NINEVAH, Iraq — At times, Kurdish Gen. Ziryan Shekhwasani accompanied Iraqi army Gen. Najim al-Jabouri to survey through binoculars the battlefield on top of al-Nasr village just a couple of kilometers away. At other times, Shekhwasani stood with his peshmerga troops looking with an air of exasperation at how his Iraqi counterparts were conducting the bloody fight against the Islamic State (IS) militants.

The two generals are the point men of their respective forces, Kurdish peshmerga and the Iraqi army, in this southeastern corner of Ninevah province, a vast area of flat plains occasionally interrupted by a hill or cut apart farther ahead by the Tigris River. Cooperation between the two generals and their forces is key in liberating Ninevah and its prized city of Mosul from IS. Yet it was not difficult to see that the relationship between the two sides is uneasy. The peshmerga here do not have an active combat role and provide more of a back-line support, but they are ready to boost up Iraqi forces in case IS attacks or those forces have to retreat. The frontline here is also close to the town of Makhmour, meaning the Kurds have a vested interest in pushing IS away from the area.

“The Iraqi army units here do not seem to be up to the task,” complained Shekhwasani to Al-Monitor, as he pointed to the superior US-made Humvees and other highly armored bomb-resistant military vehicles that the Iraqi units possess much to the peshmergas' disdain. The peshmerga generally have far fewer of those vehicles, and a large number of the peshmerga use unprotected SUVs or pickup trucks on the battlefields.

“If we had their weapons and equipment, we would have taken the countryside of Mosul in three days,” claimed the clean-shaven Shekhwasani as he was surrounded by his peshmerga troops a short distance from the Iraqi forces.