Al-Shaitat ( ar, الشُّعَيْطَاتُ, aš-Šuʿayṭāt), in

Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also refe ...

al-Shuʿaytāt, is a

Sunni Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

clan which lives in the

Deir ez-Zor Governorate Deir ez-Zor Governorate ( ar, مُحافظة دير الزور / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Dayr az-Zawr'') is one of the fourteen governorates (provinces) of Syria. It is situated in eastern Syria, bordering Iraq. It has an area of 33,060 km2 ( ...

in eastern

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. Its membership numbers between 70,000 and 90,000 and it is led by

Sheikh Sheikh (pronounced or ; ar, شيخ ' , mostly pronounced , plural ' )—also transliterated sheekh, sheyikh, shaykh, shayk, shekh, shaik and Shaikh, shak—is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates a chief of a ...

Rafaa Aakla al-Raju.Massacre And Media: ISIS And The Case Of The Sunni Arab Shaitat Tribe
Alberto M. Fernández,

MEMRI The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI; officially the "Middle East Media and Research Institute") is a nonprofit press monitoring and analysis organization co-founded by former Israeli military intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and ...

, June 23, 2015 In the local Arab dialect, the "u" is not pronounced and since the

ʿayn ''Ayin'' (also ''ayn'' or ''ain''; transliterated ) is the sixteenth letter of the Semitic scripts, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac ܥ, and Arabic (where it is sixteenth in abjadi order only). The letter represents a ...

sound often is not transcribed, the name is written Shaitat, Shaytat, Sheitat, Sheitaat and the like. The last vowel is long, therefore sometimes it is written with a double "a". Henry Field identified the Shaitat as a clan of the Aqaidat.

Conflict with the Islamic State

Since July 2014, the Shaitat clan has been in conflict with the

Islamic State An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...

. The clan battled to retain control of their area against encroachments by the Islamic State in 2014 but was defeated. Later they were able to push out the Islamic State again but eventually they lost the battle. In August 2014, Islamic State fighters committed a

massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

by shooting, beheading, and crucifying some 700-900+ members of the Shaitat clan over a period of three days. It became the bloodiest single atrocity committed by the Islamic State in Syria. The

Abu Hamam Abu Hamam ( ar, أبو حمام) is a Syrian town located in Abu Kamal District, Deir ez-Zor. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Abu Hamam had a population of 21,947 in the 2004 census. Syrian Civil War Abu Hamam was c ...

area, between

Mayadin Mayadin ( ar, ٱلْمِيَادِين/ALA-LC: ''al-Miyādīn'') is a town in eastern Syria. It is the capital of the Mayadin District, part of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. Mayadin is about 44 kilometers southeast of Deir ez-Zor. The Euphrates Riv ...

and

Hajin Hajin ( ar, هَجِين, Hajīn, also spelled Hajeen) is a small city in eastern Syria, administratively part of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate, located along the Euphrates River, south of Deir ez-Zor. Nearby localities include al-Abbas, Syria, al ...

, where important parts of the clan lived, has been abandoned with many bodies that remain uncollected. In mid December 2014, it was reported that a mass grave with some 230 Shaitat clansmen in Deir ez-Zor Governorate was found by their relatives. This brought the number of Shaitat tribal members killed by the Islamic State since summer 2014 to more than 900. Islamic State propaganda in 2015 boasted about the return of some Shaitat civilians but still focused on ongoing tribal opposition. In 2020 26 more victims of the Shaitat clan were discovered in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor. 25 were identified by relatives and one remained unknown speculated to be from Al-Zubari village. The remains of the identified were reburied in the cemetery in

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaitat Tribes of Syria Tribes of Arabia

Conflict with the Islamic State

See also

References