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By Samia Nakhoul | ERBIL, Iraq

ERBIL, Iraq After almost nine months of fierce fighting, the campaign to recapture Mosulfrom Islamic State is drawing to a bitter end in the ruins of the city's historic quarter, but the struggle for Iraq's futureis far fromover.

Aside fromMosul, across the border inSyriaa battle is raging to dislodge IS from Raqqa, the second capital of its self-declared caliphate. Fighting will push down the Euphrates valley toDeir al-Zour, the jihadis last big urban stronghold.

But the fall of Mosul also exposes ethnic and sectarian fractures that have plagued Iraq for more than a decade.

The victory risks triggering new violence between Arabs and Kurds over disputed territories or between Sunnis and Shiites over claims to power, egged on by outside powers that have shaped Iraqs future since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Husseins Sunni minority-rule and brought the Iran-backed Shiite majority to power.

ForIraq, stunned by the blitz on Mosul by Islamic State in 2014 and the collapse of its army, victory could thus turn out to be as big a problem as defeat.

The federal model devised under the Anglo-American occupation and built on a power-sharing agreement between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds collapsed into ethno-sectarian carnage spawned by the al Qaeda precursors of Islamic State.

In the three years since the jihadis swept across the border fromSyria where they had regrouped in the chaos of the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al-Assads rule, ISwas the rallying point uniting a fracturedIraq.

But now that the group faces military defeat, the unity that held Iraqtogether is starting to come apart.

NO POST-BATTLE PLAN

One challenge is the future ofMosulitself, a city traumatized by Islamic State's brutal rule and shattered by the latest U.S.-backed offensive, with thousands dead and nearly one million people displaced.

Western, Iraqi and Kurdish officials say they are astonished that Iraqi authorities neglected to prepare a post-battle plan for governance and security.

A high-level committee formed by the Kurdish region, the Baghdad government and a U.S.-led military coalition to help Mosul leaders rebuild the city had never convened, they said.

"Prime Minister (Haider) al-Abadi kept dragging his heels. Every time we raised this issue with him, he said, 'Lets wait until military operations are over'," said Hoshyar Zebari, an internationally respected former finance and foreign minister.

"A whole city is being decimated. Look how much the government is contributing, as if they dont care."

The first indication of possible future conflict came when Masoud Barzani, president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, announced a Sept. 25 referendum for an independent state.

Another omen was a push by Iran-backed Shi'ite militias, grouped under the government-run Hashid Shaabi, to deploy alongside Kurdish areas and advance towards the Syrian border, motivated byIran's desireto join Iraq and Syria and establish a corridor from Tehran to Beirut.

"Today the highway of resistance starts in Tehran and reaches Mosul, Damascus and Beirut," Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader, said last week.

JIHADI FIGHTERS

All this comes against a backdrop of simmering rivalries between regional powers Iran and Turkey, and above all declining U.S. influence and Irans vigorous attempts to consolidate its control in Iraq.

While theadministration of U.S.President Donald Trump regards Syria and Iraq purely in terms of the military campaign to destroy IS, local jihadi fighters will simply melt back into the population, and could regroup in a new insurgency.

Sunni and Kurdish leaders in and around Mosul largely agree with this grim prognosis, alarmed that Abadi has refused even to discuss the future governance of Mosul, and suspecting that Iran is calling the shots.

The disputed territories stretch along an ethnically mixed ribbon of land dividing the autonomous Kurdish area in the north of Iraq from the Arab-majority part in the south - more a minefield than a mosaic - at a time when both the Kurds and Sunni Arabs are giving up on Shiite rule in Baghdad.

Atheel al-Nujaifi, who was Nineveh governor when the provincial capital Mosul was captured in 2014, says: We are back to where we were before Mosul fell, (because) there is an idea among the hardline Shiite leadership to keep the liberated areas as loose areas, with no (local) political leadership, or security organizations, so they can control them.

Moderate Shiite leaders, among whom he counts Abadi, are wary of a winner-take-all logic of victory, fearing this could lead to the creation of radicalism again and they know this would destroy not only Iraq but the Shiites.

The problem, he believes, is that Iraqi Shiism is badly fractured, helpingIrancontrol almost all its factions.

The former governor, a Sunni who now has at his command an armed force trained byTurkey, says he is bowing out of office but not politics. He acknowledges there is a lack of mainstream Sunni leaders, but blamesBaghdadfor making sure none emerges.

WHITHER THE SUNNIS?

Talk of Kurdish secession has sparked discussion of whether Sunni Arabs should set up a separate state, though most officials say this is not practical, because: Sunni territory lacks the oil base the Shiites and Kurds have; the experience of Islamic State would hover like a specter over any new entity; and Sunnis are too intermingled across Iraq.

Some Sunni and Kurdish leaders believe one solution is to makeMosul a self-governing region like Kurdistan, with smaller units of self-rule to accommodate the plethora of minorities, which they say is permitted by the constitution.

Before, the Sunnis were very sensitive to believing (devolution) would lead to secession, to the breakup ofIraqbut now theyre coming to terms with it, says Zebari.

The Sunnis are not the only ones who repudiate Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government. The northern Kurdish region has called a referendum to move from autonomous self-rule to an independent state.

Kurdish leader Barzani told Reuters timing for independence after the vote was flexible but not open-ended.

Yet there is growing concern the real purpose of the referendum is not immediate secession, but to strengthen Kurdish claims over the disputed territories, such as the oil-rich region and city of Kirkuk, whose future has been in play for over a decade.

"WE LOST HOPE AND FAITH"

Zebari, a senior official in Barzanis Kurdish Democratic Party who devoted over a decade inBaghdadtrying to make power-sharing work, said the time was ripe for independence.

We lost hope and faith in the newIraqthat we had built. The government has failed us on each and every constitutional provision and article to establish a new country with equal citizenship, with no discrimination, with partnership. All those dreams have evaporated, he told Reuters.

The problem, he says, is that senior Iranian officials have left no doubt their priority a corridor for Shiite forces carved through the north and policed by Shi'ite recruits trumps everything else.

"They are breathing down our neck all along the Kurdish frontline from Sinjar to Khanaqin," he said.

"So far we have been accommodating, patient, coordinating to prevent skirmishes or flashes but this is building up."

(For a graphic on destruction in Mosul's old city, click tmsnrt.rs/2u0o515)

(Additional reporting and editing by Stephen Kalin)

HAMBURG The United States, Russia and Jordan have reached a ceasefire and "de-escalation agreement" in southwestern Syria, one of the combat zones in a six-year-old civil war, Washington and Moscow said on Friday.

HAMBURG U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday there would not be many good options left on North Korea if the peaceful pressure campaign the United States has been pushing to curb Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs failed.

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As Mosul battle ends, struggle over Iraq's future intensifies - Reuters

Eleven years ago, two Iraqi brothers stranded at a refugee camp in Jordan made a fateful choice they thought was really no choice at all.

Determined not to return to a country where they thought they would be killed, they obscured their relationship with a third brother, who was accused of terrorist ties, and ultimately linked to the kidnapping of a U.S. contractor and others in Iraq.

The brothers, with their wives and chidren, were allowed into the United States. And over the past decade, they built a life in Fairfax, Va., finding work and making friends, having picnics and visiting the zoo. Each brother has two children born in the United States.

Now, Yousif al-Mashhadani, 35, his brother, Adil Hasan, 39, and Hasans wife, Enas Ibrahim, 32, have been convicted in federal court in Alexandria on fraud charges. With all three at risk of deportation, friends and supporters say a good family is being torn apart and are pushing for them to be allowed to remain in the country.

Justice cries out for compassion in this case, Marie Monsen, who worked with the refugees as a church volunteer, wrote in a letter to the court.

Federal prosecutors said they pursued the cases in hopes of catching Majid al-Mashhadani, who the government believes was involved in the kidnapping and had been released from prison in Iraq after only a couple of years. But authorities have given no indication that the three refugees have provided useful information about the crime or Majids whereabouts.

Im not sure how it accomplished anything, Ibrahims attorney, Lana Manitta, said. I dont think theyre any closer to getting the answers they need.

[Iraqi refugees in Va. accused of hiding ties to a kidnapper to get into U.S.]

Judge Leonie M. Brinkema last month sentenced the brothers to only the three months they have spent in jail for their crimes, but acknowledged that they would be transferred immediately to immigration custody.

This is a tragic case, she said in court. But the law is what it is.

She questioned why Ibrahim, who has not yet been sentenced, was targeted at all. She was prosecuted in large part to give incentives for her husband and brother-in-law to give information on the kidnapping and torture of an American citizen, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg said in court.

He said she was also complicit in the decision to lie to a United Nations refugee agency.

The brothers and their families fled Iraq in 2006, when sectarian violence in the country was at its height. When the family arrived in Jordan, Ibrahim was pregnant with her first child. She and her sister Rashad, Yousif al-Mashhadanis wife, both had their first children at the refugee camp.

While pleading guilty, Hasan explained his fear of being sent back to Iraq.

I am Sunni, and I will be killed by the Sunnis because I was working in the Green Zone, he said. The Shiites will kill me because I am Sunni.

Both brothers had worked for a U.S.-supported anti-corruption agency in Iraq known at the time as the Commission on Public Integrity. Dozens of their co-workers were assassinated to keep investigations from coming to fruition.

In court, Hasan said he personally knew 56 people who had been killed. According to court filings, 65 members of the watchdog agency have been assassinated. Arthur Brennan, who worked on corruption in Iraq for the State Department in 2007, wrote to the judge that Iraqis connected to law enforcement at the time were in an extremely dangerous situation.

So, knowing their brother had been arrested and accused of involvement in terrorism, Hasan and Mashhadani hid their relationship. For good measure, they exaggerated the intensity of the threats they had faced for working with Americans in Baghdad. And when they filled out their U.S. naturalization forms, they did not correct the errors.

Hasan has pleaded guilty to naturalization fraud, Mashhadani to conspiracy to commit immigration fraud. Both agreed to cooperate with immigration authorities. Ibrahim admitted lying about her income to secure a car loan two years ago, a charge that does not automatically trigger deportation proceedings. The families declined to comment for this story.

While in Virginia, the families lived a spartan existence so they would not rely on charity for too long, Monsen recalled, although they always scrounged to serve volunteers huge home-cooked meals. They went on to help new refugees as they were helped, and neighbors say they were always willing to lend a tool or offer a ride.

Yousif and his family had very little during this trying time, but this never stopped their generosity, said Aaron Weiss, who met the family as a volunteer with the International Rescue Committee.

Ninos Youkhana, whose parents fled Iraq in the 1970s, met Hasan working at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. Only weeks later, when she was having trouble with her roommate, Hasan and Ibrahim invited her to live with them.

For six months they housed her and cooked her meals, and not once did they ever ask for any financial reimbursement from me, she wrote in a letter to the court.

She said Hasan also helped fight an attempt to block Iraqi Christians abroad from voting in 2014 parliamentary elections.

When interviewed by FBI agents this year, Hasan described a life of fear in Iraq, telling them he was once shot at while driving to work and was detained for several hours by members of a Shiite militia.

But while in Jordan applying for refugee status, the brothers fabricated a far more elaborate tale in which Hasan was kidnapped for a month and their parents home was set on fire.

Although they have admitted those lies and expressed regret, both brothers maintain that they know nothing about the actions or whereabouts of Majid al-Mashhadani, who according to prosecutors had admitted his involvement in the 2004 kidnapping of an American contractor and four others.

A paper with Yousif al-Mashhadanis fingerprint on it was found in the farmhouse where the hostages were kept. However, there is no evidence the print was left during the kidnapping and he has not been charged in connection with that crime.

Another brother, according to court filings, listed Majid al-Mashhadani on his immigration papers and is now a U.S. citizen.

Roy Hallums, the contractor who was kidnapped and rescued 10 months later, was unable to see or understand his captors. But he is sure the brothers are lying now.

In the Middle East and in Iraq, everything is based on family, Hallums said. So I dont believe for one second that these guys didnt know what was going on.

Even if they didnt, immigration foes see justice being done.

Their first interaction with the U.S. government was to lie, said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that opposes most new immigration.

Until this March, the family would not have had to worry about being sent back to Iraq. Only in April, after years of refusal, did the Iraqi government agree to start cooperating with American deportation efforts.

But a federal judge in Detroit has temporarily halted those deportations in response to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union arguing that it is too dangerous to deport people to the country .

Although it is unclear what will happen to the three refugees, in court last week Hasan spoke as if he was saying goodbye.

Thank you to the United States for hosting me for nine years, he said.

Before he was taken back to jail and then to immigration custody, he shook the hands of the prosecutors who had put him there.

Im really thankful, he said, and I love this country.

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These refugees lied to escape Iraq a decade ago. Now, the US might send them back. - Washington Post

President Trump has told a crowd of cheering Polish nationalists in Warsaw that the great threat to the world is from radical Islamic terrorism, which should make it good news for him that Isis is losing Mosul, the heart of its self-proclaimed Caliphate and its de facto capital in Iraq. At the same time, US-backed Syrian-Kurdish forces are closing in on Raqqa, the last big Isis-held city in Syria, which they will capture in the coming weeks or months.

Isis has been the most powerful enemy of peace in the Middle East and beyond over the last three years, so why is its defeat in its two largest strongholds not making the region feel a safer place? Instead, the mood is edgy and fearful, bringing to mind the atmosphere in Europe in 1914 when many different conflicts were escalating and cross-infecting each other. It is not so much that the great powers are itching to fight each other in the Middle East, but, as in the period before the First World War, there are so many wild cards, in the sense of inputs or ingredients of uncertain value in the political mix, that almost anything could happen.

The wild cards are of two different kinds, though both are dangerous. One source of uncertainty revolves around deeply flawed leaders like Donald Trump himself, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. All have a great appetite for power at home and abroad, combined with a reputation for arrogance and poor judgement. Ominously, all are leading players in potentially explosive confrontations and crises that could easily turn into serious wars, where they have not already done so.

The current situation in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, where Isis is on the retreat, is a good example of this. The implosion of Isis creates a vacuum leading to further conflicts over who will fill the gap left by its defeat: as regards Syria, Turkey is deeply alarmed by the rising power of the Kurds, who, backed by US-led air power, have established a de facto state along the southern Turkish frontier.Syrian Kurds, for their part, fear that the Turkish army will invade northern Syria and end their quasi-independence once the US no longer needs their 50,000 fighters to combat Isis.

Iraq PM Haider al-Abadi hails 'big victory' in Mosul

What is US policy in the struggle for eastern Syria which has drawn in their own country, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Syrian government, al-Qaeda, Isis, Kurds and many others? The US has already fired missiles at a Syrian government airbase and shot down a Syrian military aircraft, but otherwise nobody knows what Trump intends to do. Will he betray the Kurds once the US has no further use for them against Isis in order to get back on good terms with Turkey? Alternatively, the US could limit its role in Syria and Iraq once Isis is defeated or see both countries as the future arena for a confrontation with Iran.

We dont have a policy in Syria, said one former State Department official. Everybody in the Middle East knows that whatever is said by the Pentagon, State Department or National Security Council lacks authority because whatever assurances they give may be contradicted within the hour by a presidential tweet or by one of the factions in the White House. The ex-official lamented that it was like living in an arbitrary and unpredictable dictatorship.

Donald Trumps genius for spreading chaos was displayed in May during his visit to Saudi Arabia, when his fulsome endorsement of Saudi policies encouraged Riyadh to blockade Qatar and seek to turn it into a Saudi vassal state. The US President gave his support to Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has since taken over as Crown Prince, and has been the effective ruler of the Kingdom since 2015. His record since then is of undiluted failure: he backed a rebel offensive in Syria that precipitated Russian military intervention; he started bombing Yemen in a war that is still going on and is devastating the country; and he is destabilising the Gulf by trying to crush tiny Qatar.

Drone footage shows the devastation in Mosul's old city and the destroyed al-Nuri Mosque

Crises have always been erupting in the Middle East, but today there is a sense of them spinning out of control. US policy is to be redirected to supporting its own interests, comically supposing that it was previously a model of altruism and self-denial.

Under Trump, the US is to focus more on repelling the advance of Iranian influence, something much encouraged by Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the US needs a degree of cooperation with Iran if there is to be a de-escalation of the violence in Iraq and Syria. Confrontation with Iran is a recipe for fighting the Shia community as a whole and is a guarantee of instability.

A more aggressive policy towards Iran is conceived with dangerous frivolity. Media pundits and think tank luminaries have little idea of what they are talking about, any more than they did when invading Iraq in 2003. They speak of the US supporting guerrilla war by ethnic minorities against the central government in Iran, a tactic that is likely to get a lot of people killed but without worrying the authorities in Tehran too much.

US military action in Iraq and Syria is largely continuing so far along the same lines as under President Obama, because nobody in the Trump administration knows what to put in its place. It has become more militarised with officers in the field decidingon what and when to bomb. The US-directed bombardment of Mosul has become noticeably more devastating under Trump than it was under Obama last year.

Children of Mosul describe life under Islamic State

The analogy between the Middle East today and Europe in the years leading up to 1914 is illumination. There are strong parallels between Trump and Kaiser Wilhelm II, or Kaiser Bill as he was known derisively in Britain, in the way in which both men have stumbled into situations they did not understand. Both were the egocentric and ill-informed advocates of a bombastic nationalism in which they portrayed themselves as defending their nations America or Germany against the plots and self-aggrandising policies of foreign states. In 1896, the Kaiser suddenly shot off a notorious telegram offering support to the Boers against a British intrusion, much as Trump was to tweet his support for Saudi Arabia against Qatar over a century later.

Trump and the Kaiser behaved with the same blend of hubris and self-pity, seeingthemselves and their nations as eternal victims, often blaming the media for malign misrepresentation. In 1908, the Daily Telegraph published a notorious interview with the Kaiser in which he made various offensive remarks about the English, whose suspicions of himself are quite unworthy of a great nation. He concludes with a very Trump-like bleat in which he insisted that I am the friend of England, and your press at least a considerable section of it bids the people of England refuse my proffered hand and insists that the other holds a dagger.

The Kaiser did not invent the phrase the Yellow Peril, but he used it to warn of the threat that China and other East Asian states posed to Western civilisation much as today Trump rants on about the dangers of radical Islam.

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Here in Iraq, Isis is being defeated but with US policy in disarray, it doesn't feel any safer - The Independent

Birmingham Business Journal

BL Harbert lands contract for project in Iraq Birmingham Business Journal BL Harbert International has landed yet another major federal contract for an international project. The Birmingham-based contractor was awarded the contract for construction of the new U.S. Consulate Complex in Erbil, Iraq, by the U.S. Department of ... and more »

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BL Harbert lands contract for project in Iraq - Birmingham Business Journal

By Elias Cepeda

Looking toward this week's celebration of his nation's independence from Britain UFC lightweight star Joe Lauzon recently recounted to FloCombat a trip visiting members of the United States' armed services as they worked abroad. Lauzon and other elite fighters like Jake Ellenberger and Diego Sanchez recently traveled together to visit a number of U.S. military bases in Iraq.

The trip was not Lauzon's first time visiting troops or even traveling as far as Iraq to try and help boost moral. Back nearly a decade ago Lauzon visited other service men and women in Iraq along with heavyweight Heath Herring and middleweight Jorge Rivera.

Despite traveling with those two big men, back then, Lauzon says he ended up carrying much of the load when it came to training with the troops. The UFC record-holder loved the experience, but it wore on his body a bit.

"That first trip was great, I got to train with so many of the troops," Lauzon recalled.

"Jorge had a hurt hand so he couldn't train and Herring, I think he just didn't want to roll with people (laughs). So, I ended up training with everyone myself, person after person. It was a lot of fun but I'd go with 15-20 people, then go to another two bases in the day and do that again each time. After a while I asked the people organizing the trip if I could take control of the training a little bit more and so I ended up more teaching a class, a seminar, and then afterward rolled, so it wasn't just an hour of rolling, straight."

With the knowledge gained from that experience, Lauzon planned ahead on his most recent trip, organized by Pro Sports MVP.

"This time, off the bat, Pro Sports MVP told the people, 'Hey, just hand it over to this guy, he has a good handle on how to run things,'" Lauzon continued."I asked the other fighters if they were cool with it and then we ran it like a class and then divided up rolling among us all. We were all different sizes and weights as well, so we could give some of the bigger soldiers a different look than some of the smaller ones. It worked out really great."

Lauzon said that the experience and skill level he and his fellow fighters encountered among the servicemen they trained with at the bases they visitedvaried a great deal, but that they all showed an eagerness to learn and had great attitudes. "Some of them had no experience at all grappling but wanted to try it out. That was fun," he said.

"Others had done a littleor had wrestled. Others were combative instructors and were really great."

Lauzon said that he and the other athletes got some decent quality time with military members, who hailed not just from the United States, but also from many other allied nations. "We did a lot of sitting, eating, talking. That was probably the best part," he went on.

During those conversations Lauzon said he just asked about soldiers' lives in Iraq, so far from their loved ones. In just over a week of travel and time spent with them, Lauzon said he was reminded in subtle but powerful ways just how good he had it.

"There's little things about their lives living out there that make you realize how much you take for granted," he began to explain.

"Some of the bases are nice, have bathrooms and all that. Some are more bare-bones, have outhouses. Even things like inconsistent internet and phone service show you how much we have and little bits of what they have to go through. My first night there I'm stressing because the internet signal isn't great and I'm wondering, 'How am I going to FaceTime with my wife? How am I going to say goodnight to my son? How can I let them know I got in alright and am fine?'

"That's something soldiers out there have to live with every day. Their families are far away, for years. Even small things like internet service shine light on the big things they sacrifice to serve in the military."

In the end, that is precisely why Lauzon found it a pleasure to briefly visit with military service people abroad. It wasn't in support of or opposition to any military policy, war or exercise that Lauzon went to Iraq.

Those decisions had been and continue to be made. Lauzon recognized that, regardless of what any of us may think of policy or even what individual soldiers may think of it, military personnel trust all of us and their nation deeply and sacrifice greatly to do as we ask them to.

That phenomenon deserves recognition, and the living embodiment of that sacrificing philosophy deserve some humanity showed back to them. "I just wanted to go there to spend time with them, show them that we think of them, that we care about them, and to show them we appreciate that they gave up a lot when asked," he said.

"A lot of the bases we went to were smaller ones and we were told some of the people there had never really gotten visitors before. A lot of times entertainers get sent to the larger bases. So you could tell they enjoyed just having visitors, being so far from home. For me, it was great and humbling to see how they live and an honor to spend even just a little time with them and try to show them that we're thankful for them."

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Joe Lauzon Visits Troops In Iraq, Recounts 'Humbling' Experience - FloCombat