Kirkuk: Shiite Arab militias have flooded into northern Iraq’s Kirkuk region to help Kurdish forces battle Daesh, but their uneasy alliance threatens to reignite a much older conflict over the oil-rich area pitting the largely autonomous Kurds against the Arab-led government in Baghdad.
All across Iraq, the rapid advance by Daesh extremists over the past year has drawn longtime rivals into reluctant alliances. The shared struggle could with time help Iraqis forge a long-elusive sense of national unity. But it also risks papering over disputes that could burst into the open if the threat subsides.
Shiite Arab militias officially known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces have teamed up with the Kurdish Peshmerga in a number of battles, breaking the siege of the northern Shiite-majority town of Amirli in August and more recently, driving Daesh militants from a string of towns in Diyala province.
But Kirkuk is different. Kurdish forces claimed control of the city just days after Daesh swept across northern Iraq last June, and their long-standing goal of incorporating it and surrounding areas into their semi-autonomous region seemed within reach. But the city’s Arabs and Turkmen, as well as Baghdad, have long opposed such a scenario.
For now, the Shiite fighters are making common cause with the Kurds against Daesh, a mortal enemy of both. But if the Iranian-backed militias gain a foothold in the region, they could one day help Baghdad wrench it back.
As the US has assembled a coalition to aid Iraqi forces with air strikes, Baghdad’s influential neighbour Iran has organised and backed the Shiite militias on the ground. Both sides are also believed to be aiding Kurdish forces. Iraq has welcomed aid from both, but risks being drawn into a region-wide proxy war pitting Iran against the US and its Gulf allies.
While Washington and Tehran both view Daesh as a regional menace, they are sharply divided on the conflict in Syria, where Iran is a key backer of President Bashar Al Assad. They have also long been at odds over Iran’s disputed nuclear programme, as well as its hostility toward Israel and support for militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.
The US and Iran insist they do not coordinate their operations in Iraq, making it in many ways an alliance of inconvenience.
Virtually everyone agrees that the only way to defeat Daesh is to rally tribes and militias in the Sunni heartland to rebel against it. The formula worked for a time starting in 2006, when Sunnis allied with US troops to drive out Al Qaida in Iraq. This time it will be more difficult. Many of the Sunni tribes that took part in the Sahwa, or Awakening, feel they were later betrayed by the Shiite-led government. Daesh has meanwhile severely punished those who have opposed it,
Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi has tried to reach out to Sunnis following the divisive rule of his predecessor Nouri Al Maliki, pushing for the creation of a new National Guard force reminiscent of the Sahwa.
The Kurds have proven to be the most unified and disciplined force battling Daesh, but even among them there are divisions that could undermine their struggle.
Kurdish militiamen from the Turkey-based Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syria-based People’s Protection Units (YPG) have crossed into Iraq and massed outside Sinjar, a town still in the grip of Daesh militants.
The Kurdish Peshmerga have been a close US ally since Saddam’s rule, but the PKK waged a long struggle against Nato ally Turkey, and Washington considers it a terrorist group. The YPG has, meanwhile, claimed Sinjar and surrounding areas as part of Rojava, its self-declared Kurdish enclave in northern Syria, against the wishes of Iraq’s Kurds.
