Specter of sectarian and ethnic war is predominated on a number of areas of Iraq known as the diversity of social composition, especially those disputed between the federal government and the Kurdistan region of Iraq, such as Tuz Khurmatu district in Salahuddin province, which its social mosaic has become as a powder keg ready to explode at any moment. The Tuz district is a model for the diversity of the demographics in Iraq, noting that from national perspective , coexistent inside it nationalities of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, and ideologically coexistent inside it Sunnis and Shiites. And the war on Daesh speed up the pace of the conflict on a number of areas of Iraq, with the emergence of the desire of the parties to participate in that war to exploit it to change the currently accepted limits and changing of the map of control on the areas. Previously, the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, expressed it by saying, “The limits of the territory now is drawing by blood.” The Peshmerga forces had seized control of the Tuz after the invasion of the organization of Daesh in the summer of 2014 for many areas of Iraq, and its control of them after the army’s withdrawal from it . But the problems began to emerge in the city with the formation of the crowd of popular Shiite Turkmen, and the subsequent tension between the two sides.
And the major conflict is going on now in Tuz known as “mini Kirkuk ” between Kurds and Shiites Turkmen , located some 175 km north of Baghdad, noting that the Kurds run since 2003 the sensitive administrative and security joints of the city whereas Shiites Turkmen formed , after the emergence of Daesh, the popular crowd forces as a maneuver for the support of their nationality and Shiite doctrine. Although the Peshmerga forces has cooperated with the popular crowd in restoring control over the Amerli area that belongs to the district of Tuz in the month of August of last year and its retrieval from militants of Daesh, but the coalition equation against Daesh has recently turned into an internal conflict between the two sides to extend their influence over the city .
It is worth noting here that the violence was repeated almost monthly between allied armed groups reluctantly in the face of state regulation in Iraq and the Levant “Daesh”, since the expulsion of the militants from towns and villages of the region in 2014. in the last month of November , a quarrel was taken place at a checkpoint extended into the city of Tuz between Turkmen fighters and elements of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, resulting in the burning of many houses and split the city into ethnic divide , Turkoman areas and other Kurdish areas, and the displacement of the population from it according to this ethnic and sectarian division. And it saw in last April / May a renewal of fighting between the Peshmerga and Shiite Turkmen popular crowd. The dispute has been contained with fragile understandings that kept the embers of conflict burning and flammable at any moment.
This moving armed conflict indicate across parts of Iraq to the serious damage caused to the unity of Iraqi society which is known of its diversity , that is a damage heading towards the degree of explosion due to the existing chaos of weapons, and the large number of irregular paramilitary organs , as well as the abundance of the tension factors of the sectarian and ethnic hostility and regional interventions that translate the size of ambitions in weak Iraq . As for those who interested in Iraqi affairs said that the specter of sectarian and ethnic war is to be expected and an indication of a threat to the ethnic sectarian conflict fueled by regional ambitions, and could be the title of a phase after the war on Daesh in Iraq, including the resulting of predominance of irregular forces , out of the state control, as opposite to the decline of the status of Iraqi armed forces and the fall of its prestige.
And officials of the Kurdish and Turkmen sides in the town of Tuz, expressed their fears of a return to fighting again between the communities of the province, noting that the agreement, which was made to calm the situation in last April / May has not been implemented except 10 percent of it only on the ground. The fighting was ended with the last agreement between the parties includes a rebalancing of the communities in the police service and the popular crowd and Peshmerga in the city center, and put joint custody and checkpoints on both sides. Haitham Al-Mukhtar oglu, Turkmen Front official in the Iraqi province, said that “only 10 percent of the agreement have been implemented while the parties , the popular crowd Turkmen and Kurdish Peshmerga did not abide by the full terms.” And oglu told the Anatolia agency that “abductions were exchanged by power holders in the city of two sides, which threatens the security of Tuz and fueling fears of a return to conflict between communities and nationalities. ” For his part, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Hassan Bahram, said “there is no real implementation of the terms of the agreement between the parties, as the fighters of the popular crowd Turkmen did not withdraw from the city, and the process of balance within the police service of communities and nationalities of the city has not been implemented .” Bahram added that “abductions of civilians began to spread in the city by known and influential parties speaking in the name of the popular crowd and must be deterrent to rebuild trust within the city. ”
Tuz district is considered a model for the diversity of the demographics in Iraq, that is from the national perspective , nationalities coexist inside it including the Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, and ideologically , the Sunni and Shiites coexist within it noting that the Turkmen are distributed from a sectarian aspect between the Shiite and Sunni sects(Mathhab). The political , military , National and religious movement of Turkmen of Tuz and Jalawla and Saadia practiced a dual role. Turkmenistan moveent have , according to Kurdish sources, stretches outside the country, their source in Ankara, including “Turkmen Front.” and regarding the sectarian side , the Turkmen popular crowd is Shiite , and is working in coordination with Ankara and Tehran.
According to strategic analysts of regional affairs, the interests of the two capitals according to their agenda in transforming what is disputed in Iraq to the Shiite- Kurdish conflict through dragging the crowd to fight the Peshmerga. Kurdish circles accuses Turkey that have a great interest in creating a crisis in this region in order to weaken the Kurdistan region, which Ankara declares its friendship of some of its leaders but it harbors its suspicion of their seeking to establish an independent Kurdish state in the region. These circles do not ignore to recall that Iran’s interest is also in the crowd struggle against Peshmerga “in order to weaken the Kurds in the south and their experience,” these sources believes that the popular crowd, which includes Shiite Turkmen aims to create a war between the Shiites and the Kurds, while the nationalists Turkmens are trying through their alliance with Arab nationalists to transform the conflict to Arab-Kurdish conflict as well.
The future war built on sectarian and ethnic foundations in some of Iraq’s cities diversified ethnically and religiously in a stage after Daesh is just a model of what has happened and hit the Iraqi state and society after the ninth of April 2003, and the thing that assisted to the weakness which could lead to tearing Iraq is the political process based on partisan , ethnic and sectarian quotas. this high level of conflict between the combatants in Tuz is only an indication that the war on Daesh in Iraq may not be the final stage in the armed conflict in Iraq, and perhaps even be an introduction to complicated civil wars with sectarian and nationalist character.
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies