In light of recently announced plans by the Pentagon to coordinate a spring offensive in Mosul, much of the discussion has thus far focused on the training and deployment of a myriad of Iraqi and Kurdish military battalions. There are only whispers about the potential involvement of resistance groups currently operating within the ostensible Iraqi headquarters of the Islamic State (IS).

Among such groups, the Free Officers Movement quietly assassinated two IS commanders in the city in February. However, Pentagon officials have largely ignored their existence. Ultimately, for any military plans to successfully forge a sustainable governance strategy, let alone a military success in Mosul, it is imperative that such local resistance groups be granted an active role in the operation.

Mosul’s Sunni community was somewhat welcoming toward IS in the first weeks of June 2014, initially perceiving the group as the Sunni liberators of a city that had been suppressed by a predominantly Shiite military for several years.

IS was not new to Mosul when it entered the city in 2014. The group, under previous names such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen and the Islamic State in Iraq, had run criminal enterprises that included protection rackets, extortion and black market smuggling in the city for the last several years. However, its shadowy status in Mosul society had not created enough concern about the group’s ambitions until the implementation of its own version of Sharia in July.