Just 10 days into the long-awaited offensive to retake Mosul from the Islamic State, the campaign has unleashed a fresh set of horrors across a wide stretch of the country. Although the government’s military operation itself is largely meeting its goals in progressing toward the city, the turmoil surrounding it is a sign of just how difficult it would be to secure a lasting peace across Iraq’s many divisions even after a victory. – New York Times
More than a thousand Sunni Arabs displaced from battlefields across Iraq have fled the northern city of Kirkuk in recent days, after they were threatened with expulsion by Kurdish authorities in the city, relief workers said Tuesday. – Washington Post
Free of the militant group’s stern Islamic strictures, men cut their beards, women removed their veils. Families prepared for reunions with family they had not seen in years. But freedom brought new problems. The villagers found themselves treated with suspicion, held under guard, searched and questioned even before arriving at the residential camps for Iraqis displaced by the war — were they innocent civilians, or militants in disguise? – Los Angeles Times
Cole Bunzel writes: The Islamic State’s mouthpieces preach that this is a period of “trial” (ibtila). It is not that God has ceased to favor the Islamic State, for that is of course inconceivable. Rather, divine favor comes with ups and downs. It is God’s practice to subject His creation to trials and tests, as He subjected the prophets and the early Muslims before our time – Foreign Policy