Overall, national, regional, and local levels of governance, as well as power-brokers in the party, government, and army, cooperated willingly in the perpetration of genocide. The initiation and organization was carried out primarily by the civilian officials under the Ministry of the Interior rather than the Ministry of War. Many perpetrators came from the Caucasus (Chechens and Circassians), who identified the Armenians with their Russian oppressors. Nomadic Kurds committed many atrocities during the genocide, but settled Kurds did so only rarely. Perpetrators had a variety of motives, including ideology, revenge, desire to obtain Armenian property, and careerism. Dutch historian Uğur Ümit Üngör argues that "the involvement of seasoned criminals and militiamen hardened in years of (low-intensity) conflict in the Balkans, accounts for the cruelty of the genocide". Some Ottoman politicians opposed the genocide; they faced dismissal or assassination. The government decreed that any Muslim who harbored an Armenian against the will of the authorities would be executed.