As the fight against the Islamic State (IS) seems to be entering its final stages in Iraq, there are rising concerns among the country's Kurds about their prospects in the post-IS phase, especially as the procurement of advanced weaponry by the Baghdad government appears to put Kurds at a serious military disadvantage in the long run.

As various parties in the country embrace their places and roles in the new order that will emerge once IS is driven out of major urban areas in Iraq, the Kurds see themselves in an increasing standoff with the Shiite paramilitary groups and the federal government in Baghdad.

The perception of threats posed by the Shiite Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) toward Kurds has reached such high levels that a senior Kurdish military official affiliated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) let it slip that a war between the battle-hardened Shiite PMUs and Kurds was in store.

“There is no [Iraqi] party that wants the Kurdish people to be free,” Mahmoud Sangawi, a senior official of the PUK, said in a press conference in the town of Halabja where, in 1988, Saddam Hussein killed around 5,000 Kurds in a gas attack. “The Shiite [groups] ... are today planning to confront the Kurds after eliminating Daesh [IS],” Sangawi added.