Sheikh Ali Hatam, emir of Iraq’s Doleim tribe said in an interview with BBC World, “Our revolution is an armed one. At one point it was a peaceful revolution, however, Maliki himself threw it out of a peaceful nature. Second, we are defending ourselves. Third, I don’t Maliki should rush in threatening people who are oppressed because we are going to him and we are getting him out if he doesn’t get out by himself. Maliki has lost his legitimacy. We don’t recognize the government now. The only thing we recognize now is the recognition of the rights of Sunnis, the rule of law in Iraq and the existence of independent bodies. Maliki has controlled everything.
“The revolution started as a peaceful revolution. We practiced our constitutional rights as we have been demonstrating for more than one year. Maliki accused us of serious accusations to the extent that he claimed that we were not Iraqis. He was the one that started the flames as he attacked our provinces under the pretext of combatting terrorism. We then defended ourselves. This is a legitimate right. In terms of funding, there are many leaders who are mobilizing in the fields. There are many formations. All factions and military leaderships work together under the umbrella of the legitimacy of the tribes. It is a revolution of the tribes and we will never accept other than this name to label the current crisis.”