probably is something lost in translation as AFP wrote the article.

[Martinus]

Ok, possible. "Released" was probably the word they were going for.