Since ISIL launched their Iraqi offensive in 2014 the Iraqi National Government has struggled to maintain a standing, unified, army. Instead, many of the military counter offensives that have been waged against ISIL are done by the Iraqi National Army (singular in a sense), the Kurdish Peshmerga, and the Shi’ite militias of which the main one is the Badr Organization (now the Popular Mobilization Forces). The fight to retake Mosul will see a fourth actor introduced, militias formed out of the Nineveh Province. All told the Iraqi government is forecasting 25 to 35 thousand troops needed to retake Mosul. This will be the first time all four major actors to retake Mosul will be working together with the same goal. None of these actors are unified in the western sense of a military. In the United States there are soldiers, seamen, marines, and airmen of the entire kaleidoscope that makes up the America citizenry. In Iraq the picture is starkly different. The Iraqi National Army is mainly made up of Shi’ites, the Kurdish Peshmerga made up mainly of Kurds, the Shi’ite militias made up of Shi’ites and finally the Nineveh militias’ a mix of Sunni, Christian, as well as other ethnic and religious minorities. It should be noted the bulk of the fighters making up the Nineveh militias will be Sunni’s. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein many ethnic and religious minorities have been driven out of the Nineveh province- this accelerated with ISIL’s invasion.

The four part entity will make up the liberation force tasked with driving out ISIL from Mosul and, one would hope, the ongoing security force to keep Mosul from falling back into ISIL control. From studying civil conflict, the mechanisms that lead people to war, I cannot think of another single example where a country has four different independent forces converging on the same goal. There are plenty of examples of countries working together, which happened when coalition forces drove out Saddam Hussein from Mosul. But the internal forces of a country acting this independently have not been a feature in recent history.

This independent nature of the Iraqi forces converging on Mosul is not positive. Already in Sunni areas that have been “liberated” by Iraqi National Army and Shi’ite militias there is two consistent stories that emerge. The first being how terrible ISIL is as an organization, their barbaric conduct, their wanton disregard for human life, and their obsession with destroying the past. The second focuses on whatever was left standing after ISIL being destroyed by the “liberators”. Shi’ite militias have no interest in preserving Sunni homes. Therefore, if a booby trap is found within a home it’s detonated. If there is a business still standing Shi’ite militias will claim the resources of that business for the war effort- what they are doing actually amounts to looting. When Sunni’s return they usually have nothing left as evidenced in Tikrit and Ramadi. There should be zero expectation that Shi’ite militias will behave any differently once entering Mosul.