ZUMAR – Peshmerga forces have marked a borderline at the town of Zumar, recaptured from Islamic State fighters last month, and local Kurds say their former Arab neighbours will only cross it “over our dead bodies”.
Zumar is northwest of ISIS-occupied Mosul and the heavily contested Mosul dam and on the south side of Mosul Lake. It was one of the first Kurdish-controlled towns to be overrun in August as ISIS launched an offensive that threatened Erbil, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) capital.
The Kurdish Peshmerga retook it on October 25 following air strikes by U.S.-led coalition planes against ISIS positions. Zumar is on one of the supply lines that connects its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
Although Kurdish-controlled, Zumar is in predominantly Arab Ninawa province, just outside the territory of the KRG. Local Kurds accuse Arabs in the area of having sided with ISIS during the takeover.
One local man told Rudaw’s Hevidar Ahmad that ISIS had destroyed most of the Kurdish homes in the town.
Asked whether he and his fellow Kurds would allow the Arabs back, he retorted: “Over our dead bodies.”
