Seven more Islamic State mass graves have been found in Syria. They testify to two truths: ISIS is evil, and Muslims are its most common victims.
Located just outside the Euphrates river valley town of Albu Kamal, and close the Syrian border with Iraq, we can assess confidently where those buried in these graves came from. They were almost certainly locals of the area, slaughtered for opposing ISIS fanaticism or falling afoul of the group’s short-lived regime. And the vast majority would also have been moderate Sunni Muslims, belonging to the Sunni Arab tribes of Deir ez-Zor province.
So if these victims were Sunni Muslims, just like the ISIS fighters, why did the latter so brutally kill them? Because they refused to bow to ISIS’ nihilistic vision of Salafi-domination. Choosing freedom over tyranny, men and boys from tribes like al-Shaitat were slaughtered with a psychotic mix of means, including beheading and rocket propelled grenades. Women were enslaved and some others slaughtered in brutal ways. Children too.
The key point is that this treatment of Muslims is not an outlier of ISIS ideology, but a distinct marker of it.
ISIS leaders are driven by an ideology that blends Salafist theology with arrogance, xenophobia, and hatred. The group thus believes that Muslims who do not bow to its teachings are traitors to the faith. ISIS has a particular hatred for Shia and other minority Muslim sects, but it also despises Sunnis who do not submit to their precise vision. And to their great and enduring honor, Sunni tribes like al-Shaitat chose to resist rather than kneel to ISIS.
As I noted four years ago, a good portion of this could have been avoided, had the Obama administration found the moral courage to support more robust combat operations against ISIS. But what’s done is done.
So now our duty is to remember what ISIS did, and to pay attention to why it did it. Because while ISIS is marginalized in its territorial control, it remains a threat around the world. And absent political reconciliation in Iraq and Syria, and political reform across the Islamic world, ISIS will rise again in the future.
