IN A village called Shalyar, near the oil city of Kirkuk, an officer tries to explain where his tiny community fits in Iraq’s religious mosaic. Imam Ali, the martyred hero of Shia Islam, adorns his wall. But Major Farhad Nazar is not Shia; nor, unlike most fellow Kurds, is he Sunni. He speaks for the Kakai, a small, secretive group which is monotheistic and reveres Imam Ali but (unlike most Muslims) accepts reincarnation. That mix makes them a big target for Islamic State (IS) which proclaims a violently puritanical Sunni line. Major Nazar, who was jailed in 1993 as a dissident against the late dictator, Saddam Hussein, laments that “IS has two reasons to kill us, we are Kurdish and Kakai.” But his community, numbering about 75,000, has been toughened by a decade of persecution. At least 218 civilian members have been slain in Iraq’s turmoil since the American invasion of 2003, but none has been killed since IS overran the once-diverse city of Mosul last August. That is partly because the Kakai had already been displaced from traditional homes before last year’s flare-up; and some Kakai villages are in land still held by their Kurdish kin. But they did see three shrines destroyed in last year’s advance.

The Kakai formed a militia after another religious group, the Yazidis, was slaughtered by IS. As of November, they became a regular component of the larger Kurdish force, the Peshmerga (pictured above). They are welcome. “They know their areas well and they will be able to defend their lands after they are liberated,” says Jabar Yawar, secretary of a ministry that runs the Peshmerga.

In theory, the new contingent will be sent to the front after its 600-plus members have had 45 days of training and got new weapons. But events are moving fast; Kakai villages are a few kilometres from IS-held land and under frequent threat. On February 11th, two Kakai settlements near Daquq, a historically Assyrian town of about 50,000, were under heavy fire as IS made use of fog which impeded air strikes.

Despite the urgency, the Kakai unit’s formal deployment has also been held up by a squabble among Kurdish politicians over who should lead it. Mr Yawar said he was looking for a suitable commander; Major Nazar insisted the unit was functioning now, with Kakai officers in charge, but what that means seems vague.

The front line adjoins a village which has been re-named “Kobane” after a much fought-over city in Syria. Like its bigger namesake, the hamlet houses both Arabs and Kurds, and is coveted by IS.“We can’t live with other religions, people don’t respect us,” moans Major Nazar, whose moustache is a Kakai marker. For his people, secrecy has been a response to danger, yet standing alongside others may give them the security they need to continue their ancient beliefs.