The attack that wasn’t

How ISIS perpetrated a massacre at a Sunni mosque in Imam Wais, Iraq, while opportunist Sunni leaders pinned the blame on Shi`i militias

When I first read today about the attack on a Sunni mosque in the village of Imam Wais, I was under the heartbreaking assumption that Shi`i tribesmen were responsible, and had committed the horrific massacre as an act of revenge for the attempted assassination of their tribal chief earlier in the day, in a bomb attack which killed five. Most of the press were blaming “Shi`i militias,” which I believed was a mistake deriving from their inability to understand the difference between armed tribesmen and a sectarian militia. I immediately posted a piece condemning the attack in the strongest terms possible.

While I stand by that condemnation, as fresh reports have continued to trickle in, it has become increasingly clear that no Shi`ah, tribesmen or paramilitary, were responsible for the attack. Rather, Shi`i paramilitary presence only materialized after a coordinated attack on the mosque by ISIS.

Why can I say with a great degree of confidence that ISIS is indeed the responsible party? A number of factors strongly indicate it:

1. The attack commenced with a suicide bomber. Those unfamiliar with modern Islamic history may not be aware of this, but suicide bombing is not something Shi`i militias “do.” The late Fadlallah of Lebanon was the only Shi`i scholar to ever permit such an action in warfare, and was roundly denounced for doing so. The Shi`ah are universal in recognizing suicide as a mortal sin, whether it is conducted for military purposes or otherwise, and none of Iraq’s Shi`ah ever followed Fadlallah’s rulings to begin with. No lone Shi`i fighter, much less a Shi`i militia, uses suicide bombings. By contrast, suicide bombings are perhaps the hallmark of Sunni terrorists like ISIS. For anyone remotely familiar with Shi`ism, personally, academically, or otherwise, the presence of a suicide bomber in the attack immediately throws up a red flag.
2. Shi`i militiamen were reportedly among the first to respond to the attack, rushing to the scene to help fight off the attackers, incurring roughly a dozen casualties in the process. If a Shi`i militia had indeed carried out the attack, it seems strange that Shi`i paramilitary personnel would then arrive after the fact as a defensive reinforcement.
3. The arrival of the Shi`i militiamen was hampered by the presence of landmines, which the attackers had apparently put in place to prevent medical response. Shi`i militias do not generally have access to these sorts of devices, and perhaps apart from the Sadri militia during the American invasion, there is little record of them using IEDs, much less landmines. Also, Shi`i militias are not generally in the practice of blowing one another up, particularly when the town in which they are operating is surrounded on all sides by ISIS. Nevertheless, according to the Associated Press: “Officials in Imam Wais [the village of the mosque which was attacked] said Iraqi security forces and Shiite militiamen raced to the scene of the attack to reinforce security but stumbled upon bombs planted by the militants, which allowed the attackers to flee. Four Shiite militiamen were killed and thirteen wounded by the blasts.”
4. ISIS had apparently been trying to win the submission of two Sunni tribes in the area, who had thus far refused them. ISIS does not take kindly to anyone refusing them, least of all Sunni tribesmen and tribal leaders. Again from the AP: “officials said Islamic State fighters have been trying to convince two prominent Sunni tribes in the area — the Oal-Waisi (sic) and al-Jabour — to join them, but that they have thus far refused. The nearby towns of Jalula and al-Saadiyah have recently fallen to the Islamic State group.”
5. ISIS has a track record of attacking Sunni mosques and assassinating Sunni imams who either refuse to submit to them, or actively resist and denounce them. Most recently, ISIS massacred several hundred members of a Sunni tribe in Syria for daring to defy them.
6. Both the Iraqi government and military have now concluded that the attacks were perpetrated by ISIS. Given their record of cracking down on Shi`i paramilitaries in the past, it stands to reason that this assertion is, at the very least, reasonably reliable, especially in light of the five aforementioned points.

It is now apparent that ISIS, in all likelihood, was responsible for the attack and massacre at the Sunni mosque. This would serve two purposes for ISIS: to “encourage” the submission of the two area tribes resisting them, and to stall the formation of a unified government in Baghdad, the creation of which would pose a significant existential threat. On the latter point, they seem to have been largely successful, as Sunni politicians were more than happy to blame “Iranian-trained Shi`i militias” for the attack in order to be able to walk away from the negotiating table with what they probably consider PR leverage—or at least a reasonable excuse for their continued attempt to use ISIS to hold the country and its political process hostage.

The only people who should be more ashamed than ISIS—who, of course, don’t even know the meaning of the word—are those cynical and opportunistic Sunni politicians who are happy to denounce Sunni terrorism with words while using it to their political advantage, in an effort to hold out for “the best deal.” They appear to have no qualms about pinning the blame for an obvious ISIS operation, including the 70+ resultant deaths from their own constituency, on the country’s majority Shi`ah population to score political points. If they choose to continue down this road, they won’t like where it ends. Just because the Shi`ah of Iraq have remained breathtakingly restrained since 2006, doesn’t mean they will stay that way.