It might be the beginning of the end for the Islamic State, as jihadists within the group turn on each other in a bid to dig out moles directing the airstrikes that have decapitated its leadership. The jihadist group has killed at least 38 of its own trying to stop the people within the organization that have been leaking information to countries like the United States regarding the whereabouts of the group’s leaders.

As Ed Morrissey from Hot Air wrote, “Joseph Stalin’s paranoia worked against him similarly in the Great Purge of 1936-38. … ISIS doesn’t have the same kind of resources or power that Stalin had even after the Great Purge. It now has little to offer new recruits, and it has perhaps never had a greater need for them.” As a result, ISIL leaders have been cowering rather than travel about and risk a sudden death from above.

In essence, the whole organization is using civilians as a shield. As Iraqi forces engage ISIL in Fallujah in order to push the Islamic State from the city, jihadists are using civilians as cover to slow down the liberators. The group is shooting any civilian that is attempting to escape. So while civilian deaths will most likely occur in the coming weeks, the responsibility for those deaths don’t lie in the hands of the U.S.-backed forces, notes National Review’s David French. Rather, it lies in the bloody hands of the jihadists. While the group may be falling apart, cowering from the forces pushing it back, struggling for supplies, it does not mean human suffering at the hands of the group will end soon.