NOW reports: ISIS has reportedly executed a number of leaders in the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandiyah Order, a Baathist Sufi militant group that helped ISIS sweep through large swathes of Iraqi territory in its summer 2014 offensive.

“A large number of ISIS members carried out the execution of a number of Naqshbandiyah Order commanders and members in eastern Mosul’s Sumer and Al-Nour neighborhoods,” a source in the Ninevah province told Iraq’s Sumaria News on Monday.

“ISIS carried out the executions after the Naqshbandiyah Order tried to plan attacks against the group,” the source added.

The official website of the Naqshbandiyah Order, also known by its acronym JRTN, makes no reference to the alleged executions, with its latest statement on March 26 praising the beginning of the Saudi-led military campaign against the Houthis in Yemen.

However, ISIS’s alleged Mosul executions are not the first instance of infighting between the militant group and its Baathist allies in Iraq. [Continue reading…]