৮:২৫ AM
Abu Naim
Why More Fighting May Be In Store
The campaign to liberate Mosul from the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) has raised questions about what Iraq will look like once ISIS is defeated. The expulsion of the militants from Iraq will probably neither decrease the number of armed groups in the country nor limit the potential for violence there. Far from portending the end of Iraq’s current turbulence, ISIS’ demise could have the opposite effect, creating opportunities for violent competition in the areas that the militant group abandons.
There are a number of reasons why this is the case. First among these is the fact that ISIS has exacerbated the old grievances among the various groups living under its control in an attempt to play them off of one another. Next is the sharp increase in weapons and outside support that Iraq’s armed groups have received in recent years, in large part to equip them for the fight against ISIS. Even as Iran, Turkey, and other regional players compete for influence in post-ISIS Iraq, Baghdad will have to manage increased tensions at the local level, both between different ethnic and religious communities and within the particular groups that constitute them.
DIVIDED AND CONQUERED
Tensions between Iraq’s ethnic and religious communities are on the rise. In the disputed territories in the northern parts of Diyala Governorate, the eastern portions of Nineveh Governorate, and in the city of Kirkuk, which was captured by Kurdish fighters after the retreat of the Iraqi army in the face of an ISIS offensive in the summer of 2014, the friction between Arabs and Kurds, in particular, is increasing.
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