When one of Iraq’s Shia militia commanders this week declared the province of Diyala “liberated”, few people familiar with the province believed it would be a lasting victory. In a country with a largely Shia south, Kurdish north and Sunni west, Diyala stands as a microcosm of Iraq – a mixed population of Sunnis, Shias, Kurds and Turkmen. The apparent massacre of dozens of unarmed villagers by Shia militias is a reminder of the war within a war potentially more dangerous to Iraq than the fight against ISIL. The accounts from survivors of the massacre in Barwana are horrifying. But particularly chilling was an account from one of the survivors, a university student, that the gunmen knew their victims. “I realised there are two types of militias,” he said. Shia militia […]