Leaders of Sunni Arab tribes in Iraq seem to have made the difficult right decision. When the moment came to choose between opposing trenches, they chose the trench of the State of Iraq over that of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL or ISIS, or in reality, Al-Qaeda. The unexpected alliance between several leading tribes in the Sunni heartland of Al-Anbar province and the Iraqi army came just days after the two sides were archenemies fighting each other. On December 30, the Iraqi army dismantled an anti-government protest camp in the city of Ramadi, which was established in late 2012, arrested prominent Sunni lawmaker (and vocal critic of the prime minister) Ahmad Al-Alwani. The move has spurred several Sunni Arab tribes to take up arms against the regular army troops. Before that incident, almost all tribes in Al-Anbar were chanting in unison against the Shiite-led government of Nouri Al-Maliki, accusing it of pursuing a sectarian policy that marginalized their community and discriminated against them. However, after Al-Qaeda militants came out of their retreat and hideouts in Al-Anbar, with their black flags and cars mounted with anti-aircraft guns in the symbolic city of Fallujah, and some parts in Ramadi (which is another major city in Al-Anbar), many tribes in the province were alarmed as the images of Al-Qaeda and its grisly operations over the past years following the US-led invasion of their country in 2003 were still fresh in their minds. As in almost every place where Al-Qaeda has blossomed and found some ground for its existence, the sectarian structure of the Iraqi society allowed for the gap through which Al-Qaeda could slip. Such societal gap has proven over and again so vital for extremism to thrive. This is why the Iraqi new pact between the army and leading Sunni Arab tribes is a significant development. It may signal that two typically warring groups - Sunnis and Shias - might be capable of coming together to fight against a common enemy, Al Qaeda. Both sides, the government and the tribes, in effect entered into an alliance in 2007 against Al-Qaeda. They formed the Sahawat (awakening) militias (locals in Al-Anbar and tribal loyalists) which proved very effective in dislodging Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a jihadist Sunni group, rose to prominence in the ashes of the US-led invasion, which toppled long-time president Saddam Hussein. The insurgency that followed provided the group with fertile ground to wage a guerrilla war against coalition forces and their domestic supporters. In the face of successful US counterterrorism efforts and the Sunni tribal awakening, AQI's campaign of violence has diminished after it reached its peak in 2006 and 2007, but the group remained an existential threat to Iraq and the broader As-Sham, Arabic for the Levant. With sectarian tensions running high lately in Iraq, amidst endless bombings that target places and districts of both communities and authentic reports of forced evacuations, accompanied by what turned to be an open sectarian conflict in neighbouring Syria, the Al-Qaeda in Iraq (which was rebranded as the Islamic State in Iraq and As-Sham (ISIS) seized the opportunity to yet find itself a new standoff.
Many analysts say heavy-handed actions taken by the Maliki government to consolidate power in the wake of the US withdrawal have alienated much of the Sunni minority and provided ISIS with the perfect milieu and potent propaganda. Over the past two years, the ISIS intensified their sinister attacks in Iraq (and of course in Syria), highlighting the group's attempts to exploit widening sectarian cleavages. But, for Al-Qaeda, sectarianism is a double-edged sword. Al Qaeda in Iraq has always maintained its prime goal: an Islamic caliphate or state that asserts full control of Iraq (and expand later to Syria)-- a scenario that is indeed a cause for concern for both Sunnis and Shias alike. Al Qaeda has been trying to recruit disgruntled and radicalized young men to join them in its fight against Iraqi security forces and has been using Al-Anbar as a geographic entry point for jihadists to cross from Iraq into Syria. Since Sunni protests began in Fallujah and spread later to other cities in Al-Anbar, car bombings and suicide attacks intensified, with coordinated attacks regularly targeting Shiite markets, cafes, and mosques. Over six thousand civilians were killed between November 2012 and September 2013, the United Nations estimates, with Baghdad bearing the brunt of violence. Meanwhile, most Sunnis have denounced the bloodshed. In July, ISIS fighters orchestrated daring attacks on two prisons outside Baghdad (Abu Ghraib and Taji) that freed more than five hundred inmates, including top al-Qaeda militants. Interpol described the incidents as "a major threat to global security." In August, the International Crisis Group warned that the country verged on the brink of another civil war. Inciting sectarian violence through mass terrorism has allegedly been the tactic most used by Al-Qaeda to maintain instability in Iraq, as well as the Sunnis' need for Al-Qaeda as Sunnis' own tool of terror. The rejuvenated alliance between the tribes and the government certainly help downsize the terrorist group, but will most likely fail to cleanse the country from it. ISIS will always have a structural contradiction with Iraq, being a regional project whose aim is to destroy and divide the state. The sectarian rivals in Iraq, however, have a different agenda; to control the state not to dismantle it. Sectarianism will always suit Al-Qaeda to have a foothold, but nothing more. It is this very nature of half tribal half sectarian society which would always put a cap on ISIS ambitions. But for Iraq in order to rid itself completely of extremism, sectarianism also has to go. This may be a step that Iraqis are not yet fully ready to take.
