Al-Shaitat

Al-Shaitat الشعيطات
Ethnicity	Arab
Location	Upper Euphrates river basin (mainly Deir ez-Zor Governorate)
Population	70,000-90,000
Language	Arabic, Mesopotamian Arabic
Religion	Sunni Islam

Al-Shaitat (الشعيطات transcription: aš-šuʿayṭāt), in Standard Arabic al-Shuʿaytāt, is an Sunni Arab tribe located in Deir ez-Zor Governorate in eastern Syria. It is numbered between 70,000-90,000 and is led by Sheikh Rafaa Aakla al Raju. In the local Arab dialect the "u" is not pronounced and since the ʿayn 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".

Since July 2014, the Shaitat tribe has been in conflict with the Islamic State. The tribe 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 by shooting, beheading, and crucifying some 700 members of the Shaitat tribe over a period of three days. It became the bloodiest single atrocity committed by the Islamic State in Syria. The Abu Hamam area, between Mayadin and Hajin, where important parts of the tribe 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 tribesmen 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.

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