Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 105

ROLE OF TRIBES

when IS rounded up the remaining civilian population of
1,500 families in Zuwayrah following its capture of the
village. A string of mass executions followed.
The executions began on 29 October when IS militants
paraded more than forty captured Albu Nimr fighters through the streets of Hit—and then shot and killed
them in the city’s central square in front of residents.2 The
following day, IS publicly executed another seventy-five
Albu Nimr tribesmen, forcing dozens of residents to watch
as they shot the captives in their heads.3 On 1 November,
the jihadist group executed approximately fifty civilians in
Ras al-Maa, while thirty-five bodies were found in a mass
grave in Hit.4 On 2 November, IS publicly executed fifty
Albu Nimr tribesmen in Hit and killed sixty-seven more
tribe members as they fled from the village of al-Tharthar.5
On 3 November, IS publicly executed thirty-six Albu
Nimr civilians, including women and children, on the
outskirts of Hit.6 On 4 November, IS executed twenty-five
more tribesmen, shooting them at close range and dumping their bodies in a well.7 On 9 November, IS executed
seventy Albu Nimr tribesmen in Hit District and then executed sixteen more tribe members on 13 November.8
The attempted extermination of the Albu Nimr
marked, at the time, IS’s most vicious attack on a Sunni
population in Iraq. Overall, IS slaughtered more than seven
hundred members of the tribe in less than twenty days.
Why did IS commit these massacres? What role do the
Sunni tribes play in the current battle for Iraq