All posts by Salah Nasrawi

Mosul

Analysis: The fate of Mosul in Turkey’s hands?

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Analysis: The fate of Mosul in Turkey’s hands?

Turkey keeps the world guessing as it moves militarily in Iraq – but it’s all about geopolitics.

Salah Nasrawi

On December 4, less than two weeks into the standoff with Moscow over thedowning of a Russian jet operating in Syria, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, sent a convoy of several hundred Turkish soldiers, bolstered by tanks and armoured vehicles, deep into Iraq’s territory, stirring another conflict in his country’s troubled southern backyard.

The incursion embittered relations between Ankara and Baghdad and increased tensions among Iraq’s embattled communities. The dispute has also threatened to draw in the rest of Iraq’s neighbours, who have high stakes in the war-torn nation.

On Monday, some Turkish troops started leaving their camp in Iraq and moving north, a Turkish military source and a senior official said.It may be too early to figure out Turkey’s motives behind its military build-up in Iraq, but in many ways the confrontation appears to have been waiting to happen.

Ankara says its soldiers were sent to guard a training camp for Iraqi Sunni volunteers stationed in Bashiqa, near Mosul. The volunteers are training to take back the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group. Ankara also claims that Turkish troops are in Iraq at the request of Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister.

While Abadi denies making such a request, the country’s top Shia religious authority, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, instructed the government not to tolerate any infringement of Iraq’s sovereignty.

Iraq’s Iran-backed Shia militias, including Muqtada al-Sadr’s powerful Mahdi Army, meanwhile, have vowed to put up a “decisive” fight against the Turkish soldiers.

 

In that context, and as Erdogan insists that troop withdrawal is “out of the question”, Turkey appears to be heading towards an escalation with Iraq.

Ankara’s operation in Iraq is still relatively limited in scale, but its military campaign marks a testing ground for Turkey’s strategy in dealing with regional conflicts and for its attempt to be accepted as a key actor in the Middle East.

So, why did Ankara decide to intervene directly in Iraq, knowing that it could cause issues both with Iraq’s Shia community and with Iran, which has enhanced its clout in Iraq since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003?

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Friday, Erdogan shared some of his deep and bitter feelings about what he views as the reasons behind the flare up, saying Ankara’s problems with Baghdad stem from the latter’s “sectarian polices” against Sunnis and its alliance with Iran. The Iranian and Iraqi cooperation with Russia, Turkey’s new nemesis, was another reason for the tensions.

There is much to untangle here. Relations between Iraq and Turkey have remained strained since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which empowered Iraq’s Shia community and allowed Kurds to establish full autonomy in northern Iraq. Iraq’s Shia community cemented relations with Iran, while some Iraqi Sunnis sought patronage from Turkey.

As the gap between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad widened, Ankara also succeeded in co-opting Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s Kurdish region, whose acrimonious relationship with Baghdad has become poisonous since his Peshmerga forces seized disputed territories retaken from ISIL.

The latest display of Turkish frustration at Iran and Iraq’s Shia-led government, however, is a result of Russia’s build-up in Syria, which threatens Ankara’s plans to establish a safe haven in northern Syria.

Ankara had hoped to use the zone to expand its influence and block an emerging autonomous Kurdish enclave on its southern border that could fall under the control of its arch enemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

While its beefed-up presence in Bashiqa will allow Turkey to act aggressively to thwart the PKK’s efforts to build new bases in territories retaken from ISIL, as it did in Sinjar, the Turkish strategy also aims to confront increasing Iranian influence after Iraqi forces eventually retake Mosul from ISIL.

But there are more long-term and strategic challenges that may illustrate why Turkey’s response has been so determined and aggressive.

With many Iraqi Sunnis now fearful that their liberated cities will be under the control of Shia militias, Iraq is facing a severe crisis. In reinforcing its military presence in Iraq, Turkey seems to be getting out in front of the country’s possible partitioning, in an effort to gain territorial advantage.

With Mosul being the last Ottoman vilayet (administrative division) to fall in World War I, the city given to Iraq under the Sykes-Picot agreement has a particular claim on the hearts and minds of many Turks.

“The sudden and dramatic moves are linked to each other. It’s a stage for interested parties and local players to position and reposition themselves as events unfold,” wrote Yavuz Baydar, a columnist, in the Turkish daily, Today’s Zaman, on December 7.

Indeed, many Turkish politicians and commentators have been sending signals that the fate of Mosul will be Turkey’s most serious challenge if Iraq collapses.

First published in  Al Jazeera on December  15, 2015

Iraq-Shia

Shia power struggle in Iraq

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Shia power struggle in Iraq

At the root of the Iraqi Shia’s troubles lie the competing ambitions of their leaders, writesSalah Nasrawi

The first thought that must have crossed the minds of many Iraqis when they learned about the fight that broke out between a Shia member of parliament and a Shia politician at a Baghdad television building was that the much-feared Shia power struggle had come to pass earlier than many had expected.

“This is a state of militias,” was a comment widely posted by Iraqis on social networks this week, referring to the surge in the number of Shia paramilitary groups in the country and the increasing militarisation of the Shia political factions and their meddling in both public life and state affairs.

The brawl began in the reception area of the Dijla TV station when MP Kadhim Al-Sayyadi of the State of Law bloc and Baligh Abu Galal, a spokesman of the Citizen’s Bloc, accidently ran into one another.

Both groups are within the Shia National Coalition that has been in control of the Iraqi government since the US-led invasion in 2003 that toppled the Sunni-dominated regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

The brawl started when Abu Galal, scheduled to appear on an evening talk show, did not return the greetings of Al-Sayyadi when the later appeared in the reception area on his way out of the studio. The bickering that followed quickly escalated into a fight that turned into shooting.

Both Al-Sayyadi and Abu Galal have a long history of squabbling with other Shia politicians, sometimes inside parliament or on the air. In May, Al-Sayyadi was beaten up by Shia Sadrist Movement MPs during a debate to elect two ministers. A few months ago, Abu Galal was at the centre of a dispute with an influential Shia tribe that had accused him of slandering an MP belonging to the tribe.

Beneath the chaos looms a complex struggle between Shia leaders that reveals much about the country and the surprisingly opaque nature of power in Shia-led Iraq. On the surface, the Shia National Coalition is a broad grouping encompassing the country’s main Shia factions. Real power, however, rests with an inner circle of oligarchs.

The most recent, and probably the most daunting conflict, grew out of the reforms that Iraqi prime minister Haider Al-Abadi has promised to carry out in response to the widespread protests that have taken place since August against rampant government corruption and poor services and in favour of calls for change.

The struggle has also been fueled by the rise of the Shia militias that first arose after the US-led invasion to confront Al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups and were reinvigorated following the seizure of swathes of Sunni-populated territory in Iraq by the Islamic State (IS) group, threatening Baghdad and Shia-dominated central and southern Iraq.

Al-Abadi’s reforms, though too meagre to matter, have been met with resistance by the Shia oligarchs who dominate the government and parliament. Last month, the parliament withdrew its support for Al-Abadi’s reform package, accusing the prime minister of overstepping his powers.

Many of Al-Abadi’s reforms, such as scrapping top government posts, target Shia politicians accused by protesters of corruption, incompetence and negligence. Among those whose jobs have been axed is Al-Abadi’s predecessor Nuri Al-Maliki who has the post of vice-president in Al-Abadi’s administration.

Some of the measures introduced by Al-Abadi, including cuts to the hefty benefits received by MPs and senior officials that have been key demands of the protesters, have been challenged by Shia politicians who use their positions to fill their pockets through endemic corruption.

Four months after promising the reforms, Al-Abadi is still battling opposition that threatens his authority. Last month, Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone was again declared off limits a few days after Al-Abadi said he would open it to the public. Lifting restrictions on the 10 square km area has been a major demand of the protesters.

But the emergence of the Shia militias remains the most serious challenge to Al-Abadi. The Iran-backed paramilitary forces that have officially become part of Iraq’s armed forces as the Hashid Al-Sha’bi, or Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), are quickly moving to the centre stage of Iraq’s politics and becoming a threat to Al-Abadi’s authority.

Last month, PMF leaders pressed the parliament to send the draft 2016 budget back to the government, demanding increases in funding for their units which they said was not sufficient to allow them to fight IS.

They leaders have also been pushing for increases in the numbers of the Forces, which are now believed to include some 120,000 fighters and aspire to play a larger role in the country’s domestic security.

Al-Abadi seems to be under the hammer of his fellow Shia politicians, who are taking advantage of Iraq’s troubles to cash in on his faltering efforts at curbing corruption, improving government efficiency and taking down IS militants.

The future of Al-Abadi’s government is currently the most discussed topic in Iraq. In recent weeks, there have been frequent reports in the Iraqi media about efforts by Al-Abadi’s opponents to call for a no-confidence vote in his government in parliament.

Other reports have suggested that the beleaguered prime minister has lost the support of Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric, ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who has been backing Al-Abadi’s reforms. During a visit to Najaf, the seat of Al-Sistani’s authority, last month, Al-Abadi did not meet the cleric, a sign that Al-Sistani is probably discontented with the slow pace of reforms.

Opposition to Al-Abadi is also growing within his own Dawa Party, and Party leader Al-Maliki, who fought to stay in office and prevent Al-Abadi from taking over following last year’s elections, is widely believed to be working to overthrow Al-Abadi.

In a stunning remark, the head of the Party’s bloc in parliament, Ali Adeeb, told the Washington Post last week that Al-Abadi was perceived to be “illegitimate.” The statement reflects the deep divisions within the Dawa Party, which has shelved a conference planned this month to elect a new leadership and review the stances taken by Al-Abadi.

After 13 years in power following their rise in US-occupied Iraq, the Shia religious parties are sinking into ever-deeper disarray. Their corrupt and power-greedy leaders are sacrificing competence and unity in the face of the country’s political chaos.

Their maneuvering to block the badly needed reforms, insistence on clinging onto power, and in particular their fierce competition for power and resources have led them to be at war with themselves.

Worse still, the increasing role played by the militias and the militarisation of the Shia groups could drive the country into a political showdown. The prospect of an internecine Shia war looks steadily more alarming and its possible impact on Iraq’s national politics is growing.

On Saturday, Al-Abadi made a passionate appeal to his rivals to abandon a “competition which is aimed at finding fault with others”. He urged them “to belong to the country and not to their political affiliations”.

As if to test the will of his opponents and disperse perceptions about his own weakness, Al-Abadi also trumpeted his achievements in terms of reform and vowed to continue implementing his anti-corruption programme.

Both assertions, however, are now looking rather doubtful.

Al-Abadi may stay in office until the end of his term in 2018, thanks to the complicated political procedures that will be needed to find a replacement. But he will be a lame duck at the mercy of a conglomerate of Shia oligarchs and militia leaders whose agenda is to keep the government under their control.

US-ME intel'-ISIL

Analysis: What does US Intel really know about ISIL?

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Analysis: What does US Intel really know about ISIL?

The US intelligence failure on ISIL is raising serious questions in the Middle East.

Salah Nasrawi |

 A major cause of President George W Bush’s blunder in Iraq was US intelligence failures, first over Saddam Hussein’s lack of weapons of mass destruction and then, after connecting the dots of the September 11 plot, the linking of the Iraqi president to Osama bin Laden’s Al­Qaeda.
It took Bush’s partner in the Iraq fiasco, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, more than 13 years to grudgingly admit in October to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the war conspiracy which led directly to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the destruction it has wreaked in the Middle East was based on “wrong” intelligence.
Without the controversy over the Chilcot Inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq War, it would also have been hard to get an admission from Blair that there were “elements of truth” in the idea that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 assisted the rise of the ISIL.
What he has failed to admit, however, is that the prewar intelligence was deliberately “sexed up” to build the case for the invasion. OPINION: Blair, the Iraq War and me Now, as US President Barack Obama agonises over how to defeat ISIL, it seems to be happening again.
Messy US intelligence failure in the war in Iraq has resurfaced, leading to allegations that the US Central Command (Centcom), which oversees military operations across the Middle East, is cooking the books about both ISIL and Iraq.
This week Obama ordered his senior defence officials to find out whether classified intelligence assessments for policymakers had been altered at Centcom to reflect a more optimistic picture of the US military campaign against ISIL.
With cracks revealed in France’s counterterrorism efforts by the November 13 attacks in Paris, the Centcom scandal has gained increasing attention, including a Congressional probe.
The New York Times, which first broke the story, reported that supervisors revised conclusions to mask some of the US military’s failures in training Iraqi troops and beating back ISIL.
According to the newspaper, the analysts said supervisors were particularly eager to paint a more optimistic picture of the US role in the conflict than was warranted.
While revelations that French intelligence failures might have played into the hands of ISIL in carrying out its deadly attacks in Paris and hence broadening the group’s focus to attack the West, the Pentagon spying scam tells another story of doctoring intelligence behind the group’s expansion.
It appears that the Centcom intelligence reports have overstated military progress against ISIL in Iraq, giving Obama the leeway to avoid responsibility for the rise of ISIL.
Many analysts had for years argued that Obama’s lack of vision on Iraq and his ineffective strategy in Syria would create a radicalising momentum that would help ISIL expand its power.
What the little information about the Centcom scandal revealed so far indicates is that the problem goes beyond analysis failure to actually meddling with intelligence about the campaign against ISIL, by exaggerating successes and downplaying serious setbacks in order to serve the president’s agenda.
This bodes ill for Obama whose current approach to ISIL has largely failed to dislodge the group from its strongholds in Iraq and Syria. Now Obama could face criticism that US intelligence and military officials were only telling him what he wants to hear.
However, the case of US intelligence failure over ISIL is raising more serious questions in the Middle East. Absurd as it may seem, the revelations about cracks in US intelligence have added fodder to conspiracy scenarios that Washington is behind ISIL.
While some Iraqis have complained that the US has been sitting on its hands as the war has raged against ISIL, Iran­backed Shia militias have often accused the US­led coalition of parachuting weapons to ISIL fighters or even targeting Iraq’s security forces’ positions.
In Syria, Obama’s seesaw strategy has given rise to similar theories, in both President Bashar alAssad’s camp and that of his opponents. While the Assad regime blames the Pentagon for failing to foresee the rise of the “Islamic State” as a consequence of its strategy, Syrian opposition believe that the Obama administration has signed off on diplomatic initiatives aimed at bringing down Assad.
Check that against what US Senator John McCain disclosed last May that 75 percent of US pilots on missions to attack ISIL targets are returning without dropping any ordnance, due to delays in decision­making up the chain of command, then conspiracy theorists here seem to be making some rational points.
This analysis appeared first on Al  Jazeera on November 26, 2015
EU-Refugees

Scapegoating the refugees

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Scapegoating the refugees

A tide of increased xenophobia in Europe in the aftermath of the Paris attacks is making refugees pawns in the debate over terrorism, writes Salah Nasraw

On a street corner in the upscale Cairo neighbourhood of Zamalek, a small crowd of visitors gathers outside the fortified building of the German embassy early in the morning on each working day.

While some are seated on cheap fixed outdoor benches, others seek shelter from the scorching sun under trees or stroll back and forth waiting for the consulate’s reception windows to open.

This is the location of what is meant to be a reception area for visa applicants who have waited for days, sometimes weeks, to make an online appointment to submit the required documents.

Anxiety is locked on the faces of those who are waiting as they exchange stories about the arduous task of getting a Schengen visa to travel to Europe.

Sitting in the open-air waiting area, it’s hard to imagine that these people plan to travel to Europe for business, medical treatment, education, family reunions or tourism. Many are turned away in frustration after brief questioning and a quick examination of their papers by a faceless clerk who speaks through an intercom from behind a bullet-proof glass window.

Only those with the required documents (bank statements, property deeds, a marriage certificate, an invitation letter and so on) will be allowed into the consulate after passing through a metal detector and a body scan and then going through another tedious process of vetting and checking their documents.

In other EU embassies in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries the scene is not very different. Visa applicants, some with family members within the EU, sometimes have humiliating waits of days at a time at EU consulates. Only the lucky ones will be able to collect their passports with visas stamped in them and often weeks later.

The emotional condition of a visa applicant who has had to go through such a humiliating experience and then is denied a visa is not difficult to imagine.

Of course, the requirement made of some foreign nationals to obtain a visa before entering a given country remains a sovereign matter and falls within that country’s right to protect its security and national interests.

Yet, visa policies should not be used to hinder economic, cultural and human exchanges, including the right of those seeking a better life abroad or protection from persecution or tyranny.

If history can teach us anything, stringent visa restrictions, such as those imposed by European consulates on ordinary travellers, have never been successful in stopping migrants from trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean, sometimes in small fishing boats or by trekking through the cornfields of Eastern Europe.

Indeed, the migrant tragedy of epic proportions this summer has manifested Europe’s failure to establish flexible visa policies and respectful procedures that serve to advance human, political, economic and cultural relationships between Europe and the peoples of the southern Mediterranean who are bound to it by historical ties and shared interests.

In a way, the influx of refugees into Europe this summer, with all the horror stories experienced during their journeys witnessed by the world as a whole, was a firm show of the degrading experience of failed attempts to get legal entry to European countries.

Unfortunately, the anti-Europe or anti-immigrant far right on the continent that is now capitalising on the unprecedented migrant crisis triggered by the civil wars in Iraq and Syria and fears of increasing terrorism is hardly making things easier.

It looks set to lead to new get-tough policies by European governments that tend to appease hardliners and give home security priority over humanitarian issues.

In the days after the wave of deadly attacks that killed 130 people in Paris on 13 November, the European Union agreed to rush through changes to the passport-free Schengen Zone by the end of the year that would tighten checks on the external borders of the 26-nation area.

The planned changes, which will allow for “systematic and obligatory checks at all external borders for all travellers,” are a further blow to the Schengen Zone as a pillar of European unity and freedom.

The changes will also include new migration policies for asylum-seekers gathering in immigration “hotspots” and measures to put pressure on Italy and Greece to do more to process migrants.

Throughout Europe, right-wing politicians have seized the opportunity to warn against accepting any more people fleeing war and persecution in Muslim-majority countries.

 In France, Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands and Belgium, far-right politicians have demanded an “immediate halt” to all intakes of migrants. Some, like French National Front leader Marine Le Pen, have warned that “Islamic fundamentalism must be annihilated.”

In Britain, more than 420,000 people have signed a petition calling on the UK to “close its borders.” Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which 3.8 million Britons voted for in the 2015 general elections, said the EU was “seriously imperiling our security”.

Across the Atlantic, the party of fear has also seized on the Paris attacks. The US House of Representatives has passed a bill sponsored by the Republican Party that will make it harder for people fleeing war-torn countries to come to the US.

The legislature has also suspended a programme allowing Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the US until key national security agencies certify that they do not pose a security risk.

More than half of US state governors have voiced their opposition to letting Syrian refugees into their states, even though the final say on the matter falls to the US federal government.

According to a Bloomberg poll, most Americans agree with the governors and with Republican Party presidential election candidates seeking to project a firm stance on national security ahead of next year’s elections.

By contrast, other politicians, though fearful of the right-wing and media drumbeat for war against the refugees, have not been reluctant to attack such perceptions.

US President Barack Obama said his administration would remain committed to the refugee resettlement programme and derided his Republican opponents for being scared of “widows and orphans.”

French President François Hollande reiterated his country’s “humanitarian duty” to welcome 30,000 refugees over the next two years. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR has warned against scapegoating the refugees.

Western worries that a surge in the number of refugees entering Europe from Syria has allowed jihadists to sneak into EU countries unchecked and unnoticed seem to be highly overblown.

A report that a passport found near the remains of a suicide-bomber in Paris purporting to belong to a Syrian refugee turned out to be false. Almost all those accused in the Paris events, including Abdel-Hamid Abaaoud, the presumed mastermind of the attacks, also turned out to be French or Belgian citizens.

Yet, xenophobia in the wake of the Paris attacks continues to give rise to fearful headlines in the media coverage while politicians continue their drumbeat for war against Muslims, with some failing to distinguish between Islamic State (IS) group militants and ordinary migrants who are often themselves trying to escape the terror organisation.

Watching Western reactions to the horrific events of 13 November in Paris, one may have the helpless sense of déjà vu. It is a familiar pattern: political exploitation, fear-mongering, media hate speech and analysis from pundits and terrorism experts who blame Islam for global terrorism and defend unlimited state power.

While there is a tremendous need to focus on the failure of the American and European strategies in the fight against the Islamic State terror group, especially after its spectacular advances in Iraq and Syria, fundamental questions about the failure of American and European foreign policy in the Middle East are certainly unavoidable.

The roots of misunderstandings, negative perceptions, violence, conflicts and fears of all-out war between the West and at least parts of the Muslim world lie in the failure of the United States and Europe to build democratic relationships with Muslims and in particular with the Arabs.

Today, there is no evidence that Western nations are trying to learn from the mistakes, follies and colonial crimes of the past. Instead, they are allowing a rhetoric of hate, bigotry and Islamophobia to dictate the agenda of the US and the EU in the Middle East.

It is here that not only do the irrational demands to close down immigration flows into the United States and Europe matter, but so also do the current humiliating treatment of visa applicants by Western consulates abroad.

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This article appeared first in Al Ahram Weekly on November 26, 2015

Iraq-Kurds

Sinjar’s bittersweet victory

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Sinjar’s bittersweet victory

Retaking Sinjar from the Islamic State group is a triumph for Iraq, but its seizure by the Kurds could also be a setback for the country, writes Salah Nasrawi

Things couldn’t have gone much better for the embattled president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani, who faces an on-going revolt by opposition parties and civil society groups for refusing to step down and hold presidential elections despite the end of his term in office in August.

A joint Kurdish force on Friday took control of the strategic town of Sinjar in northern Iraq with the help of US-led coalition airstrikes after more than 15 months of its seizure by the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

Barzani rushed to declare victory for “liberating” Sinjar, alleging that the town, part of the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh, had been retaken solely by the Kurdistan Region Government’s (KRG) forces.

“Sinjar has been liberated by the Peshmergas,” Barzani boasted, using the Kurdish name for the fighters. He said the town, like dozens of others taken back from IS, would remain forever under the KRG’s red, white, green and yellow banner.

“Other than the Kurdistan flag, we do not accept any other flag rising over Sinjar,” Barzani vowed in a video from atop a hill overlooking the city whose name has been changed by Kurds to Shengal.

But celebrating the annexation of Sinjar, underlined by Barzani’s bragging, may not be as good as it looks. By declaring the liberation of Sinjar, a contested town which is traditionally populated by the Yazidi religious minority, Barzani may have overplayed his hand while he is being challenged by the Shia-led Iraqi government in Baghdad and his Kurdish rivals.

Shia Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi reacted angrily to the announcement and insisted that the Iraqi flag should be raised above the town, while Shia groups demanded that Sinjar be placed back under the central government’s control.

Meanwhile, Barzani has been facing tough opposition to his leadership at home. The main Kurdish parties have challenged his legitimacy as KRG president after he refused to hold elections to choose a new president following the expiration of his second term in office.

Barzani has also refused to step down, triggering a political crisis that has paralysed the government and regional parliament. The dispute culminated in late October when the KRG unilaterally removed four ministers from the Gorran (Change) Party from their posts and replaced them with Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) loyalists.

Barzani’s KDP security forces also barred the speaker of the parliament, a senior Gorran member, from entering Erbil, the region’s capital, in a move slammed by opposition parties as illegal.

Barzani’s swift declaration of triumph in Sinjar could be an unrealistic self-assessment by an embattled leader who is trying to reestablish himself as a Kurdish national hero.

Analysts have noted that Barzani has been trapped by his own ambitions and attempts to stay strong, and Sinjar’s capture could do little to overcome his woes by substituting IS or his political adversaries for building a unified and democratic Kurdistan.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003, Sinjar, home to the biggest Yazidi community in Iraq and hosting some of its most scared shrines, has been a flashpoint for ethnic and religious disputes.

The Yazidis are a religious minority that descends from some of the region’s most ancient roots. Though most of the nearly half a million Yazidis in Iraq speak a kind of a Kurdish dialect they remain members of a distinctive religion.

While some Iraqi Yazidis consider themselves to be Kurds, others, like the more than a million Yazidis in Russia, Iran, Syria, Armenia and Iran who do not identify themselves with ethnicities in these countries, refuse to be identified with the Kurds, who are also predominantly Sunni Muslims.

Over the centuries, the Yazidis have been persecuted by their Muslim neighbours who see them as non-believers. In recent years, Yazidis have been slaughtered by fanatics in Iraq, including Kurds, who have used trucks laden with explosives and driven them into their towns.

Sinjar has been a hotbed for inter-Kurdish rivalry since the conflict in Syria started some five years ago. Several Kurdish factions have been seeking dominance of the strategic town which lies on the border with Syria and Turkey.

While Barzani’s Peshmerga forces have long been dominant in towns and villages neighbouring Sinjar, they have been contested by fighters from the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey which is vying for influence across Kurdish areas in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Following the capture of Sinjar by IS militants in summer 2014, the PKK helped to find a representative political body for displaced Yazidis and established a Yazidi force to fight against IS militants and to police Yazidi areas.

This force, considered as the most organised, is believed to have played a key role in the fight to take back Sinjar from IS militants.

Other Yazidis have independently formed a voluntary military force known as the Sinjar Defence Units. In April, KDP security forces briefly detained a leader of this group on charges of setting up an illegal military force before releasing him for fear of a backlash.

Yazidis from all over the world have joined these groups in the fight against IS.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the KDP’s main rival in the autonomous Region, has also been expanding its organisations in Sinjar. Its members are working closely with the PKK, other Kurdish groups and Yazidi forces to challenge Barzani’s control of this vital area.

Sinjar is situated in territories often called “disputed territories” by the KRG. Since the war to push back IS militants began last year, Kurdish Peshmergas have seized several towns and cities, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

KRG officials said the newly acquired territories would remain under the jurisdiction of the Kurdish Government and would not be returned to the Baghdad government. The territorial conflict between the Kurds and the Baghdad government is highly contentious and may trigger a war because both sides consider the land a core interest.

The recapture of Sinjar from IS comes amid rising tensions between the Kurdish Peshmergas and Shia paramilitary forces in other parts of the so-called disputed areas.

On Thursday, violence in Tuz Khurmatu, a town about 175 km north of Baghdad, left at least 16 people dead, including five civilians. The fighting turned the mostly Turkomen-populated town into a battlefield and cut a strategic road linking Baghdad to Kirkuk.

The clashes began when fighters from a Turkomen-Shia armed group tried to ram a checkpoint in the town manned by Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Most of the Tuz Khurmatu population are Shias, though they are also ethnically Turkomen. They have been resisting Kurdish attempts to impose control over their town for some time.

Though the fighting stopped after mediation by top politicians, Shia militias said they had been sending reinforcements to the town and threatened to “protect” Tuz Khurmatu against what they described as “the barbaric attacks by the Kurdish Peshmergas.”

Barzani’s grip on power remains strong, but this and many other flashpoints should serve as a reminder that he needs to learn the limit of his strength and that he cannot capitalise on the chaos in Iraq to stay forever as the leader of the Kurds and advance his own agenda.

The recapture of Sinjar has dominated headlines and raised expectations that IS will now be driven from other cities in Iraq. But Barzani’s unwavering determination to keep the territories under KRG control has raised red flags in Baghdad and other capitals in the region.

While Al-Abadi has publicly voiced concerns about raising the Kurdish flag in Sinjar, other Shia politicians have warned of the Kurdish use of the standoff to expand control over huge swathes of land taken back from IS.

Qais Al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib Ahl Al-Haq militia, warned that the Shias would “liberate” Sinjar from the Kurds. “Sinjar is an Iraqi town which has changed from the Daesh occupation to another occupation,” Al-Khazali said, using the Arabic name for IS.

“We will take back the town,” he vowed.

These and other clashing interests speak volumes about the challenges Iraq now faces, and territorial disputes have a strong possibility of developing into wars.

Last week, Barzani told a delegation from Sulaimaniyah pushing for reconciliation that a Kurdish state could have been declared had the Region’s political parties avoided the current crisis over his presidency.

This overstatement might have been designed to strike a nationalistic chord, but going too far in exploiting Iraq’s chaos to serve a personal agenda will have far-reaching consequences, including the failure to eliminate IS threats to both the Kurds and the Baghdad government.

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This article first appeared  in Al-Ahram Weekly on November 19, 2015