ERBIL, Iraq — At nine o’clock tonight, Goran Ahmad will pick up his 1983 Cuban AKM, kiss his wife of two days on the cheek, and take to the streets of Dibis, in Iraqi Kurdistan’s multi-ethnic Kirkuk province, until first light.
He will not be alone. Since the group calling itself the Islamic State captured the city of Mosul in June, Mr Ahmad, 25, and countless other young men like him have taken to appearing armed on street corners and roundabouts throughout the town, 58 kilometres south of the regional capital of Erbil, in a nightly show of strength and defiance.
But the IS is not their primary audience. The intimidation tactics are rather aimed at Dibis’s Sunni Arabs, who constitute roughly half the population. Mr Ahmad estimates that between 10 and 15 per cent of the Sunni Arab in town are supporters of, and possibly informants for, the group that is here known by its Arab acronym “Daesh”.
“Our fear is not Daesh, but the people inside the city who will contact them and tell them to attack if we do not show our strength,” Mr Ahmad said. “We have seen how local Arabs helped Daesh infiltrate other cities and do not wish to see that here. We can handle an attack from outside the city. But an attack that comes from inside it as well would be very dangerous.”
Mr Ahmad, who works as a police officer during the day, estimated that 80 per cent of Dibis’s young male Kurds took part in the nightly vigil of vigilantism. “We take our guns into the streets for our families, our city and for Kurdistan,” he said.
Fear of the enemy within is festering throughout Iraqi Kurdistan. In Erbil last month, young Kurds staged a protest against the number of Arabs fleeing into the region from IS-controlled areas, accusing the internally-displace persons (IDPs) of being spies for the group. Protesters reportedly set-up checkpoints in the city centre, where they questioned drivers about their ethnic idenity, and threw stones at known Arab apartments and businesses.
Amhad is quick to point out that his war is with the IS and its supporters, rather than against Sunni Arabs in general, many of whom are as staunchly against the group as he is.
“Until now, there was very little tension between Kurds and Arabs here,” he said. “We even have an Arab who brings his gun into the streets with us every night.”
Hayad Mohamed, assistant to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)’s district manager, is less generous in his assessment.
“Every Arab in Dibis must be regarded with suspicion,” he said, leafing through a worn purple ledger of local Sunnis known to be in direct contact with the IS, whose positions are roughly 20 kilometres to the south.
“There are many good Arab families who live here,” he said. “We respect them and are working with them. But even with these we must be careful. Many say one thing and do another.”
Mr Mohamed said that the recent successes of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, supported by US air strikes, had the IS on the back foot and that the PUK expected to see a change in the group’s tactics as a result. In this new phase of fighting, IS supporters within Kurdish cities would become increasingly important to the group—and potentially lethal to other residents.
“Here in Dibis, we are expecting to see suicide bombers,” he said matter-of-factly. “Having been pushed back by the Peshmerga, Daesh will return to using IEDs, car bombs and other terrorist tactics.” He pointed to August 23’s Erbil car bombing, which wounded two, as a case in point. He also said at least 17 families in Dibis and the surrounding villages were known to be in contact with the IS and that several raids had uncovered bomb-making equipment in Arab homes within the town limits.
Should Dibis fall, he said, it would be a disaster for Kurdistan as a whole. “We are very important strategically,” he said. “Not only are we the southern gateway to Erbil, but the city relies on us for water and electricity as well. We are also the source of a third of Kirkuk Province’s oil.”
While Mr Mohamed said Dibis’s PUK branch had received orders not to stoke tensions with the local Arab population, it was nevertheless actively encouraging the town’s young men to defend the streets every evening.
“While the PUK is here, and while our young people are here, Dibis cannot fall,” he said. “We trust our young people with our lives.”
What Mr Mohamed didn’t mention is that many of the town’s Arabs do as well.
“If the Kurds retreat, we will follow them,” Dlaona Mohammed said. Mrs Mohammed, 51, has lived in Dibis her whole life and alongside Kurds for most of that time.
“I can’t speak for other families, but my family’s relationship with the Kurds has always been very strong,” she said.
She said she was not interested in living under the Islamic State.
“What state is that?” she said. “They are not Muslims. They are the enemy of Islam. They have no claim on this land.”
“We hope that, like a storm, they will blow away,” she said.
Until they do, Mr Ahmad and his friends will continue to batten down the hatches, even at the risk of allowing their nationalism shade into chauvinism.
“We have no choice,” he said. “We will continue to do this until our town is no longer at threat.”
Drinking tea in a corner of the room, Mr Ahmad’s grandfather, Mohamad-Alma Tofiq, watched quietly as his grandson prepared his weapon for the evening’s patrol. A four-year-old boy, the son of a friend, rolled around next to two other guns reciting the English names for animals that he likes: “Tiger. Lion Donkey. Monkey.” (Ahmad’s friend, who also takes to the streets each evening, is actively planning a new life for his wife and son in the United States, not wanting the latter to bear the same responsibilities that he feels he must.)
Born in 1928, Mr Tofiq, 85, has seen his share of war, and his experiences have rendered him philosophical about the IS and its methods. “These are bad people,” he said. “But Saddam Hussein was much worse. These people have power, but they are attacking us from outside. He had more power within the country.”
But he is nevertheless pleased that the town’s young people are taking to the streets each night. “I’d rather they go out than for Daesh to come,” he said.
And so Dibis remains in an uneasy state, on the cusp of, but not yet in the midst of, Iraqi Kurdistan’s latest fight. While Mr Ahmad acknowledges that the IS will take a long time to defeat, he suspects that the threat to Dibis itself will have subsided enough within two months for him to get a good night’s sleep again. For his part, Mr Tofiq doesn’t expect that the region will see peace again in his lifetime.
Then again, it hasn’t seen peace for much of his lifetime, either.
“I have seen a lot of war,” he said. “It is an awful thing. But you get used to it.”
Matthew Clayfield is a freelance foreign correspondent who has worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.
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