 As Metcalfe remarks, "not only does this show the extent of Christian military success against the Aghlabids in eastern Sicily, but it may also have been deliberately aimed at exacerbating tensions within the Muslim army by playing off one faction against another in negotiating their staggered release".In the event, a full-scale civil war between "Arabs" and "Berbers" erupted in 898, prompting the dispatch of Ibrahim II's son Abu'l-Abbas Abdallah, who had previously suppressed the rebellion in Iriqiya, to the island at the head of an army in summer 900.By then, the Muslims' infighting had acquired a regional dimension, with the Palermitans pitted against the Agrigentans.