Power within Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, is a spectrum of forces from ISIS, Ba’athist elements and Sunni tribes, among others. How is this tenuous assortment of power connecting and coordinating in the running of the city?
The two Iraqi Kurdish parties’ entanglement in the Syrian Kurdish issues seems to have resulted in anti-Assad rebels and extreme jihadists retaliating against the KRG, in a spillover of the Syrian civil war.
The already strained Baghdad-Ankara relationship has further deteriorated in recent years, due to regional crises, internal political instability, narrow perceptions and regional interests.
Although the civil war in Syria is ongoing, the Kurds have achieved major strides towards their rights by controlling a region for the first time in Syrian modern history.
These developments in Syria, with the involvement of Iraqis, have intensified and widened the divisions among Iraqis themselves.
