ISIS Established Order

"They rounded people up five at a time and killed them. In Heet city, they killed 50 people. They never gave us the bodies. They killed 40 in Hay al-Bakr -- those bodies they returned. Mainly they were civilians -- the police and soldiers had all left."
"A fighter told me 'the army have pulled back, the police have pulled back, the tribal fighters have pulled back'. The soldiers told me they had run out of ammunition."
"They took my brother's younger sons, Hussein, who is 16 and Fadl and Attiya, who are twins and 13. They arrested them, interrogated them, and tortured them. Then they shot and killed them."
"There were four brothers of a policeman in one house -- they came and killed all four. Their father was old and couldn't do anything about it. They left him."
Faisal al-Gaoud, Sheik, Faisal Albu Nimr tribe, Iraq

"Today we are seeing the creation of another myth, not in the West but in the Muslim world: that of the Caliphate and its leader [Abu Bakr] Al-Baghdadi. This myth is being spread through the power of modern technology and social media. After decades of war and destruction at the hands of the local [Shiite] elite, backed by Western powers, Sunni Arabs and Muslims desperately want to believe that finally, from the ashes of a world long gone, a magnificent phoenix has risen. That is, a state and a leader who will bring them their long-awaited deliverance from the hellish present. Is Al-Baghdadi that man, and is the Caliphate that state? The West and the world strongly believe that they are not, but only the people of the Middle East can deliver, in time, the correct answer."
Loretta Napoleoni, author From The Islamist Phoenix

In this Monday, Dec. 8, 2014 photo, Iraqi security forces deploy in a military operation to regain control of the villages around the town of Beiji, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi had 225 fighters, a single Abrams tank, a pair of mortars, two artillery pieces and about 40 armored Humvees when he set out to retake Beiji, a strategic city in northern Iraq captured by Islamic State militants over the summer. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

The Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham is considered to be the saviour of the Sunni tribes who have suffered oppression under the ruling Shiites in Iraq and Syria. And the Islamic State is dedicated not only to establishing as wide a caliphate as they conceivably can -- the entire Middle East for starters, more ambitious plans to follow -- but to fiercely and protectively not only defend but to punish those who dared make life miserable for Sunnis.

Unfortunately, those Sunni tribes who have no wish to slavishly support the agenda of the Islamic State, have placed themselves in the same miserable cesspool of revenge-filled atrocities as the Shiites whom ISIS feels all Sunnis should be arraigned against. For their unspeakable impudence in defying the Islamic State their position of imperial command, the Sunni resistance is now in a similar targeting circle as the Shiites in Iraq.

Sheik Faisal's Albu Nimr tribe's resistance to the ferocious onslaught of the Islamic State in their very Sunni heartland, had taken place over the past ten months. The consequence of their failure to defeat the intention of the Islamists has resulted in mass slaughter of tribal men and boys. Within the social and ideological orbit of the Islamic State women and girls can be freely taken as sex slaves as the just due of jihadist heroism.

Those tribal leaders who have allied themselves with Islamic State have no need to fear the consequences; their allegiance is their guarantee of life, a life under the Salafist-oriented jihadis for whom the purity of Islam is not to be denied in its grand scope of conquer-and-control. But for the Albu Nimr, their safety and security has elapsed and they are paying the dire penalty of defending themselves against the ISIS onslaught.

Forced into retreat when ammunition became scarce, the walled city of Heet on the Euphrates River west of Baghdad was surrounded after close to a year of conflict, and surrender was inevitable. Faisal led his men to full retreat, choosing exit over death. His confidence that the civilian population of the city would be left in peace was swiftly abused as Islamic State jihadis moved into the villages and the houses, interrogating everyone.

Any men who had police, soldiers or fighters in their family were taken away to be shot. Those who had decided to cross the Euphrates to look for shelter elsewhere were stopped at a checkpoint, questioned there, and it was discovered that the jihadists appeared to have inside information, knowing who they were, and taking what they felt to be appropriate action at that point; sequestering the men and boys, questioning and torturing, then killing them.

Up to fifty people slaughtered daily with reports coming back to the tribal leaders, who were helpless to respond. Another tribal leader who had experienced a similar situation, from the city of Ramadi, which suffered a similar humiliating defeat, gave his opinion that fighters should be recruited straight into the Iraqi army to be effective in countering the Islamic State.

"If you want success, you shouldn't be relying on civilians", said Sheik Hameed al-Hayiss. A certain solution, however, is elusive; even while Faisal is attempting to regather his forces, the Iraqi army itself is trying to re-group, relying on the assistance of an American retraining program. The U.S. plan to strategize the indigenous Sunni forces to resist ISIS assaults is obviously failing.

Reliance on traditional tribal structures to succeed in pushing back the Islamic State sounds good in theory, but fails in practise. What is resulting is an exacerbation of Iraq's sectarian divisions, and that is working to the Islamic State's advantage.