Alongside the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters battling the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq, a growing number of Sunni Arabs have taken up arms against the extremist group. But winning the trust of their Kurdish counterparts has proved a challenge. "As Sunnis, we fight to prove that all the Sunnis are not with Daesh," says Abu Hassan Al Juburi, using the Arabic acronym for the IS group. "Here we are 100 percent Sunni and all of us are fighting Daesh." Juburi belongs to the Shargat People's Militia, one of the many armed Sunni groups that have sprung up in Iraq following the advance of Islamic State jihadists across the region. More than 2,000 fighters have already enrolled in such militias, according to the Kurdish leadership. Although paid by the central government in Baghdad, the Sunni militiamen are armed by the Peshmerga, who believe that Arab fighters will be more easily accepted in majority-Arab areas – especially in Mosul, the Islamic State group's stronghold in Iraq. But among the Kurdish forces fighting on the front lines against the Islamic State group, mistrust of their Sunni Arab counterparts is rife. For them, each one of the Sunni militiamen is a potential jihadist sympathizer. "With all due respect, the Arabs are not all bad," says Hassan Abu Abdelrahman, a Peshmerga sergeant. "But today, it is difficult to trust them. Everyone knows it. We can fend for ourselves, we do not need them."
