Will Iraqi-Kurdish Conflict Break Out in Nineveh?

The area around Mosul is of particular interest to the Kurds, as it provides strategic depth that can also act as a security buffer zone between Iraqi Kurdistan's capital, Erbil, and the city of Mosul, which has been volatile for most of the past decade. The situation is unlikely to change anytime soon, given that many expect rivalries there to continue in the post-IS phase.

“The Kurds do not want the Iraqi central government, particularly Shia paramilitary groups under the umbrella of the [Popular Mobilization Units], to exploit the recapture of Mosul to re-impose Baghdad’s authority in the area,” wrote Renad Mansour, a fellow with Carnegie Middle East Center, in a May 20 report about the Kurdish strategy in Mosul in the post-IS period.

The return of the Iraqi military forces, and even possibly their Shiite paramilitary allies, to Ninevah province to fight IS will eventually pose a major challenge to the Kurds' domination in the parts of Ninevah that they control.

The peshmerga forces were quick to fortify their positions here, as multiple bulldozers dug dirt berms along the approximately 20-kilometer (12-mile) stretch of land spanning the eastern Mosul countryside.

At the southernmost tip of the new territory in Wardak village, Capt. Nasraddin Karim and his men inspected a house where IS had made bombs. The products were neatly collected in a corner of what appeared to be the living room. Karim pointed out writing on the wall that read, “The Islamic State will stay by God's will” and told his fellow fighters, “They fled.”

The IS militants seemed to have abandoned the place hastily, as some bomb-making material, a pink paste, was left on a small plate.

IS might be gone from this area, but conflict is unlikely to depart this place for years to come.