ISIS, or IS as it now calls itself has earned a notorious reputation for the blood letting it’s members thrive upon. Reports of threats and abuses towards Christian minorities and the Yazidi minority have captured the hearts of co-religionists worldwide. There will be many victims of IS’ wanton disregard and care for human life, but the greatest victim of all would be Islam and its adherents. This understanding has not yet manifested itself in the hearts and minds of those willing to condemn the violence. The problem therefore, is that the greatest victims of IS have been overlooked, forgotten and disregarded. If we are to truly care about the victims afflicted by the violent plague of IS, then surely we must also be concerned about the Muslims who have to live among them, live under their rule and give allegiance to a leader they were forced to accept.

We must remember, that IS’ new state is based on primarily Muslim dominated lands, towns and cities. This would lead us to understand that a vast majority of the bloodshed is occurring in Muslim lands, towns and cities. There homes are no longer safe for them, as entire towns and cities become battlefields for the foreign fighters against the governing forces. Everyone seems to understand the plight of the minorities in the conflict, but not the main victim themselves. This is troubling. If we are to care only about minorities, then can we say that we truly detest persecution? President Obama authorized bombing raids when the Yazidis were being massacred by IS, yet did nothing while IS violently rampaged through Iraqi and Syrian cities.

The problem persists in part because those in the West see the Iraqi infighting as sectarian violence and so those Muslims living in Iraq are the cause of the problem. This however, is trivializing the issue. Muslims are not the problem, Muslims are the victims of the problem – an insurgency fostered by a failed Iraqi war led by NATO forces. This though, is not merely my opinion but the opinion of US State Department Officials, US Military Strategists and the journalists who have been following the war since its inception – as documented in this PBS Frontline Report: LOSING IRAQ. Former Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton directly blames the Obama administration’s foreign policy for the devastation now raging throughout Iraq.

Saleel wa Sawarim – the IS movie depicting andvideo logging their militant endeavors to spread their state, demonstrates the violence towards fellow Muslims, regardless of religious beliefs that they are willing to undertake in order to achieve their goals. Video clip after video clip gives us just reason to state that Muslims are IS’ greatest victims. Whether their deaths come through drive by shootings, martyrdom-suicide operations, mass executions or sniper fire – the fact remains that the most amount of blood being spread is by that of Muslims. It’s not Christian armies, NATO armies or Yazidi armies that are committing soldiers in the fight against IS, rather it is the Muslim Sunni Tribes who are placing their lives at risk to protect themselves and the religious minorities being persecuted by IS. Therefore, it should not be said that Muslims are the cause of IS or that Islam is to blame, when the truth on the ground is that the only peoples to commit troops to the cause are Muslim Sunnis. We should not condemn Muslims as terrorists, rather we should praise the efforts of the Muslims who are not complicit in IS treachery but are fighting them, one battle at a time.

and God knows best.