"The Kurds kept up tension to serve their own interests. And I want to end it," asserts the leader of the Hadba list which unites 15 parties and has the backing of the main tribes in the region.

Nearly six years after the US invasion, Nineveh and its capital Mosul is the continuing symbol of the inability of US and Iraqi forces to halt the activities of Al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups.

The persistence of violence is closely related to the Kurdish question, or at least that it is the view of Arab candidates aiming to succeed Duraid Kashmula, the outgoing governor who is widely seen as a puppet of the Kurds.

"In 2003, the Americans entered Mosul followed by the Kurds and these only had one aim -- to maintain instability," said 51 year-old Nujeifi, who owns the biggest stud-farm in Iraq with 400 thoroughbred Arabian horses.

Asked to be more specific, he admitted: "What with Al-Qaeda, the insurgents and the Kurds, one never quite knows who is responsible" for the near daily attacks in Mosul.

However, in the streets of Iraq's second city, among its 1.9 million people, the "Kurdish question" is on everyone's lips. "I have no confidence in the pershmerga (Kurdish fighters)," said an Iraqi student who asked not to be named.

The Kurdish fighters "are not from around here. They behave badly. They should be replaced by Iraqi soldiers," he said.

In fact, the peshmerga keep a low profile.

But confusion arises from the fact that alongside two Iraqi army brigades from Anbar and Baghdad, "there is a brigade composed of Iraqi soldiers of Kurdish origin who report to military command in Baghdad," Governor Kashmula said.

The Sunnis of Nineveh, like those in other Iraqi provinces, shot themselves in the foot when they boycotted the last provincial elections in 2005.

The region lies next to Kurdish provinces and the absence of Sunni votes enabled pro-Kurdish candidates to seize 31 of the 41 seats on the Nineveh regional council.

Kashmula admitted: "These elections will certainly be fairer than in 2005. The participation rate will be greater, especially among Sunnis.

"I tried to keep a balance between the ethnicities and faiths. No-one helped me," he insisted, complaining that the central government was slow to send extra troops to deal with the insurgency.

"I was asking for them from 2005. Reinforcements arrived too late," he said.

It was during his term in office that Mosul plunged into violence, especially when Al-Qaeda extremists took refuge in the city after being chased out of Baghdad and from Anbar province in western Iraq.

But Kashmula rejects the idea that the presence of Kurdish soldiers in Mosul is fuelling the trouble and believes violence will continue even after Sunnis rejoin the council.

"Terrorism is not finished. There will still be attacks. We have received bomb detection equipment but not enough. There are altogether 1,000 to 1,500 insurgents in Mosul but the security forces are too few to watch everything," he said.

In June, US troops will withdraw from the cities, villages and other built-up areas in Nineveh like in the rest of Iraq.

"Our security forces are not ready, but they will still be able to call on the Americans for help," said Kashmula, who is looking forward to going home -- to Arbil in Kurdistan.

Feelings against Kurds in Mosul echo an ongoing confrontation between the central government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Iraqi Kurdistan's president, Massud Barzani.

This week, without actually naming names, they branded each other as dictator and separatist.

Maliki wants a strong central state and has called on the Kurds to respect the constitution while Barzani aims to preserve his region's near-autonomy and does not hide his territorial ambitions, notably for a large chunk of Nineveh province.