The Day After: What to Expect in post-Islamic State Mosul

Over recent months, the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq has lost territory to the Syrian army, opposition forces in Syria, the reorganised Iraqi Security Forces and the Hashed Al-Sha’bi (Popular Mobilization Forces – PMF), as well as to Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq. These losses have led to heightened speculation that an assault on the IS stronghold of Mosul may happen sooner rather than later. However, with such speculation comes the fear of ‘the day after’, and what could be expected to happen in Mosul – a traditional focal point of Arab and Iraqi nationalists – and a city that was the centre of Iraq’s military establishment throughout the twentieth century. Tallha Abdulrazaq and Gareth Stansfield investigate this ‘day after’ question, highlighting the potential problems that may emerge following IS’s departure from the city.

s ince the rise of the Islamic State(IS) and the fall of Mosul in late 2014/ early 2015 much has changedi n Iraq. With varying degreeso fs uccess, the Iraqi governmenth as managed to retake severalI raqi cities, districts and towns, butw ith forces that have a distinctly sectarian hue. Directs upport has beenprovided by Iran in the form of weapons, funding,t raining and military personnel to ar angeo fS hiam ilitia organisations. 1 Theseo rganisations, expandeda nd empoweredb yA yatollah Ali Al-Sistani's fatwa thatl ed to the creation of the Hashd Al-Sha'abi (or Popular Mobilization Forces -PMF), have limited IS's opportunities to advance, but in so doinghavefurthered the sectarian and ethnic divides thatnow run deep in Iraq's society and political life. It is also crucial to understand the very significant impact thatW estern airs trikes on IS positions continue to have.W ithout these air strikes neither theS hiam ilitia nor the Iraqi SecurityForces(ISF) would have managed to makeheadwayagainst IS in theirbattles in Tikrit,Baiji or Ramadi, while the main reason whyB ashir has not yetb een attacked is the absence of an agreemento na ir supportt ot he DOI Over recent months, the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq has lost territory to the Syrian army, opposition forces in Syria, the reorganised Iraqi Security Forces and the Hashed Al-Sha'bi (Popular Mobilization Forces -PMF), as well as to Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq. These losses have led to heightened speculation that an assault on the IS stronghold of Mosul may happen sooner rather than later. However, with such speculation comes the fear of 'the day after', and what could be expected to happen in Mosul -a traditional focal point of Arab and Iraqi nationalists -and a city that was the centre of Iraq's military establishment throughout the twentieth century. Tallha Abdulrazaq and Gareth Stansfield investigate this 'day after' question, highlighting the potential problems that may emerge following IS's departure from the city.
Hashd Al-Sha'abi. As imilarp icturec an be seen in the north -w ithout support from the air by Western airf orces, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces would struggle to maintain their frontl ine againstI S. Worryingly,n one of these areaso f engagementm atch Mosuli nt erms of itss cale, the complexity of its urban environment,the determinationofISto hold the city,orthe length of time IS has had to prepare defences.
However, an assaultonMosul seems to be looming.ISF brigadeshavemoved to Makhmour,K urdish leadersa re now expressing their desiret ob ei nvolved (arguably fortheir ownpolitical reasons) and thereisasensitive discussiontaking place between exiled Sunni elites from Nineveh, Salahadinand Diyala about the problemso fs eeingt he PMFp resenti n anyretaking of territoryheld by IS. 2 It also seems thatt he Obamaa dministration maybeviewing the prospect of retaking Mosul as afinal 'success'toround up the president'slastt erm in office, whilethe confidenceo ft he US governmenta nd militaryforcesinparticular suggeststhat the invasion of Mosul mayhappen much sooner,rather than later, in the year. 3 In lightofthis, whatwould have previously ©2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, tradingas Taylor&Francis Group This is an OpenAccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in anymedium, provided the original work is properly cited. been vieweda sap remature, even fanciful, line of thinking is nowb eing voiceda sal egitimate line of enquiry. Whatc an the internationalc ommunity expecti na' daya fter' scenario if IS is defeated andr emovedf romp ower in Mosul? Is it even possible to do this -to surgically remove the organisation from the city and governorate, when it has had some twoyears, if notlonger,todeepen itsroots into the socio-political fabric of Mosul and surrounding Nineveh? What do Iraqis in Mosul think about IS, and whatare theirthoughts on the recapture of their city by the central government in Baghdad? Would theyv iewt his as liberation or justat ransition from one repressivesystemtoanother?How could the Iraqi governmenta ssureM aslawis, as the peopleofMosul areknown, that the recaptureoftheir city would benefit them? Theseq uestions arei mportant. Everyiteration of Arab Sunniopposition to have emergeds ince 2003 has been deeper,b etter organiseda nd more violent than thatw hich came before.I n each case lessons were learnedfromthe previous organisation'se xperience,a nd the manneri nw hich it wasd efeatedwhich made the next iteration even more some issues concerning potential Kurdish involvementinthe liberation of Mosul.
This analysis is not basedo na ny extensives urveys conducted in Mosul. Due to resources available, the security situation in Iraq and other issues relating to the conflict,i th as not been possible to conduct fieldwork in Iraqi government-controlled territory, and certainlyn ot in Mosul. As such, the attitudes surveyedw ithin this paper come from an umbero fi nterviews already conducted foralargerresearch project, and from follow-up interviews conducted in late February 2016 with the same respondents, as well as brief interactionsw ith thosew ho have been recently smuggled outo fM osul. As a whole,t he research wasc onducted betweenDecember2014 and February 2016, relying heavily upon eyewitness accounts of the fall of Mosul to IS forces in June 2014.Questionnaires were sent and received from over 40 respondents who had either recently fled Iraq or else still lived in the countrya nd then thirteen participants representing differenta ges, gendersa nd social statuses from the city of Mosul were interviewed. As the situation in Iraq is still fraught with danger, the interviewees have beenanonymised to protecttheir identities.
The article also benefits from extensivei nterviewsu ndertakeni nt he KurdistanR egion of Iraq between the fall of Mosul in June 2014 and the spring of 2016.T his data wass upplemented by conversations with sources whoa re in daily contact with peoplei nM osul. As such, it is important to notethatthe analysis contained herein providesa snapshot of whatishappening in Mosul, rather than an all-encompassing canvas thatr evealsad etailed picture.F urther research is thus required, and this study should be vieweda sab eginning into a much broader enquiry.

Attitudes Towards IS
As ac ity knownf or its extraordinarily large numbero fI raqi militarya nd security service officers,M osul has neverb een particularlyf ond of groupsa nd organisations that work outside thec onfines of state institutions and civil discipline.S ince the establishment of modern Iraq in the early twentieth century, Mosul has had ad isproportionate representation in capable.If'the dayafter' in Mosul is not carefully managed to some pre-defined yetfl exiblen otion of 'success',t hen the result could well be anotherr ound of low-scale insurgency leading to aviolent Sunni rebellion in subsequentyears.
To answert heseq uestions, this article has beend ividedi nto four sections,e ach focused on ad ifferent actoro rf action thath as an impact on the futureo fM osul. The first and most crucial section will assess the attitudes of the peopleofMosul towardsIS, with particular reference to their method of rule, the economic situation and public servicess uch as health thata re all part and parcel of living withinas tate.T he second section will examine Maslawi attitudes towardst he Iraqi government and the variousShia militias, in particular the PMF,i nl ighto fr eported atrocities committed by these forces in their recaptureo fo ther cities, such as Tikrit and Ramadi. The thirds ectionw ill investigate howthe people of Mosul feel towardsm emberso ft he international community,w ith actors ranging from Turkey to the US. The final section includes reflections from Arab tribal sheikhs in exile in Kurdistan, as well as the defence and security apparatus of the Iraqi statew hen compared to other cities, even SunniArabones.Historically Mosul wasthe home of Ottoman military training colleges and thus it naturally became the home of the Iraqi military establishment in the nascents tate. This reality did not changee vend uring the rule of Saddam Hussein, despite accusations levelled againsth im of favouritism towardshis clanorhometown of Tikrit. 4 Althought he reasons behind this aren ot directly pertinentt ot he currentstudy,itdemonstrates thatMosul has traditionally been acity thathas been loyalt ot he notion of the Iraqi state, governmenta nd society.I ti sp erhaps because of this history thatM osul and Ninevehr emained theb ase fors everal 'former regime element' groupings after 2003.
Therefore, it wasn ot as urprise whene very respondent, without exception,d isplayeda ntagonistic attitudes towardsn ot only IS, but also Al-Qa'ida, AnsarA l-Islam (a Kurdish Al-Qa'ida-affiliatedo rganisation) and other groupst heyi dentifieda sb eing insufficiently 'Iraqi'orgenuinely 'Islamic' in their objectivesa nd methods. 5 Such attitudes hark back to ap oignantq uote wherethe only female participantstated, 'No onel ikes Al-Qa'ida, mosto ft heir fighters arenot Iraqi anyway'. 6 The same participant,who is still closely connected to her city and familyl iving there,h ad the following to saya bout the current situation of women under IS rule: My familyi nM osul tell me thatl ife underD a'esh [IS] is unpredictable. Whent heyl eave their homes, women have to be accompaniedb yt heir male guardians, and theynow have to be fully veiled and covered. Youknowhow some [Arab]Gulf ladies wear their niqab?You cannot even see their eyes, andt hey usually have to wear gloves. It wasn't liket hati nt he early days of their rule, but newt hings arei ntroducede very single day. 7 Although this respondentw as keen to stress thats he did not oppose the full face and body veil, the niqab and its corresponding accoutrements, she rightlyi dentifiedt hats uch customs area lien to urbanI raqis and even to a majority of rural Iraqisofall ethnicities, including the Bedouin Arabs. The fact thats he alludedt ot he strict enforcemento ff emale dress codes in the Arab Gulf States, likely in reference to Saudi Arabian law, is demonstrative of anew kindofculturebeingimposed on the women of Mosulbymen whom she hadp reviously identified as notb eing Iraqi anyway. 8 One of the newr espondents described thes ituation in Mosul as 'bleak',s tating that' the peoplew ere frightened, scared and constantly worried aboutthe future'. 9 Whenenquirieswere madea st ow hethert he source of this sense of anxiety amongst the population wasIS, the intervieweeresponded: Yes, but also it is al ot deeper than that. Imagine talking and dealing with thoseidiots [ISfighters]onadaily basis in order to acquiret he mostb asic of services. Nowi maginey ou hear that someone in your neighbourhood who wasnot particularly religious wascaught by Da'esh fighters with alcoholi nh is home,a nd thatp ersonw as not only executed, but had his properties and capital seized. Areyou going to want to go into your district council to makeany requests? Even if it's ac omparatively rare occurrence,thatfear is there. 10 On thes ubjecto fp roperty seizurea nd economic punishmentsi nflicted upon Maslawis,a notherr espondent, who claimed to have beenas hop owner in Mosul,said thatISregularly appropriated the properties of those whom it deemed its enemies or as easytargets who could be extorted or pressured through threats to their families: Youknowthat'spartially howtheymake their money, right? [IS earn money] through forced seizure of the wealth of those theybrand as 'apostates' or they have convicted of 'corruption on Earth', which canmean anything depending on which Da'esh operative is accusing you. Some of these chargesweused to hear about in Iran, and we used to laugha t them. Noww e're being chargedw ith similar crimes by judges who arelikethe kind of idiots whoused to come through the Sharia colleges at university, 11 and theyh and out sentencesn oo ne has ever heard of being used throughout Islamic history. 12 According to severalr espondents, IS judges would order defendants accused of smaller crimes, such as smoking, to payfi nes which were sometimes extortionately high. If ad efendantw as not able to pay, an IS judge would order the defendant'sproperties to be seized in ordertocover theoutstanding balance. 13 Generally, this would mean thata defendants tood to lose everything he/ she possessed, which, in the contextofa besieged city,cut off from the rest of the world andatthe mercyofunpredictable extremists, increased the likelihood of immense personals uffering fort he individual involved.M eanwhile, the seizedproperty would either be granted to individuals within IS in ordert o fosterloyalty or it would be put to other uses forthe financial and economic gain of IS. 14 In terms of howI Sf unctions as as tate thatp rovides services, health wast he main concern. Eighto ft he respondents claimed thatM osul's medical facilities, including its smaller clinics, had been bombed in air strikes carried out either by the Iraqi government or its allied Western partners. The situation wase xacerbatedb yt he fact thatmedical supplies were extremely low or non-existent,asmedicines andother supplies had beenheld up by Baghdad for severalr easons, includings ecurity.T his problem is likely to have beenf urther exacerbatedbythe fact thatISfrequently transferred the already precariously small health supplies of Mosul to Syria. 15 One respondent, whose relativew orked in Mosul'smain hospital, said: Health standards areu nbearable. Medical infrastructureh as been damaged by the bombsbeingdropped on Mosul, and thereare no medicines. In order to acquirecertain medicines, they have to be boughtfromthe black market wherem edicines like simple painkillers and basic antibiotics likep enicillin can cost severalti mes their market value. The risktogetting medicine thatway is not only financial, but if Da'esh catch you ThE DaYa FTER: WhaTT O ExpEcT In pOsT-IslaMIc sTaTE MOsul theym ighte xecutey ou as as muggler. Basically,y ou or your familym ightd ie from al ack of medical treatment, or youmightdie forgetting the medicines youn eed from ab lackm arket thati s partially operated by Da'esh themselves. Howdotheyexpect us to live? 16 It is clear from the briefe xcerpts above thatI Si sn ot lovedb yt he people of Mosul. The impact of IS's methodofrule on Maslawis varies, depending on gender, the kind of businesses peopler un, the properties theyown, or even the stateof their health -which maycompel them to seekm edicals upplies on black markets wheret heym ay also unwittingly be buyingt heir ownd eaths. Whata ppears to be common amongstall respondents is af ear of what mighth appen to them if theybreak anyofIS'smyriadrules and laws which areu nstable and liable to change at anyg iven momentw ith little to no warning. As enseo fp alpable fear and anxiety,c ombinedw ith hatred and disdain forI Sw as clear amongstt he respondents interviewed.
The situation, however, mayb e somewhatd ifferenti no ther,s maller centres under IS control. Withparticular reference to the governorate of Kirkuk, reportsi ndicatet hatt he proportion of IS recruitsf romt he immediate community could be quiteh igh, with IS using threats againstl ocal families to presst heir sons into militarys ervice. 17 If these numbersa re correct, andt he pattern is replicated to some degree in Mosul, therem ay well be the potential forad angerous internecine situation to unfold both betweena nd within Arab tribes and families, as those associated with IS areremoved, once it is clear that an operation to retake the territoryi s underway.

Attitudes Towards the Iraqi Government
It is of little surprise to those who study contemporaryI raqi issuesi na ny depth to learn thats uch is the mistrusto ft he Shia-dominatedgovernmentinBaghdad thatm ostS unni Arabsv iewe ithert he government, its allies in thePMF or other sectarian Shiaorganisations as being no differentfromIS. The people of Mosul, it seems, do not deviate from this formula.
Theprimaryfear of Maslawisappears to be not continued IS rule,but av engeful Shia army descending onto the city, branding its peoplea sI Sc ollaborators and sympathisers,a nd commencinga sectarian and genocidal campaign of imprisonment, torture and murder. FewS unni Arabs, especially in Mosul, will forget thatt he ISF committed the extrajudicial murder of Sunni detainees as its forces withdrew in the face of IS advances. 18 Similarly,f ew canf orget the graphici mages of Sunnis murdered by Shia terrorist organisations being hung from electricity poles in the city of Baquba, 19 or of PMFfi ghters hanging Sunnis upside down over afi re and gloating as theys liceds tripso ffl esh off of their victimswith asword. 20 The Arabic wordsf requently usedt od escribe what the peopleo f Mosul expectf rom' liberating'I raqi government and allied PMF forces were mathbaha, ibada, majzara and damarin English, slaughter,genocide, massacre and destruction respectively.' By Allah, therewon't be aMosul left, nor anyone thatcan be called aMaslawi by the time those sectarian savagesfi nish with this city', said one interviewee, af ormer police officer during both the Ba'athera and the period of the US occupation. 21 'Wer ememberA l-Qa'ida'sb ombings, their racketeering and Da'esh'sm urder of anyone who contradicted or resisted them, even non-violently.B ut what's the difference between them and the government and its bloodthirstygangs? Not as ingle one of us [Sunnis] hasn't losts omeone to theirb ullets, blades and drills', 22 said the same respondent in reference to the heavily documented use of powerd rills by Shia militiast o torture and kill Sunni detaineesa nd hostages.
Such misgivingst owards the governmenti nB aghdad and its allies were not limited to the fear of lives being lost, but also encompassed anxieties regarding women'srights. Two respondents, both female, recounted stories of howwidows in Sunni areasin Baghdad and other cities were forced into muta'a,o r' temporary'm arriages permitted in Shia Islam in order to be able to provide fort heir families after them ain breadwinnersw erek illed. 23 Essentially,t heset emporarym arriages, unregulatedb yI raqi laws,a re usedt o provide av eneer of religiousl egitimacy to whati si ne ffect forced prostitution. While IS hasg ained notoriety fori ts sexual exploitation and enslavement of women, Shia militiash avea lso been known to be involved in the trafficking of Iraqi women and childreninorder to sell them into sexual bondage, 24 as recounted by one interviewee: We knoww hath appened to manyo f those poor widows in Baghdad. [The Shia militias] have even setupbrothels thath aved ozens of these widows in each location, with muta'a marriages being officiatedb yi n-house Shia imamsw ho givet heir blessings to the exploitation of innocentw omena nd girls. If the Shia militias come to Mosul, they'll kill our men and sell us all into the sext rade. I'dr ather die than be disgracedand humiliatedfor the rest of my life. 25 This paints ab leakp icturen ot only of whatM aslawi women fear mayc ome to pass, but of whath as already been occurring extensively in Iraq since 2003.A lthought he Iraqi Shia religious establishment's approval of muta'a has scarcely been reported in the media, 26 it cannot have passedthe attentionofthe internationalc ommunity,p articularly since manyw omen'sr ights NGOs have submitted reportst ot he UN,i ncluding one to the UN Human Rights Commission in February 2014. 27 Even the conceptof'liberation' from IS wasgreeted with derision: Whatliberation arethese idiots from the West talking about? Theyfirst'liberated' us from Saddam,t hen they' liberated' us with their democracy,t hen they 'liberated' us by giving us Maliki,Abadi and the otherG reen Zone dogs who slaughtered andr obbed us, and now they're talking about liberating us from Da'esh? Whate xactly is thisl iberation if they're only going to hand us over to psychopathic murderersw ho will commit genocide againstus? Theyneed to stop thinking of themselves as heroes thata re theret os laym onsters and banish nightmares thattheycreated. 28 aBDulRazaq anD sTansFIElD Comments such as thisi llustratet he widely held beliefa mongstm anyS unni Arabsthatareturn to Baghdad's control would be akin to handing the fate of the population over to ag overnmentt hat would, at worst, participatein, or,atbest, turn ab lind eyet o, aS unni genocide. None of the respondents demonstrated anyk ind of trust, goodwill or faith in the centralg overnment, nord id anyo f them praise the PMF.T heir viewo ft he prospect of the centralg overnment recapturing Mosul wass imply one of jumping out of the frying pan of IS rule and backi nto the fireo ft he sectarian government.

Attitudes Towards the International Community
As thequoteabove illustrates, Maslawis expressedl ittle trusto rf aith in the internationalc ommunity,p articularly in the US and the wider institutionso f the UN. The US invasion in 2003 was vieweda st he 'originals in' thatl ed to whatrespondents felt wasthe wholesale destruction of Iraq as astate and society. Manyfelt that the US simply handed Iraq over to Iran 'onagolden platter', 29 as one respondentw orded it, and thatu nder Ba'athP arty rule theya tl easth ad their livelihoods, families and security,evenif theylacked political freedom.
While this tendency to blame the West has already beenh eavily covered in numerous publications, 30 whati so f primaryi mportance and utility to this enquiry is howM aslawis perceivet he ability of the internationalc ommunity, especially regional powers such as Turkey and SaudiA rabia, to playa positiver ole in Iraq'sf uture. Although theys aw the US, Britain, Turkey and SaudiA rabia as all being problematic to ag reater or lesser degree (not to mention theirp rofound hatred of Shia Iran, which theyv ieweda saprimary antagonist), theys till consideredt hem to be morereliable and trustworthythan theirown government: If you're telling me thatt heyw antt o knowwhatcan be donetomakeusfeel morea te ase [about IS being removed from Mosul], then firstly theys hould stop bombing us and using the excuse of targeting Da'esh. Secondly,why don't theys howh ow committed theya re and stop striking from the skies and start putting soldierso nt he ground? The Turksa re already nearby, theya re parto fN ATO, so whyc an't theya ct as peacekeepersu nder aU Nm ission like theyd oi nL ebanono ri nA frica? We need international observers and aclear messagesenttothe GreenZone thatany sectarian killings will be treatedasw ar crimes and thatthe [Iraqi] government willbeprosecuted and held to account justliketheydid to Saddam.Otherwise, it's moreh ypocrisyd ressed up as care forus. 31 This eloquentquotation makes the level of mistrustfelt towardsthe government by this respondents tartlingly clear. However, it also providesa ni nvaluable insightinto whatmightneed to be done to regain the trusto fI raqis, particularly Sunni Arabsw ho feel that theyh ave been marginalised at the expense of Shia Arabsa nd Kurds, the primarys ectarian beneficiaries who obviously benefited the mostfromthe 2003 invasion. These sentiments were echoed by manyother respondents, who expressedt he belief thato nly other, externalp owersc ould effectively restrain the ISF and PMFfrom committingwar crimes in the eventthat Mosul is recaptured.

The View from Kurdistan
In the KurdistanR egion of Iraq there is as ignificant concentration of Arab tribal sheikhs who fled -f romH awijah, Rabia/Shammar and Sinjar -asISforces advancedin2014. These individualsgive aparticular viewofwhatishappening in Mosul and Hawijah, from the perspective of exile. Manyo ft hem perceiveI Sa s somehowalien to their people-apoint of viewwhich is debatable -but whatis very telling is the wayinwhich theytalk aboutSunni Arabsasbeing dispossessed, whether by the US-led invasion, the governmentofIraq, or IS, and howtheir areash aveb een destroyed andw ill continue to be so,both during and after anycampaign to remove IS.
These figures also displayg reat concern about the Hashed Al-Sha'abi, and whati tm ay do wheni te nters IS-controlled territory. Instead, they generally expressedap reference for the creation of some form of SunniArab tribal militia, maybe as part of the ISF, which could be usedt os ecure Mosul following IS's removal. Needless to say, the differentS unni Arab tribes align themselves with differents pheres of political influence, with some forming a groupa round PresidentB arzani of the KurdistanDemocraticP arty (KDP), while othersa ttemptt on egotiateac loser arrangementw ith Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi. These fragmented strategies mayw ell end up either damaging thec ohesion of anya ssault on IS, or complicating 'the daya fter' scenarios as theyunfold.
Therei saf urther complication in the case of Kurdistant hath as a potentiallys ignificant impact on any 'day after's cenariob eingc onsidered: namely howP residentB arzani would deployh is own peshmerga in anys uch conflict. Increasingly,i ts eems as if Barzaniisk een to bring the peshmerga into the eastern side of Mosul, where thereh as traditionallyb een al argely Kurdish population thatwould be likely to support him. 32 While it is difficultt o imagine aKurdish occupation of eastern Mosul,i ts eems that this discussion is occurring moreo ftenw ithin the KDP leadership and has been reflected in the tactical movemento fK DP Peshmerga forces in recentw eeks. Whys hould theyd ot his? Anys uch annexation of eastern Mosulw ould be driven by internalK urdish political dynamicsa nd the relationship betweent he KDP and its main political rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan( PUK). 33 Currently, the areas into which the Kurdsh ave expanded have been mainly to the south east, traditionally PUK territory. If these territories, especially Kirkuk, were to join the KurdistanR egion of Iraq in any future referendum, then the KDP would see its popularity weaken. But if the loss of Kirkuk were to be demographically balanced by the presence of KDP supportersi ne astern Mosul, then the situation would be muchm oree ven. Some Kurdish maximalistm apse ven showt he boundaryo ft he Kurdistan Regiono fI raqf ollowing the Tigris to the Jabal Hamrin, thus bringing a very significantp art of Ninevehi nto its territory.

ThE DaYa FTER: WhaTT O ExpEcT In pOsT-IslaMIc sTaTE MOsul
Whyi st his important ford ay-after scenarios in Mosul? In short, anyprospect of aK urdish territorial annexation of eastern Mosula nd significantp arts of Ninevehc ould well provokes erious oppositiona mongS unni Arabsa nd Turkmens, as well as among Shia militias, thus complicating anya ttempts to bring stability to the post-conflict environment.

Conclusion
As the above surveys hows,t he people of Mosul aree xtremely fearful of a post-IS Mosul. The respondents firmly believe thatt he Iraqi governmenta nd its allied Shia militias,p articularly the PMF,w ill not have liberation in mind when theya ttemptt or ecapture Mosul, but vengeance.The PMFhavefrequently perpetrated brutale xcesses againstt he Sunni population, in Tikrit, Ramadi, Tal Afar,J urf Al-Sakhar,M uqdadiyaa nd manyo ther places, and Maslawis are acutely awareo ft his. Theyb elieve, andn ot without good reason, that the sectarianismt hati sr ampanta nd pervasivei nb oth theP MF and the ISF will lead these 'liberating'f orcest o accuse the Maslawis, themselves victims of IS violence and oppression,ofbeingIS sympathiserso rc ollaborators.A sm any have seeninthe Shia-on-Sunni violence in Diyala, it is usually enoughm erely to be aS unni to be accusedo fb einga nI S collaboratorand killedfor it.
However, it is also clear thatt hey feel strong anti-IS sentiments and wish to see them gone, as long as this does not mean replacing IS tyrannyw ith the tyrannyo fB aghdad'ss ectarian policies andt he free rein grantedt oI ranianbacked Shia militias.W hati si nteresting is that,a lthoughM aslawis blame the international community and particularly the US and its allies fort he situation in Iraq today, it seemst heyw ould nonetheless support the deploymento f an international force, includingAraband Turkishs oldiers, to securet he city after IS is forced to withdraw.T heys ee this optiona sp rovidingt he besti nsurance policy againstb loody and misplaced reprisals againstt he civilian population by the ISF and the PMF.According to the snapshot imagep resentedh ere, only thep resence of such an international forcew ill enable the people of Mosul to see the purge of IS from the city as a liberation rather than simplyasBaghdad subjecting them to ad ifferentk ind of oppression.
Whether thei nternational community,p rincipallyt he US, has the stomachfor another intervention in Iraq, even if it is ap eacekeeping operation, is highly debatable. However, withoutsuch a peacekeeping mission, the world risksvery recenthistory repeating itself in Iraq. The internationalc ommunity mustc onsider deeply whetheritwishestorestore order to the regiona nd attemptt oc urtail the rise and propagation of violentextremist organisations, Sunni, Shia or otherwise.  Tallha Abdulrazaq is a PhD student at the University of Exeter. aBDulRazaq anD sTansFIElD