ERBIL, Iraq — “You, leaders of the tribes, you are the masters of the people and the crowns on our heads,” proclaimed an Islamic State (IS) leader March 23 while addressing tribal figures in Ninevah province. This sweet talking was delivered a day after Iraqi forces and Popular Mobilization Units liberated Tikrit, with the support of the US-led coalition launching airstrikes against IS targets.
On April 1, on one of its Twitter accounts (recently taken down by Twitter, as the Web page indicates), IS posted a short video, “The Ninevah Tribes Renew Allegiance and Get Ready for the Confrontation,” documenting the meeting of supposed tribal leaders in Mosul. The men are first seen entering the Engineers Trade Union hall in downtown al-Faisaliah. Six IS leaders from Mosul, all locals except for Omar Mahdi Zeidan, are also in attendance. Zeidan hails from Jordan, where he is well known as an IS theorist. It was his first public appearance since leaving Jordan and joining IS last October. The video ends with the attendees pledging allegiance to Caliph Ibrahim, otherwise known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of IS. The video claims that 80 men did so and identifies 30 tribes from Ninevah that have pledged their loyalty.
