Accidental ethnographers: the Islamic State’s tribal engagement experiment

ABSTRACT

The disillusionment with U.S.-led counter insurgent efforts to gain a deeper understanding of social dynamics in countries with extensive tribal structures has led to a rejection of programs aimed to improve cultural competency. The Islamic State movement does not share this perception, and its strategists blamed its early failures during the U.S. occupation on a flawed understanding of tribal dynamics. This paper traces the political, ideological, and structural changes the leaders of the Islamic State movement made to adapt its approach toward the Sunni tribes of Iraq and later Syria, in order to develop a deeper base of popular support for its caliphate project. The group’s study of the tribes was done by a new tribal engagement office that put into motion an ethnographic study of tribal networks in key areas. There is evidence that the inspiration for this change came from its opponents. The Islamic State movement used these new insights to win a greater level of influence in rural areas, which in turn influenced its success in 2014. This research supports the idea that insurgency and counterinsurgency success often depend on which side is best at the incorporation of cultural and societal knowledge into policy and strategy.

KEYWORS:

• Islamic State (ISISISILDaesh)
• Iraq
• ethnography
• tribes
• insurgency

Acknowledgments

Much thanks to Martha Cottam, Todd Greentree, Hassan Hassan, Mohammad Hafez, Montgomery McFate, Liam Murphy, and Paul Rich for material support and improvements to this manuscript.

Disclaimer

This reflects the authors’ opinions and do not reflect the views of the U.S. Naval War College or the U.S. Government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The translation from al-Naba can be found in Orton, “The Islamic State’s Lessons-Learned.”

2. One recent account revises some of the legends of the tribal Awakening, including a better inclusion of the Islamic State’s perspective, see Malkasian, Illusions of Victory.

3. Gvosdev and Alvi, “Seeing the World.”

4. Petraeus, “How We Won in Iraq.”

5. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, 107.

6. Green and Mullen, Fallujah Redux; Silverman, Awakening Victory; Gentile, Wrong Turn; and McFate and Fondacaro, “Reflections on the Human Terrain System.”

7. Cigar, Al-Qaida, the Tribes, and the Government, 3–4.

8. As cited in McFate, “The ‘Memory of War’,” 317.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., 318.

11. Ibid., 321–6.

12. Interview with Colonel (retired) Greg Reilly, U.S. Army, Monterey, CA, 22 February 2019. Reilly commanded a cavalry squadron in Anbar province in 2003–4 and related how difficult it was to gain a deep understanding of the place tribes had in the complex social fabric of rural Sunni Iraq. According to Reilly, the other two legs of the governance of Anbar prior to the invasion were the Ba’ath party – including professionals and retired Army officers – and the clerics. After the de-Ba’athification policy began to be enforced, Colonel Reilly felt the tribes held the real power of the remaining two legs in the post-Saddam era in places like Anbar Province. Reilly learned ‘mapping the human terrain’ from the British in Kosovo, who had applied similar techniques in Northern Ireland in decades before.

13. Ricks, Fiasco, 149–250; and Cottam and Huseby, Confronting al-Qaeda. For an account on how the military innovation and learning did occur in Anbar between 2005–2007, see Russell, Innovation, Transformation, and War, 192. One such officer was Captain Travis Patriquin, who was killed in Ramadi in late 2006. He famously constructed a PowerPoint on how to work with the Sheikhs called ‘How to win in Anbar.’ For an example of his understanding of local power dynamics in general in Tel Afar, see ‘Using Occam’s Razor to Connect the Dots.’

14. Montgomery and McWilliams, Al-Anbar Awakening, Volume II, 133, 140, 196, and 254.

15. Cottam and Huseby, Confronting al-Qaeda, 47–67.

16. Ibid., 69–96.

17. In October 2006, about the time the Tribal Awakening (Sahwa) was founded, the Islamic State of Iraq was formed and al-Qaeda in Iraq dissolved into the larger front. Analysts who downplayed this merger continued to call the group al-Qaeda in Iraq for many years, until the expansion into Syria and the establishment of the Islamic State caliphate made the old moniker completely outdated.

18. Cottam and Huseby, Confronting al-Qaeda, 11–21.

19. Ibid., 97–113.

20. It is likely that some of the impetus for the dramatic shift was also a sense that the civil war between Sunni and Shi’a in Iraq was largely over and accommodations with the stronger party had to be made (allowing for considerations of honor), much in accordance with tribal warfare norms. See Douglas Ollivant, ‘Countering the New Orthodoxy.’

21. al-Rishawi, “Interview 3,” 46.

22. al-Zarqawi, “Leader of Al-Qa’ida in Iraq Al-Zarqawi Declares ‘Total War’ on Shi’ites.”

23. Not all tribes joined the Awakening; in fact, it was probably a minority of tribes and only around 100,000 tribal fighters and former resistance members ever joined the official Awakening rolls according to Iraqi government figures. This number immediately began dropping for a variety of reasons, including disillusionment, distrust of between the Sahwa and the government, and pressure from the Islamic State.

24. Milne, “Out of the Shadows.”

25. Simon, “Tribal Transition.”

26. Montgomery and McWilliams, 55.

27. Whiteside, “Nine Bullets for the Traitor,” 11–14.

28. As cited in Irwin, “Ibn Khaldun, an Intellectual biography,” 47.

29. Telephonic interview with Dr. Martha Cottam, January 2019.

30. Anonymous, “Analysis of the ISI,” 22 (original 17).

31. Ibid., 25.

32. Hafez, “Al-Qa’ida Losing Ground in Iraq,” 1.

33. For the Albu Mahal tribe, see Knarr, “Al-Sahawa: An Awakening in Al Qaim;” for the Jughayfi tribe, see Knarr, Al Sahawa – The Awakening, Volume III-B, 52, 93, 143, as well as Hejab, “The Defiant Iraqi Tribe of Haditha.”

34. Anonymous, “Analysis of the ISI,” 52 (original page 38). Shufair had been an Awakening leader who successfully ousted Islamic State members from Haditha and later allegedly killed returning Islamic State fighters being released from Camp Bucca. For more on the 2012 special operation targeting Shufair, see Whiteside, Rice, and Raineri, “Black Ops.”

35. Ministry of Information, Islamic State of Iraq, “The Petraeus-Crocker Report and the American Defeat.”

36. al-Baghdadi, “They Plan and Allah Plans.”

37. Islamic State of Iraq, “Strategy to Improve the Political Position of the Islamic State,” Chapter 3.

38. Cigar, Al-Qaida, the Tribes, and the Government, 5.

39. Anonymous, “Analysis of State of ISI,” (original p.27), 36.

40. Abu Sulayman al-Utaybi, “Letter to al-Qaeda Leadership.”

41. Fishman, “The First Defector.”

42. Scholar Fanar Haddad verified this video existed in 2007 and watched it, and @Mr0rangetracker made us aware of its existence.

43. See note 41 above.

44. Hafez, “Al-Qa’ida Losing Ground in Iraq,” 1. For a longer discussion about the Islamic State’s errors in Iraq, including a wider discussion of the Analysis of the ISI document, see Fishman, Dysfunction and Decline.

45. Bunzel, “The Islamic State’s Mufti on Trial;” al-Tamimi, “An Extremist Commentary”; and Hamming, “The Extremist Wing of the Islamic State.”

46. See Bunzel, “Caliphate in Disarray,” Jihadica, 3 October 2017 http://www.jihadica.com/caliphate-in-disarray/

47. al-Muhajir. “The Second Audio Interview.”

48. al-Iraqi, “Stages of the Jihad of Amir Abu Umar al-Baghdadi.”

49. Islamic State of Iraq, “Strategy to Improve the Political Position of the Islamic State,” 21.

50. Ibid., 6.

51. Ibid., 31.

52. Ibid., 6. Ironically, McFate pointed out the same parallel in her 2008 article cited in this piece, a year before the Islamic State used it in its 2009 strategy document, the Fallujah Memorandum. The same thing can be said for the Ibn Khaldun quotes in both her article and the strategy document, a strong affirmation for the academic piece.

53. Islamic State of Iraq, “Strategy to Improve the Political Position of the Islamic State,” 26.

54. Ibid.

55. Johnston, et al., Foundations of the Islamic State.

56. See note 53 above.

57. Murray, “Armored Warfare,” 39–42.

58. Murray, “Innovation: Past and Future,” 314; Watts and Murray contrast this German habit of honest assessment with U.S. failure to frankly examine its own performance in the 1991 Gulf War in their chapter on “Military Innovation in Peacetime,” 411.

59. Islamic State of Iraq, “Strategy to Improve the Political Position of the Islamic State,” 22.

60. al-Tamimi, “Rise Of The Islamic State And the Fading Away of the Rest of the Iraqi Insurgency.”

61. al-Baghdadi, “Declaration of the Second Cabinet Reshuffle;” documents housed at the Captured Records Research Center describe the office’s function well as detailed by an Islamic State operative: see Khaldun, “Synopsis of the Relations Committee in Baghdad’s Southern Belt;” and Khaldun, “OPSuM from Abu Mustafa of Southern Belt trying to overturn Sahwa.”

62. Khaldun, “OPSUM from Abu Mustafa.”

63. Cigar, Al-Qaida, the Tribes, and the Government, 5.

64. Ratelle, “Making Sense of Violence in Civil War,” 159.

65. The collection of tribal engagement reports we researched are detailed and informative, but basic and lack any observable methodology or rigor. They were amateur, but effective.

66. Shadid, “Iraq’s Forbidding ‘Triangle of Death’,” A1.

67. Khaldun, “OPSum from Abu Mustafa.”

68. Arango, “Top Qaeda Leaders Reported Killed.”

69. Bowen and Hamid, “Discussion About Islamism, Perilous Situation in Iraq”.

70. Whiteside, “The Islamic State and the Return of Revolutionary Warfare,” 754.

71. Benraad, “Iraq’s Tribal ‘Sahwa’,” 121.

72. Al-Adnani, “The State of Islam Will Remain Safe.” His reference to seeing can be interpreted from an intelligence perspective, but also that the group understands the tribes better, while the converse was not true anymore. Adnani was a Syrian and a movement veteran since 2002, who sat out the tribal backlash in Camp Bucca from 2005–9. He was killed in 2016 in Syria.

73. Simon, Islamic State video can be found at https://www.alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/2015/04/01/689957.html

74. Islamic State, “The Structure of the Caliphate.”

75. Ingram, Whiteside, and Winter, “The ISIS Reader,” Chapter 11.

76. Whiteside, “Nine Bullets,” 23–24.

77. Cigar, Al-Qaida, the Tribes, and the Government, 124.

78. Rubin, Islamic Political Activism among Israel’s Negev Bedouin Population,” 430.

79. McFate, “The Memory of War,” 326.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Craig Whiteside

Craig Whiteside is an associate professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College’s resident program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, and a fellow with the Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups in Newport, RI.

Anas Elallame

Anas Elallame is a research assistant at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey, California.