Iraqi Tribesmen Clash With ISIS in Fallujah

Officials Cite Increasing Desperation in Sieged City

With officials crediting the increasingly desperate situation, which Anbar Province’s governor described as a “state of famine,” the ISIS-held city of Fallujah is facing growing unrest, with tribal factions clashing with the ISIS forces in the city’s north.

The al-Juraisi tribe’s leadership described the attack as a full scale uprising, and were calling for Western air support, though at this point the only confirmed damage done in the city was the destruction of a single checkpoint.

Police in the area said that the fighting actually started over a totally unrelated issue in which the ISIS religious police, the Hisbah, accused a woman from the Juraisi tribe of immodesty because she was out in public at a market and not wearing gloves.

Fallujah has been under the control of ISIS for around two years, and before that was in a state of virtual open-rebellion against the Iraqi government, related to the then-Maliki government’s crackdown on Sunni politicians. The city is now surrounded, since the fall of Ramadi, and basic goods are said to be in short supply.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.