ISIS’s Divide-and-Rule Strategy

In The Management of Savagery, Abu Bakr Najji elucidated the importance of manipulating tribal politics and offered his own anthropological gloss on the matter. He observed that it was not necessarily a bad thing for jihadists that confederations of families tended to stick together. In fact, this reality was easily harnessed to the jihadists’ benefit by a gradual process of bribery, brainwashing, and co-optation. “When we address these tribes that have solidarity we should not appeal to them to abandon their solidarity,” he wrote. “Rather, we must polarize them and transform them into praiseworthy tribes that have solidarity. . . . It is possible to begin doing so by uniting the leaders . . . among them with money and the like. Then, after a period of time in which their followers have mixed with our followers and their hearts have been suffused with the picture of faith, we will find that their followers do not accept anything which contradicts the sharia. Of course, solidarity remains, but it has been changed into a praiseworthy solidarity instead of the sinful solidarity which they used to have.”

Given the popularity of this manifesto among ISIS zealots, it was hardly a shock that the organization would be the first one in history to successfully pit members of the same tribe against one another. Such divide-and-rule tactics were on grim display in August 2014, when members of the Shaitat tribe in Deir Ezzor participated in the killing of hundreds of their fellow tribesmen at ISIS’s behest. The same kind of coerced fratricide occurred in the Iraqi town of Hit, where members of the Albu Nimr took part in the execution of dozens of their own in October 2014. Making the ruled complicit in the crimes of the ruler, and individuals more loyal to the state than to their own flesh and blood, is a hallmark of totalitarianism.

As per Najji, the exchange of money for loyalty has played a major role in tearing families apart. In April 2013, after the rupture with al-Nusra, ISIS secretly sought to co-opt young tribal leaders by offering to share oil and smuggling revenues with them. It also promised them positions of authority currently held by their elders. Younger tribesmen were generally more credible and popular, owing to their participation in the anti-Assad rebellion; their elders had mainly sided with the regime or stayed neutral.

One figure from the Syrian border town of Albu Kamal explained how ISIS had exploited this generational schism to snare members of a prominent family, months before the jihadists had even established a presence there. “They are giving him a portion of an oil well in the area,” the figure said, referring to a younger relative who had joined the jihadists. “They know that if they are to be eradicated in our area, who would be able to rally up people around him? Most of the other tribes in our area have no leadership; we have leadership and influence. They give him money, they protect him and consult with him on everything. The other option is, they would assassinate him.”

Source: ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (2015) by Michael Weiss.

The divide-and-conquer rule is used by a lot of dictators. It’s hard to conquer when the people you are trying to conquer are united.