Bloody Power Struggles continue in Disputed Territories

On June 16, several police officers as well as members of the Popular Mobilization Units who seem to have been traveling with them and peshmerga soldiers some kilometers away all died in what appear to have been near-simultaneous attacks at two locations on the same road.

Since June 19, reports of extrajudicial killings of Sunni Arab prisoners — with one tribal leader claiming that some 50 Sunni Arabs were executed by the Popular Mobilization Units in the Amerli prison — and the targeting and burning of homes of the same ethnic group have aggravated tensions.

A rash of kidnappings — almost 300, of whom “95% were Sunni Arabs,” the Kurdish mayor of Tuz Khormato, Shallal Abdul Ahmed, told Al-Monitor, while some media outlets report more — had brought the town under public scrutiny. Most of the Kurdish inhabitants of the city Al-Monitor spoke with said the Arabs have mostly fled to camps in the nearby provinces of Kirkuk or Diyala, where they are protected by the peshmerga, or elsewhere in the KRG area.

Over $2.7 million has been paid in ransom so far, according to Abdul Ahmed. He said that it was clear that the Popular Mobilization Units were behind many of the kidnappings, noting, “They have even joked about it to me, saying, 'How else are we supposed to fund our operations?'”