Baghdad — Plans to create a locally recruited Iraqi national guard to fight the Islamic State are gaining traction among Iraqi Sunnis, who first welcomed the jihadists but are increasingly repulsed by the IS’s sectarian brutality.

The Sunni honeymoon with IS, formerly known as ISIS, is already waning in Mosul, the northern Iraqi city that fell in June. Months of IS rule, including strict social rules and the destruction of centuries-old religious shrines, has led residents to form underground anti-IS groups – risking beheading or crucifixion for their defiance.

“The revolution has to come from inside,” says a Mosul resident who gave the name Ahmed Yunis, contacted by phone. “Most of the people used to support ISIS; now they feel regret and shame.”

Four IS jihadists were killed recently by men with silencers on their guns, residents say. Two others were stabbed to death.

That growing desire to challenge IS rule – evident also elsewhere in the swaths of Iraq captured by IS since June – is boosting Sunni support for the proposed national guard, designed to bypass sectarian problems that have plagued Iraq’s Shiite-heavy security forces. The Pentagon has determined that half of Iraq's 50 combat brigades are too sectarian to be reliable partners, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chief of Staffs, said this week.

The national guard, as proposed by Iraq’s new Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, would enable locals to provide for their own security and be commanded at province level, yet also be integrated into Iraq’s national security infrastructure. Sunnis envision an institutionalized version of the Sahwa Awakening – the homegrown Sunni militia that, alongside American troops who paid their wages, suppressed Al Qaeda in Iraq from 2005 to 2010.

“We are waiting for Mr. Abadi to activate the policy of the national guard, and we are so happy to hear of the possibility of guarding our own city with our own local people,” says Mr. Yunis in Mosul.

President Barack Obama, laying out his anti-Islamic State strategy last week, said the US would “support Iraq’s efforts to stand up national guard units to help Sunni communities secure their own freedom from [IS] control.”

Sunni awakening

Years ago, Iraq’s powerful Sunni tribes welcomed Al Qaeda as fellow insurgents against the US occupation and the Shiite-led government. But unrelenting kidnapping, beheadings and violent abuses eventually provoked a backlash, creation of the Sahwa, and a decision to side with the Americans.

The same dynamic is at play today, as IS imposes its will and proudly broadcasts its atrocities. In Mosul alone, the list of complaints grows every day, from expelling and abusing Christians and other minority groups – hundreds of Yazidi women are reported to have been captured and enslaved by IS in Nineveh Province – to this week ordering “punishment” when children stay away from school to avoid the new IS curriculum.

Islamic covering for women also grates for many, as does Rule No. 10: Forbidden are non-IS groups and flags – the price of disobedience “beheading by sword.”

Indeed, eight Sunni men accused of plotting against IS were publicly executed in a small village in northern Iraq over the weekend, according to Reuters.

A key sign of changing attitudes toward IS came last week from Sheikh Ali Hatem Suleiman, a vocal leader of a two-year Sunni uprising against the central government, who had initially welcomed the IS in Iraq.

“The IS has passed beyond all limits and now we have to fight back,” Mr. Suleiman told a press conference. “I can assure you that the [Sunni] tribes are ready to cooperate with international forces by any means.”

He also praised the national guard idea as “insurance for Iraq, for a safer condition.”

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No One Like Dog Of Hellfire...............