There’s a predictable aspect to shifting loyalties among insurgent groups, Ajili says. “The more money ISIS has, the more Baya [an Islamic oath of loyalty] they will get.”

To these ISIS allies the group is the battering ram that will break down the walls of Shia control around Baghdad and restore Sunnis to power in Iraq. That the battering ram has plans of its own and grows stronger in the process doesn’t seem to bother Abu Mustafa and others like him.

“The Caliph is just playing a role for his time,” says Abu Mustafa, “then we will be done with him.”

Leaders of the Sunni rebellion have expressed a similar view. Ali Hatim Al-Suleiman, emir of the 3 million-member Dulaim tribe, once an ally of American forces and leader of the “awakening” movement that turned against al Qaeda in Iraq, recently told an an interviewer: “When we get rid of the government, we will be in charge of the security file in the regions, and then our objective will be to expel terrorism—the terrorism of the government and that of ISIS.”