...During our discussion, he reflected on a prewar era when sect or ethnicity barely mattered. “We lived in peace,” he said. He pulled back a sleeve to reveal a scar that he claimed was caused by an electric drill used in torture by Shia militiamen after sectarian tensions exploded during the civil war unleashed by the US invasion.
...His sense of disenfranchisement led him to the Islamic State, or ISIS, the terrorist group whose claim to address the grievances of Iraq’s Sunnis acted as a rallying call for many who were not attracted purely by ideology.
Now, more than four years after the black-clad men conquered Mosul, a major city in northern Iraq, a third of the country remains pulverized, both physically and socially. Overlaid across territory that has been reclaimed from the Islamic State is a patchwork of various sectarian militias that now claim fiefdom.
...Iraq has foolishly declared the Islamic State defeated, as though its threat were now confined to the country’s past. But the signs of the ISIS’ resurgence are troubling, and the sense of grievance that fired it in the first place remains just as palpable—and just as unresolved.
...It has adapted to the antipathy found among the millions forced to flee their homes or chafing under the yoke of Shia militia rule, certain of the Islamic State’s inevitable return. Mosul, for instance, is exactly where ISIS wants it to be, filled with popular resentment that will gradually push locals back into the group’s orbit without its active intervention. ISIS has instead put its resources into a campaign at the village level, in rural areas where security is nonexistent at night—and that has paid off. Through 2018, dozens of village chiefs have been killed across northern Iraq in assassinations, bombings, and kidnappings....The assassins travel in small groups under the cover of darkness and know exactly which houses to target.
...Around Kirkuk and in Hawija, some 700 fighters have regrouped to abduct Kurds and Arabs for ransom and target power lines and oil trucks, as well as police units defending critical infrastructure.
...And it is not just the state security forces that are the cause of local alienation. Sectarian militias operating independently of Iraq’s weak government again loom large. Round-ups by militias following ISIS ambushes are commonplace:
...unwilling or unable to rein in Shia militia rule, ISIS is winning the war for hearts and minds.
...It matters less to occupy the country’s northern provinces with enough government forces than it does to remove the causes of the unending grievances that enable the group to flourish.
...Today, more than fifteen months since Mosul was liberated, not a single claim by ISIS victims—whether Arabs, Kurds, Christians, or Yezidis—has been settled. Religious leaders complain bitterly about the absence of a clear process for locals to file claims.
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