A peshmerga fighter points at the ISIS checkpoint on the Erbil to Mosul road.
When the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) overran Iraq's second city of Mosul, many feared sectarian massacres and brutal violence from the extremist Sunni militants. As many 500,000 people fled the city on the first day,
according to the UN.
Now,
many citizens have returned. Instead of imposing its extreme interpretation of Islamic law and carrying out threats of killing Shiites wherever it found them, ISIS has remained more moderate. As a result,
it has found support among local residents, some of whom told VICE News that they are happy with life under their new leaders.
At the borders between Iraqi Kurdistan and the newly seized ISIS territory in Northern Iraq, Kurdish peshmerga fighters describe the militants as terrorists and are obviously uncomfortable with their new neighbors.
Nevertheless, on the road from Erbil to Mosul, things have remained quiet between the forces. It's only 500 yards from the last peshmerga position to the first ISIS checkpoint. While that's as close to Mosul as it's sensible to get for an obvious non-Iraqi with a healthy aversion to kidnapping, local residents travel easily between the two territories.
Traffic flows both ways and those people going in and out say the militants manning the ISIS checkpoint aren't ruthlessly hunting down non-Sunnis. A quick glance inside and each car is waved on.
A peshmerga fighter points at the ISIS checkpoint on the Erbil to Mosul road.
Elsewhere in Iraq, ISIS-led militants are involved in heavy fighting with government forces, and south of Kirkuk it has clashed with peshmerga as well.
It has also bragged about mass atrocities, posting pictures on social media channels claiming to show some of the 1,700 Shiite troops it says it has executed.This appears to be
part of an overall ISIS strategy to drag Iraq into an all-out sectarian conflict and further its goal of establishing a cross-border Sunni Islamist caliphate. But Mosul is a huge prize for ISIS, and it seems either to have been running a hearts-and-minds operation to get local residents on its side, or ceded some control to local Sunni nationalist militant groups.
Comment: There are reports that major corporations are in bed with spying agencies despite the occasional cry for Justice. Is it for Justice or simple damage control?.
Damage Control? Microsoft Inc, whose collaboration with the NSA was exposed earlier this year, to 'encrypt its Internet traffic' because it 'suspects' NSA is spying on it
Hypocrisy much? Government snitches Google and Microsoft call for government to be more transparent
Microsoft caught up in fresh privacy storm
UK gov. plans switch from Microsoft to open source
Microsoft Intercepting and Censoring Chats in Windows Live Messenger