Famed Al Jazeera presenter and host of The Opposite Direction posted a most interesting poll early Friday morning via his Twitter account: @kasimf. At 3:11 AM Doha time on May 27th, he wrote “Who do you support in the battle for Fallujah, Iraq: the Islamic State group (Daesh) or the Popular Mobilization Units?”
The answer was Daesh. A whopping 72% chose the group, also known as ISIS, compared to 28% for the Popular Mobilization Units-militias allied to the government that were formed to fight Daesh in 2014 and are composed largely-but not exclusively-of Shia fighters.
This is not to say that most of Qassem’s supporters are Daesh supporters. There’s no way of telling who voted in this poll, although it did receive over 15,000 votes. Moreover, the question was not whether you support Daesh, but rather do you support them over the Popular Mobilization Units.
The poll created quite a bit of buzz on Twitter, and dozens people rushed to make sense of the results and replied to Qassem. One common occurring trend was that many tweeters said they support neither, and criticized both groups.
--AL
