Unlikely Allies Aid Militants in Iraq – Matt Bradley and Bill Spindle (Wall Street Journal)
(from dailyalert.org, Jun. 20, 2014)

    Radical Sunni fighters in northern Iraq are being aided by local tribes who reject the Islamists’ extreme ideology but sympathize with their goal of ousting the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

    This alliance helps explain how several hundred ISIS insurgents have handily defeated a far larger, better-equipped Iraqi army and come to control about a third of Iraqi territory.

    “This is a revolution against the unfairness and marginalization of the past 11 years” by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said Sheikh Khamis Al Dulaimi, a tribal leader in the Anbar Military Council of Tribal Revolutionaries, a group that has led protests against Maliki for the past year and a half.