Islamic State Massacres Stir Unrest Among Iraqs Sunni Tribes
After a few months of calm ushered in by a truce between Iraqs Al Jubur tribe and Islamic State, came the curfew and the disappearances.
The two groups had battled for control of al-Alam town, north of Baghdad, over several weeks in June. Sunni tribal elders then sat down with militant leaders and negotiated a deal that allowed Islamic State to raise its black flag, confiscate weapons and run local affairs.
Everything was good and life was normal, said Abdel-Latif Khalaf Saleh, a 38-year-old resident. Until last week, when Abu Raad was appointed as Islamic States new emir in al-Alam.
Since then, hundreds of men and boys, aged 12 to 70, have been rounded up and taken to unknown locations, said Khalaf Saleh and other witnesses interviewed by phone. In other areas of western Iraq, hundreds have been killed.
While the reprisals against Sunni tribes that resisted Islamic States drive to establish a caliphate are meant to eradicate opposition, they could have the opposite effect, said Julien Barnes-Dacey, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The executions arent random mass killings. Its a powerful message that this is a consequence for those who challenge us, Barnes-Dacey said. Yet Sunni communities disenfranchised by the Shiite-dominated government and security forces assisted the Islamic State advance. If that breaks down, it becomes harder, he said.
One powerful tribal chief, Sheikh Faris al-Dulaimi, a leader of a clan network that formed the backbone of Saddam Husseins army for years, has already escalated the fight with Islamic State.
A thousand heavily armed tribal fighters have been sent to areas near the cities of Hit and Zawiya, west of Baghdad, to protect clans being threatened by the militants, Dulaimi said in a phone interview. Theyre being led by former army officers and will be joined by government troops soon, he said.
Islamic State believes the people of these tribes were born Muslims but abandoned their religion when they helped Shiites fighting against them, al-Dulaimi said, explaining that when the group first entered Anbar province, it killed more than 30 members of his sub-tribe, Albu Assaf, and demolished their houses.
Extreme brutality was also a characteristic of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a previous incarnation of Islamic State. One of its most notorious leaders, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, took over large areas of the country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion before he was killed in a U.S. airstrike three years later.
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Islamic State Massacres Stir Unrest Among Iraqs Sunni Tribes