Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 104

(Photo by Azhar Shallal, AFP, Getty Images)

Tribesmen fighting alongside Iraqi police forces hold a position on a street 30 January 2015 in Ramadi, Iraq, during a military operation
against Islamic State fighters.

The Role of Iraqi
Tribes after the Islamic
State’s Ascendance
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, PhD, and
Sterling Jensen, PhD

I

n the midst of a military campaign littered with the
bodies of its victims, the jihadist group that dubbed
itself the Islamic State (IS) nonetheless managed to
shock observers with a series of atrocities it inflicted on the
102

Albu Nimr tribe in Iraq’s Anbar Province during October
and November 2014.1 Following the Albu Nimr’s resistance to IS military advances in Anbar, the first indications
of the jihadist group’s intentions came on 27 October,
July-August 2015  MILITARY REVIEW