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The opening weeks of the operation to liberate the ISIS-held Nineveh province, which aims to expel ISIS from the seat of its caliphate in Mosul, has seemingly gone quite well. The advances made by the coordinated units of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Kurdish peshmerga has been steady, cautious even, as villages and towns have been retaken from a northern front toward Bashiqa, to an eastern and southern front from Qayyarah toward Hamdaniya (Bakhdida) and Bartella, to the very outskirts of the city of Mosul itself. What has been absent at the beginning of the operation in mid-October, however, was the opening of a front focusing on the western approaches to Mosul鈥攕outh of Sinjar and toward Tal Afar. The push toward Tal Afar has now begun, but not by the ISF or the Kurdish peshmerga. Rather, the forces that are now surrounding Tal Afar are from Hashed al-Sha鈥檅i鈥攂etter known as the Shi鈥檃 militias鈥攊n what is potentially a dangerous situation that, if allowed to get out of control, could destabilize the Mosul operation as a whole.

The Importance of Tal Afar

Tal Afar is a significant town of some 100,000 people, lying 60 km to the west of Mosul. The town controls the main artery between Mosul and the Syrian border, on to Raqqa, and thus constitutes not only a vital supply line linking the two principal cities of its caliphate together, but also an evacuation route out of Mosul into Syria. The town is populated predominantly by Sunni Turkmen who may have constituted up to 80 percent of Tal Afar鈥檚 numbers before the appearance of ISIS in 2014. Since then, the remaining Kurds and Shi鈥檃 Turkmens fled or were killed.

Western powers would be well advised to consider the potential for Tal Afar to be at best a stumbling block, or at worst a trigger for a multi-dimensional conflict to break out in the north of Iraq.

The political and human geography of Tal Afar therefore suggests that the retaking of the town may not be straightforward. The tactical significance to ISIS, with regard to its linkage to Syria and its heavily Sunni demographics, should be enough to make Iraq鈥檚 military planners think carefully. But the deeper history of Tal Afar suggests it is a looming problem of significance. As a former Ottoman garrison town, Tal Afar鈥檚 Sunni Turkmen population is a legacy of the long gone Ottoman Empire鈥攂ut this is now an empire that lives again in the minds of political leaders in Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo臒an has already made his views clear that Turkey 鈥渨ould not look favorably鈥� on the entry of Shi鈥檃 militias into the town, evoking the possibility of direct Turkish military intervention in Iraq in order to protect ethnic Sunni Turkmens.

A History of Division

From the perspective of the Shi鈥檃 militias, the Turkmens of Tal Afar are despised not because they are Sunnis per se, but because of their role in Nineveh鈥檚 and Iraq鈥檚 politics in modern history. Under Saddam Hussein, Tal Afar鈥檚 Sunni Turkmens found themselves to be favored by the regime, with high numbers of Sunni Turkmens in the military and in the security service. The legacy of this dynamic continued after 2003, and what had been a division caused by the Ba鈥檃th regime now transformed into open sectarian differences between Sunni and Shi鈥檃 Turkmens in Tal Afar. As an important town on what was, by 2005, a jihadist highway running between Syria and northern Iraq, Tal Afar became a focal point of al-Qaeda Iraq (AQI) led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. By the spring of 2005, the town had become totally polarized; Sunni and Shi鈥檃 death squads engaged in the systematic killing of the other, and the minority Shi鈥檃s largely fled. With the appearance of ISIS in 2014, Tal Afar became an important element in the political geography of the new caliphate, serving to protect the western approaches of Mosul while also linking the Iraqi part of the new entity to its Syrian part. In essence, Tal Afar was the guarantor of ISIS鈥檚 strategic depth, giving it opportunities to move forces and material as needed. But Tal Afar would also prove important because of its jihadist and insurgent background. With the strong legacy of AQI in Tal Afar, ISIS had a reservoir of leadership talent to use. Kurdish sources have noted the prevalence of people from Tal Afar in military command positions, how there is a disproportionately high number of ISIS judges hailing from Tal Afar, and that the feared ISIS鈥檚 religious police鈥攖he hisbah鈥攊s also characterized by a strong Tal Afar presence.

The Shi鈥檃 Militia and ISIS鈥檚 Heart of Darkness

Because of Tal Afar鈥檚 early and close association with Sunni jihadism in Iraq, and perhaps also because of the astonishingly brutal nature of the sectarian conflict that engulfed Tal Afar from 2005-2007, the town has taken on the reputation of being ISIS鈥檚 very own heart of darkness among Shi鈥檃s and Kurds alike. With hindsight admittedly, it is not then surprising that senior Shi鈥檃 leaders began to agitate for a more obvious role in the unfolding operations against ISIS in Mosul. And if they were not allowed to enter Mosul itself, then they would be extremely keen to retake Tal Afar. Indeed, for some it would seem that Tal Afar was a more attractive opportunity than Mosul itself. Speaking to an assembled crowd of militiamen in Baghdad at the end of October, Qais al-Khazali, the leader of the feared Asaib Ahl al-Haq Shi鈥檃 militia, said that 鈥渨e are coming to Tal Afar to avenge Hussein,鈥� ominously linking the retaking of the Tal Afar with the martyrdom of the Imam Hussein in the seventh century. In Shi鈥檃 terms, there can be no clearer statement of sectarian intent. By November 1, Shi鈥檃 militias鈥攑rincipally Hadi al-Amiri鈥檚 Badr Organization and Qais al-Khazali鈥檚 Asaib Ahl al-Haq鈥攈ad reportedly advanced north and retaken around 25 villages in the environs of Tal Afar, remaining some 15 km outside the town鈥檚 limits.

Kurdish Concerns

For the Kurds, and especially the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and its leader Masoud Barzani, Tal Afar also poses problems. While the Kurdish leaders are no friends of the Sunni insurgents, they are perhaps even more fearful of the presence of Shi鈥檃 militias so close to the Kurdistan Region鈥檚 borders. Another problem for the KDP in particular is that the possible entry of the Kurdistan Workers鈥� Party (PKK) into the conflict would constitute a clear and present danger that would have to be removed. Why would the PKK engage in Tal Afar? There would be several reasons to do so, and not least because they could be encouraged by the Shi鈥檃 militias鈥� leadership to further antagonize Turkey. The Shi鈥檃 militia view Prime Minister Erdo臒an鈥檚 strong words against Baghdad and the Shi鈥檃 militias, including his warning against the attacking of Turkmens in Tal Afar, as a reassertion of an Ottoman, and Sunni, geopolitical view, and one that should be challenged鈥攁nd there is no better way of challenging the Turkish state than with the PKK. The PKK, too, may also find it politically useful to enter Tal Afar in an attempt to further challenge the KDP. With the PKK taking a leading role in the liberation of key ISIS strongholds, their standing among Kurds would only be strengthened, much to Barzani鈥檚 aggravation.

The City of Revenge

So the scene is set for an extremely dangerous episode to unfold in Tal Afar, between Shi鈥檃 militias, who are seeking revenge for the devastation wrought on them by Sunni jihadists since 2005, and ISIS fighters who, if history is our guide, would prove to be highly capable in their defense of the town. There could also, quite easily, be a Shi鈥檃 militia-KDP confrontation, particularly if the PKK is engaged in the fight. And, adding a further level of complexity and danger is the strong possibility that regional powers鈥攏amely Turkey and Iran鈥攃ould become further involved in the interests of protecting ethnic cousins (the Turkmens in Turkey鈥檚 case) or religious brothers (the Shi鈥檃 in Iran鈥檚 case). Far from being a sideshow on the way to Mosul, Western powers would be well advised to consider the potential for Tal Afar to be at best a stumbling block, or at worst a trigger for a multi-dimensional conflict to break out in the north of Iraq鈥攁 trigger that could easily make the comparatively straightforward calculus of the anti-ISIS campaign in Nineveh turn into something as complex, convoluted, and unpredictable as the conflict that now haunts northern Syria.

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect those of the 乐鱼 体育.