Notes

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

  1    Author interview, February 2015.

 

 

1: The face that launched a thousand hits

 

  1    Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, ‘This the Promise of Allah’, quoted in ‘ISIS Spokesman Declares Caliphate, Rebrands Group as “Islamic State”’, Site Monitoring Service [online], 29 June 2014 (https://news.siteintelgroup.com/Jihadist-News/isis-spokesman-declares-caliphate-rebrands-group-as-islamic-state.html) (accessed 19 March 2015).

  2    Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 44.

  3    Ibid., p. 44.

  4    Reuters, 5 July 2014.

  5    ‘Profile: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’, BBC News [online], 5 July 2014 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27801676) (accessed 19 March 2015).

  6    Author interview with Lt-Col. Myles B. Caggins, US Department of Defense, 2015.

  7    In Al-Naba, IS claimed to have carried out 1,083 assassinations during 2013 alone. Total bombings including car bombs and improvised explosive devices comes to 5,492: see Alex Bilger, ‘ISIS Annual Reports Reveal Metrics-driven Military Command’, Institute for the Study of War, 22 May 2014, p. 10.

  8    Basheer M. Nafi, ‘The Abolition of the Caliphate in Historical Context’, in Demystifying the Caliphate: Historical Memory and Contemporary Contexts, ed. Madawi Al-Rasheed, Carol Kersten and Marat Shterin (London: Hurst, 2013), p. 45.

  9    Jason Goodwin, Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire (London: Chatto & Windus, 1998) – a highly recommended account of the Ottoman empire and its last days.

10    Mario Ledwith, ‘Terror Warlord Al-Baghdadi Denounces the West – but Is Spotted Wearing “£3,500 James Bond Wristwatch”’, Mail Online, 6 July 2014 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2682415/Terror-warlord-al-Baghdadi-denounces-West-spotted-wearing-pricy-Western-wristwatch-resembles-expensive-Omega-Rolex.html) (accessed 19 March 2015).

11    ‘A Message to the Mujahidin and the Muslim Ummah in the Month of Ramadan’, Al-Furqan Media Foundation, 1 July 2014.

12    Al-Adnani, ‘This the Promise of Allah’.

13    Borzou Daraghi, ‘Biggest Bank Robbery That “Never Happened” – $400 million ISIS heist’, Financial Times, 17 July 2014.

14    ‘Energy News Update’, Iraq Oil Institute, 3 November 2014.

15    ‘Experts: ISIS Makes up to $3 Million Daily in Oil Sales’, Al Arabiya News [online], 28 August 2014 (http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/analysis/2014/08/28/Experts-ISIS-makes-up-to-3-million-daily-in-oil-sales.html) (accessed 19 March 2015).

16    IS released a film showing the immolation of Muath Safi al-Kasasbeh on 3 February 2015.

17    ‘The Revival of Slavery: Before the Hour’, Dabiq 4, 2014, p. 14.

18    ‘Foreword’, Dabiq 4, 2014, p. 5.

19    Ned Parker and Oliver Holmes, ‘Iraq Chases Baghdad Sleeper Cells as “Zero Hour” Looms over Capital’, Reuters [online], 3 July 2014 (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/03/us-iraq-security-sleeper-insight-idUKKBN0F81FK20140703) (accessed 19 March 2015).

20    Jean-Charles Brisard, Zarqawi: The New Face of al-Qaeda (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), p. 72.

21    Author interview, 2015.

22    Author interview, 2015.

23    Brisard, Zarqawi, p. 10.

24    Ibid., p. 12.

25    Ibid., pp. 13, 50.

26    ‘The Islamic State’, Mapping Militant Organizations [online] (http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/1) (accessed 19 March 2015).

27    Brisard, Zarqawi, pp. 5–7.

28    Ibid., p. 19.

29    Thomas Joscelyn, ‘Jailed Jihadist Ideologue Says the ISIS Is a “Deviant Organization”’, Long War Journal [online], 28 May 2014 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/05/jailed_jihadist_ideo.php) (accessed 19 March 2015).

30    Brisard, Zarqawi, p. 43.

31    Sayyid Qutb, Ma’alim fi’al-Tariq [‘Milestones’] (Lahore: Kazi, [1964] 1981), p. 56.

32    Ibid., Introduction 5.

33    Ibid., Introduction 1 and 2.

34    Ibid., pp. 9–10.

35    Qutb was hanged in 1966.

36    Roxanne L. Euben and Muhammad Qasim Zaman (eds), Princeton Readings in Islamic Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. 19–20.

37    Abu Muhammad Aasim al-Maqdisi, Democracy Is a Religion!, tr. Abu Muhammad al-Maleki.

38    Loretta Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the New Generation (London: Constable, 2005), pp. 56–7.

39    Al-Furqan Media Center, Islamic State, Audio message by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, posted 14 May 2015 by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor, ‘In New Audio Speech, Islamic State (ISIS) Leader Al-Baghdadi Issues Call to Arms to All Muslims’.

 

 

2: Seven steps

 

  1    Loretta Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the New Generation (London: Constable, 2005), p. 75.

  2    Jean-Charles Brisard, Zarqawi: The New Face of al-Qaeda (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), p. 41.

  3    Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq, p. 75.

  4    There are several analyses of the Hussein book. One of the better ones is Aaron Y. Zelin, ‘Jihad 2020: Assessing Al-Qaida’s 20-year Plan’, World Politics Review [online], 11 September 2013 (http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13208/jihad-2020-assessing-al-qaida-s-20-year-plan) (accessed 20 March 2015).

  5    Ibid.

  6    Author interview.

  7    Sayyid Qutb, Ma’alim fi’al-Tariq [‘Milestones’] (Lahore: Kazi, [1964] 1981), pp. 6–7.

  8    Ibid., pp. 47–9.

  9    Ibid., p. 97.

10    Bruce Riedel, ‘Al Qaeda’s Surprising New Target’, Daily Beast [online], 30 July 2010 (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/07/30/al-qaedas-ayman-zawahiri-criticizes-turkey-seeks-ottoman-restoration.html) (accessed 29 April 2015); comments attributed to Ayman al-Zawahiri, then deputy leader of al-Qaeda.

11    David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 17.

12    Quoted in Jeffrey Pool, ‘Zarqawi’s Pledge of Allegiance to Al-Qaeda: From Mu’asker al-Battar, Issue 21’, Terrorism Monitor 2:24.

13    Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of al-Qaeda (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), p. 194.

14    Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq, p. 61.

15    Mary Anne Weaver, ‘The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’, The Atlantic, July–August 2006.

16    Terence White, ‘Flashback: When the Taleban took Kabul’, BBC News [online], 15 October 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1600136.stm) (accessed 20 March 2015).

17    Atwan, The Secret History of al-Qaeda, p. 195.

18    Brisard, Zarqawi, p. 48.

19    Ibid.

20    Atwan, The Secret History of al-Qaeda, p. 195.

21    Zarqawi may have earned this nickname earlier on his way to Afghanistan: see Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq, p. 42.

22    Weaver, ‘The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’.

23    Ibid.

24    Brisard, Zarqawi, p. 48.

25    Emily Hunt, ‘Zarqawi’s “Total War” on Iraqi Shiites Exposes a Divide among Sunni Jihadists’, PolicyWatch 1049, Washington Institute [online], 15 November 2005 (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/zarqawis-total-war-on-iraqi-shiites-exposes-a-divide-among-sunni-jihadists) (accessed 20 March 2015).

26    Ibid.

27    Thomas Joscelyn, ‘Jailed Jihadist Ideologue Says the ISIS Is a “Deviant Organization”’, Long War Journal [online], 28 May 2014 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/05/jailed_jihadist_ideo.php) (accessed 19 March 2015).

28    Weaver, The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

29    Brisard, Zarqawi, p. 49; Atwan, The Secret History of al-Qaeda, p. 195.

30    Brisard, Zarqawi, pp. 49–50.

31    Ibid., p. 58.

32    Weaver, The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

33    Ibid.

34    Jordan Times, 27 July 2003, based on testimony in court of Shadi Mohammad Mustafa Abdullah. a 26-year-old Jordanian of Palestinian origin.

35    ‘Al-Qaeda’s New Military Chief’, BBC News [online], 19 December 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1717863.stm) (accessed 20 March 2015).

36    ‘Most Wanted Terrorists: Saif al-Adel’, Federal Bureau of Investigation [online] (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/saif-al-adel/view) (accessed 20 March 2015).

37    Weaver, ‘The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’.

38    Brisard, Zarqawi, pp. 75–6.

39    Atwan, The Secret History of al-Qaeda, p. 196.

40    Ibid, p. 196. Atwan asserts Zarqawi was ‘dismayed’ with the attacks (p. 197).

41    Brisard, Zarqawi, p. 109.

42    Report by Human Rights Watch following interviews it carried out in 2002.

43    ‘Ansar al-Islam in Iraqi Kurdistan’, Human Rights Watch [online], 5 February 2003 (http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/mena/ansarbk020503.htm) (accessed 20 March 2015).

44    ‘Mulla Krekar: Only ISIS Can Fulfil Muslim “Ambitions and Dreams”’, Rûdaw [online], 5 February 2015 (http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/050220151) (accessed 29 April 2015).

45    In 2015 Norway banished Krekar, whose real name is Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad, to a remote village: Justin Huggler, ‘Norway Attempts to Relocate Islamic Hate Preacher to Remote Village 300 Miles North of Oslo’, Daily Telegraph, 30 January 2015.

46    Neil McFarquhar, ‘Threats and Responses: Attack on US Diplomat; American Envoy Killed in Jordan’, International New York Times [online], 29 October 2002 (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/29/world/threats-and-responses-attack-on-us-diplomat-american-envoy-killed-in-jordan.html) (accessed 20 March 2015).

47    ‘Jordan Hangs US Diplomat Killers’, BBC News [online], 11 March 2006 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4796280.stm) (accessed 20 March 2015).

48    Brisard, Zarqawi, pp. 85–7.

49    In an ABC News interview on 28 September 2005 with Barbara Walters, Powell referred to his UN speech as ‘a blot’, adding, ‘It was painful. It’s painful now.’

50    Transcript available at ‘Iraq, Denial and Deception: US Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the UN Security Council’, White House [online], 5 February 2003 (georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html) (accessed 20 March 2015).

 

 

3: Chaos theory and fact

 

  1    Author interview, 2015

  2    Michael White and Sarah Hall, ‘BBC under Fire over Chaos Reports’, The Guardian, 12 April 2003.

  3    Ibid.

  4    James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Benjamin Runkle et al., Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2009), p. xiv.

  5    Chilcot Inquiry, transcript of oral evidence by Major General Tim Cross, 7 December 2009, p. 9.

  6    Ibid., p. 17.

  7    ‘Neo-cons’ is short for ‘neo-conservatives’, an often derogatory term used at that time about the advisers of President George W. Bush.

  8    Author interview, 2015.

  9    Interview with Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Jay Garner, PBS, 11 August 2006. Garner had been the head of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the first interim authority after the invasion.

10    Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 117.

11    Ibid., p. 116.

12    L. Paul Bremer, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 64.

13    Ibid., p. 64.

14    ‘The Future of the Global Muslim Population’, Pew Research Center [online], 27 January 2011 (http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population) (accessed 20 March 2015).

15    ‘The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity’, Pew Research Center [online], 9 August 2012 (http://www.pewforum.org/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-executive-summary/) (accessed 20 March 2015); percentages of Shia and Sunni Muslims who identify themselves as such.

16    John F. Devlin, ‘The Ba’ath Party: Rise and Metamorphosis’, American Historical Review, 96:5, 1991, pp. 1396–1404.

17    Adeed Dawisha, Iraq: A Political History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), p. 185.

18    Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq between 16 July 1979 and 9 April 2003.

19    Miranda Sissons and Abdulrazzaq al-Saiedi, A Bitter Legacy: Lessons of De-Ba’athification in Iraq, International Center for Transitional Justice, March 2013, p. 4.

20    Ibid., p. 4.

21    Ibid., p. 4.

22    Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, pp. 149–50.

23    Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (London: Allen Lane, 2006), p. 159.

24    Ibid., p. 159.

25    Sissons and Saiedi, A Bitter Legacy, p. 4.

26    Devlin, The Ba’ath Party, p. 1407.

27    Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, p. 149; Sissons and Saiedi, A Bitter Legacy, p. 4.

28    From letter written by Zarqawi in 2004, published in the appendix of Jean-Charles Brisard, Zarqawi: The New Face of al-Qaeda (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005).

29    ‘Sunnis and Shia in the Middle East’, BBC News [online], 19 December 2013 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25434060) (accessed 29 April 2015).

30    Sissons and Saiedi, A Bitter Legacy, p. 10.

31    Dobbins, Jones, Runkle et al., Occupying Iraq, p. xiii.

32    Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1: De-Ba’athification of Iraqi Society, CPA/ORD/16 MAY 2003/01.

33    Bremer, My Year in Iraq, pp. 41–2.

34    James P. Pfiffner, ‘US Blunders in Iraq: De-Ba’athification and Disbanding the Army’, Intelligence and National Security, 25:1, 2010, p. 79.

35    Bremer, My Year in Iraq, p. 71.

36    Ibid., pp. 50–1.

37    Ibid., p. 53.

38    Ibid., p. 42.

39    Chilcot Inquiry, transcript of oral evidence by General Sir Mike Jackson, 28 July 2010, p. 30.

40    Ricks, Fiasco, p. 159.

41    Bremer, My Year in Iraq, pp. 38–42.

42    Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2: Dissolution of Entities, CPA/ORD/23 MAY 2003/02.

43    Bremer, My Year in Iraq, p. 55.

44    Ibid., p. 55.

45    Ibid., p. 55.

46    CPA Order Number 2.

47    US-CENTCOM, list of 8,697 disqualified military officers, 29 July 2003, WikiLeaks, cryptographic identity SHA256 961def670c9597a3 51d16580872c42bd9e095f487765036267d7c4461d0146a8.

48    Ricks, Fiasco, p. 162.

49    Ibid., p. 60.

50    There have been repeated claims that Saddam had people fed feet first into shredders, even that his son Qusay Hussein supervised some of these murders at Abu Ghraib prison. Some found this hard to believe back in 2004; see Brendan O’Neill, ‘Not a Shred of Evidence’, The Spectator, 21 February 2004.

51    Radwan Mortada, ‘Al-Qaeda Leaks II: Baghdadi Loses His Shadow’, Al-Akhbar English [online], 14 January 2014 (http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/al-qaeda-leaks-ii-baghdadi-loses-his-shadow) (accessed 20 March 2015).

52    Wikibaghdady. I go into further detail about Wikibaghdady later in the book.

53    Christoph Reuter, ‘The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State’, Spiegel Online International, 18 April 2015 (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html) (accessed 29 April 2015).

54    Author interview, 2015.

55    CPA Order Number 1.

56    Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad’s Green Zone (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), p. 85.

57    Ibid., p. 85.

58    President George W. Bush never actually used this expression; a banner saying ‘Mission Accomplished’ was strung across the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln when Bush gave his valedictory speech on 1 May 2003.

59    Author interview, 2015.

60    Maliki Reshapes the National Security System’, WikiLeaks [online], 15 May 2007, canonical ID 07BAGHDAD1593_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07BAGHDAD1593_a.html) (accessed 26 March 2015).

61    Transcript of event to celebrate the reissue of Every War Must End by Dr Fred C. Iklé, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1 March 2005, p. 18. Lehman was US navy secretary between 5 February 1981 and 10 April 1987.

 

 

4: The management of savagery

 

  1    Author interview, 2013.

  2    See Chapter 1.

  3    Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage through Which the Ummah Must Pass, tr. William McCants, May 2006, p. 11, for the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.

  4    Ibid., p. 39.

  5    Ibid., p. 39.

  6    Ibid., p. 46.

  7    Ibid., p. 44.

  8    Ibid., p. 38.

  9    Ibid., p. 48.

10    Michael W. S. Ryan, ‘Hot Issue: Dabiq – What Islamic State’s New Magazine Tells Us about Their Strategic Direction, Recruitment Patterns and Guerrilla Doctrine’, Jamestown Foundation [online], 1 August 2014 (http://www.jamestown.org/programs/hotissues/single-hot-issues/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=42702&tx_ttnews%5B backPid%5D=61&cHash=e96be5e421a55fb15bec8cddb3117985) (accessed 20 March 2015).

11    See chapter 2.

12    Abu Bakr Naji was identified as the possible author by the Al Arabiya Institute for Studies.

13    The TWAR wiki says the video was released to publicize al-Qaeda’s merger with an Egyptian terrorist group, Gama’a al Islamiyya (http://totalwar-ar.wikia.com/wiki/Mohammad_Hasan_Khalil_al-Hakim) (accessed 20 March 2015).

14    Peter L. Bergen and Daniel Rothenberg (eds), Drone Wars: Transforming Conflict, Law, and Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 32; Amir Mir, ‘50th Al-Qaeda Leader Killed in 338th Drone Strike’, News International (Pakistan) [online], 3 December 2012 (http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-2-146255-50th-al-Qaeda-leader-killed-in-338th-drone-strike) (accessed 20 March 2015).

15    See map.

16    Kim Gamel, ‘Sunni Who Aided US Gunned Down in Iraq’, Washington Post [online], 29 May 2006 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/28/AR2006052800108.html) (accessed 20 March 2015).

17    Charles Levinson, ‘Sunni Tribes Turn against Jihadis’, Christian Science Monitor [online], 6 February 2006 (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0206/p01s01-woiq.html) (accessed 20 March 2015).

18    ‘Iraq’s Most Wanted – Where Are They Now?’, BBC News [online], 1 September 2010 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11155798) (accessed 20 March 2015); For the full pack, see Joel Christie, ‘Dead Hand, Deck of 52 Most-wanted Iraqi Playing Cards Given to Soldiers at the Start of the War Shows the Fall of Saddam “the Ace of Spades” Hussein’s army’, Mail Online, 18 October 2014 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2798050/dead-hand-deck-52-wanted-iraqi-playing-cards-given-soldiers-start-war-shows-fall-saddam-ace-spades-hussein-s-army.html) (accessed 20 March 2015).

19    Michael Knights, ‘Saddam Hussein’s Faithful Friend, the King of Clubs, Might Be the Key to Saving Iraq’, New Republic [online], 24 June 2014 (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118356/izzat-ibrahim-al-douri-saddam-husseins-pal-key-stopping-isis) (accessed 20 March 2015).

20    Leila Fadel, ‘Saddam’s Ex-officer: We’ve Played Key Role in Helping Militants’, NPR [online], 19 June 2014 (http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/06/19/323691052/saddams-ex-officer-weve-played-key-role-in-helping-militants) (accessed 20 March 2015).

21    See Ahmed S. Hashim, Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), ch. 1 for more details on the various insurgent groups.

22    Thomas Burrows, ‘The King of Clubs Is Dead: Former Saddam Henchman on US Most-wanted List Who Became ISIS Commander Is Killed in Fighting near Former Tyrant’s Home City’, Mail Online, 20 April 2015 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3043774/ISIS-commander-former-Saddam-Hussein-henchman-codenamed-King-Clubs-military-s-list-wanted-Iraqis-killed-near-former-tyrant-s-home-city.html) (accessed 29 April 2015).

23    See Ahmed S. Hashim, Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), ch. 1 for more details on the various insurgent groups.

24    Bill Roggio, ‘1920s Revolution Brigades Turns on al Qaeda in Diyala’, Long War Journal [online], 12 June 2007 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/06/1920s_revolution_bri.php) (accessed 20 March 2015).

25    ‘Ansar al-Islam’, Mapping Militant Organizations [online] (http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/13?highlight=ansar+al-islam) (accessed 20 March 2015). Ansar al-Sunna later became known as Ansar al-Islam.

26    Harry de Quetteville, ‘12 Die in Baghdad Embassy Bomb Blast’, Daily Telegraph, 8 August 2003.

27    ‘Results in Iraq: 100 Days toward Security and Freedom’ (available at http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/part2.html) (accessed 23 March 2015).

28    L. Paul Bremer, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), pp. 140–1.

29    Sergio, HBO documentary, 2009.

30    Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (London: Allen Lane, 2006), p. 216.

31    ‘Baghdad Terror Blast Kills Dozens’, BBC News [online], 27 October 2003 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3216539.stm) (accessed 23 March 2015)

32    Riverbend, Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq (New York: Feminist Press, 2005), pp. 8–9.

33    ‘Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq’, Brookings Institution, 13 February 2004, p. 19. The Gallup poll was based on interviews with 1,178 adults between 8 August and 4 September 2003.

34    Author interview, 2015.

35    Adam Ereli, ‘Rewards for Justice: Reward Increase for Abu Mu’sab al-Zarqawi’, press statement, US department of state, 30 June 2004.

36    A US state department poster declared, ‘MURDER: Nairobi & Dar es Salaam bombings, 1998, 224 killed and 5,000 wounded. MURDERER: Usama bin Laden. Up to $25 million reward.’ The poster can be seen at https://www.rewardsforjustice.net/murder_murderer_ubl.pdf (accessed 29 April 2015).

 In fact, the total was $27 million, including $25 million from the state department and $2 million offered by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association. In any event, bin Laden was eliminated by the US Navy SEALs and the money was apparently never paid

37    Transcript of Zarqawi letter, US department of state archive, 2004.

38    The letter was found or intercepted by the CPA.

39    Loretta Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the New Generation (London: Constable, 2005), p. 159.

40    ‘Iraq Shias Massacred on Holy Day’, BBC News [online], 2 March 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3524589.stm) (accessed 23 March 2015).

41    Transcript of Zarqawi letter, US department of state archive, 2004.

42    Amir Hassanpour, ‘The Kurdish Experience’, Middle East Report, 189, 1994.

43    ‘Obituary: Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim’, The Guardian, 30 August 2003.

44    Aki Peritz and Eric Rosenbach, Find, Fix, Finish: Inside the Counterterrorism Campaigns That Killed Bin Laden and Devastated Al-Qaeda (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012), p. 118.

45    Claude Salhani, ‘Hakim’s Return to Iraq’, Washington Times, 15 May 2003.

46    Bremer, My Year in Iraq, pp. 143–4.

47    ‘Blasts at Shiite Ceremonies in Iraq Kill More than 140’, International New York Times, 2 March 2004.

48    John F. Burns, ‘At Least 64 Dead as Rebels Strike in 3 Iraqi Cities’, New York Times, 20 December 2004.

49    Author interview, 2015.

50    Author interview, 2015.

51    ‘Bombers Kill 35 Kids Lined Up for Candy’, Associated Press, 1 October 2004.

52    Paul McGeough, ‘Handicapped Boy Who Was Made into a Bomb’, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 February 2005.

53    Ibid.

54    ‘Obituary: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’, The Guardian, 9 June 2006.

55    ‘VBIED ATTK ON CIV IN AL HILLAH: 166 CIV KILLED, 146 INJ, 0 CF INJ/DAMAGE’, WikiLeaks [online], 28 February 2005, report key 7DC3DD72-79A7-449D-93C1-EBD985B624A9 (https://wikileaks.org/irq/report/2005/02/IRQ20050228n1529.html) (accessed 23 March 2015).

56    Charlotte Buchen, ‘The Man Turned Away’, PBS Frontline [online], 16 October 2006 (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/enemywithin/reality/al-banna.html) (accessed 23 March 2015).

57    Aaron Y. Zelin, ‘The War between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement’, Research Notes 20, Washington Institute [online], June 2014 (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-war-between-isis-and-al-qaeda-for-supremacy-of-the-global-jihadist) (accessed 23 March 2015).

58    Author interview, 2015.

59    Jean-Charles Brisard, Zarqawi: The New Face of al-Qaeda (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005). p. 143.

60    Peter R. Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), p. 160.

61    Sewell Chan, ‘Beheading Victim “Loved Adventure and Risk”’, Washington Post, 14 May 2004.

62    ‘THREATENING EMAIL SENT TO CONTRACTORS IVO BAYJI: 0 INJ/DAMAGE’, WikiLeaks [online], 1 July 2005, report key: 83E4A7A5-2508-480E-B67C-49EF4114D152 (https://wikileaks.org/irq/report/2005/07/IRQ20050701n2088.html) (accessed 23 March 2015).

63    Author interview, 2015.

64    Ayman al-Zawahiri, ‘Letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’, Council on Foreign Relations [online], 9 July 2005 (http://www.cfr.org/iraq/letter-ayman-al-zawahiri-abu-musab-al-zarqawi/p9862) (accessed 23 March 2015).

65    Ibid.

66    Author interview, 2015.

 

 

5: 632 and all that

 

  1    Author interview, 2013.

  2    Astonishingly, no one died in the Samarra bombing although many were to die as a result afterwards.

  3    Christopher M. Blanchard, ‘Islam: Sunnis and Shiites’, Congressional Research Service, 28 January 2009, pp. 2–4.

  4    Edward Wong, ‘Prisoner Links Iraqi to Attack on Shi’ite Shrine, Official Says’, New York Times, 29 June 2006.

  5    Ibid.

  6    Megan K. Stack, ‘Iraq Loses Voice in the Wilderness with Violent Death of Journalist’, Cincinnati Post, 15 March 2006.

  7    ‘Gunmen Disrupt Bahjat’s Funeral’, Gulf News, 25 February 2006.

  8    Robert F. Worth, ‘Blast Destroys Shrine in Iraq, Setting Off Sectarian Fury’, New York Times, 22 February 2006.

  9    Iraqi Body Count.

10    Iraqi Body Count.

11    ‘Global Overview 2014: People Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence’, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, May 2014, p. 57.

12    Richard Beeston, ‘Imams Put Fatwa on Carp Caught in Tigris’, The Times, 27 June 2007.

13    Richard Engel, War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), p. 361–2.

14    Ali’s wife was Muhammad’s daughter Fatimah.

15    See chapter 4.

16    See chapter 4.

17    Schmuel Bar, ‘Sunnis and Shiites: Between Rapprochement and Conflict’, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, 2, 2005, 90–1.

18    Ibid., p. 92.

19    Patrick Cockburn, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Shia Insurgency in Iraq (London: Faber & Faber, 2009), p. 49.

20    Ian Black, ‘“Chemical Ali” on Trial for Brutal Crushing of Shia Uprising’, The Guardian, 22 August 2007; for comprehensive account see Cockburn, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Shia Insurgency in Iraq, pp. 70–96.

21    Cockburn, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Shia Insurgency in Iraq, p. 34.

22    See chapter 4.

23    ‘The World Factbook: Iraq’, Central Intelligence Agency [online] (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iz.html) (accessed 23 March 2015).

24    Raad Alkadiri and Chris Toensing, ‘The Iraqi Governing Council’s Sectarian Hue’, Middle East Research and Information Project [online],  20 August 2003 (http://www.merip.org/mero/mero082003) (accessed 23 March 2015).

25    Ibid.

26    L. Paul Bremer, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 101.

27    Miranda Sissons and Abdulrazzaq al-Saiedi, A Bitter Legacy: Lessons of De-Ba’athification in Iraq, International Center for Transitional Justice, March 2013, p. 12.

28    Ibid., p. 15.

29    Ibid., p. 12.

30    ‘Unmaking Iraq: A Constitutional Process Gone Awry’, Middle East Briefing No. 19, International Crisis Group, 26 September 2005, p. 2.

31    Sissons and Saiedi, A Bitter Legacy, pp. 15–16.

32    ‘Make or Break: Iraq’s Sunnis and the State’, Middle East Report No. 144, International Crisis Group, 14 August 2013.

33    ‘Unmaking Iraq’, p. 1.

34    ‘Bodies Mutilated in Iraq Attack’, BBC News [online], 31 March 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3585765.stm) (accessed 23 March 2015).

35    Loretta Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the New Generation (London: Constable, 2005), p. 217.

36    Iraq Body Count.

37    Timothy S. McWilliams, US Marines in Battle: Fallujah, November–December 2004 (Quantico, VA: United States Marine Corps, 2014).

38    Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (London: Allen Lane, 2006), p. 401.

39    Spencer C. Tucker (ed.), Encyclopedia of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A New Era of Modern Warfare (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2013), p. 270.

40    Author interview, 2014.

41    Cockburn, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Shia Insurgency in Iraq, pp. 70, 190–1.

42    ‘Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq’, Brookings Institution, 1 October 2007, p. 16.

43    Mussab al-Khairalla, ‘Iraqi Minister Plays Down Torture Bunker Allegations’, Washington Post, 17 November 2005.

44    Steven N. Simon, ‘After the Surge: the Case for US Military Disengagement from Iraq’, CSR No. 23, Council on Foreign Relations, February 2007, p. 19.

45    Jakub Cerny, Death Squad Operations in Iraq (Swindon: Conflict Studies Research Centre, 2006), p. 2.

46    Ibid., p. 5.

47    Bill Roggio, ‘“Shiite Zarqawi” Returns to Baghdad from Iran’, Long War Journal [online], 21 August 2010 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/08/shiite_zarqawi_retur.php) (accessed 23 March 2015).

48    Based on Cerny, Death Squad Operations in Iraq; reported in Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender, ‘Iraqi Militia’s Wave of Death’, Boston Globe, 2 April 2006.

 

 

6: The forgotten caliph

 

  1    See Chapter 4.

  2    ‘At 171445CMAR05 Bde G3 informed DANBAT that Al-Zarqawi was on his way to Basrah travelling south on rte 6 from Al Amarah. At 1745C Lynx discovered a suspect vehicle, which stopped at GR QV 366257 (12k’, WikiLeaks [online], 18 March 2005, report key 2A5BB8F4-A335-4E2F-BF6C-28E46D842B83 (https://wikileaks.org/irq/report/2005/03/IRQ20050318n1566.html) (accessed 23 March 2015).

  3    See Chapter 4.

  4    ‘Iraq Stampede Deaths Near 1,000’, BBC News [online], 31 August 2005 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4199618.stm) (accessed 23 March 2015). An obscure Sunni group called Jaysh al-Taifa al-Mansoura (‘Army of the Victorious Sect’) claimed responsibility for the mortar attack.

  5    ‘“800 Dead” in Baghdad Bridge Disaster’, The Guardian, 31 August 2005.

  6    Peter Chalk (ed.), Encyclopedia of Terrorism (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2013).

  7    Ibid.

  8    The death sentences were later overturned and reduced to life imprisonment.

  9    Author interview, 2015.

10    Although Islamic State posted the film of Kasasbeh’s killing on 3 February, it is believed he was murdered earlier.

11    The Long War Journal reported on ‘conflicting’ rumours concerning Zarqawi’s possible death or injury: (Bill Roggio, ‘Zarqawi Successors’, Long War Journal [online], 28 May 2005 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2005/05/zarqawi_success.php) (accessed 23 March 2015).

12    Nelson Hernandez, ‘Now Playing in Iraq: Zarqawi Outtakes’, Washington Post, 5 May 2006.

13    ‘Iraqi Army Captures Zarqawi Aide in Baghdad – Report’, Reuters, 29 May 2006.

14    ‘How They Got Zarqawi’, The Age, 10 June 2006.

15    The Hunt for Zarqawi: Target Zarqawi, National Geographic Channel, 30 January 2007, comments attributed to General Stanley McChrystal.

16    Scott McLeod and Bill Powell, ‘Zarqawi’s Last Dinner Party’, Time, 11 June 2006.

17    ‘How They Got Zarqawi’.

18    McLeod and Powell, ‘Zarqawi’s Last Dinner Party’.

19    Gil Kaufman, ‘Autopsy Finds al-Zarqawi Died of Internal Injuries 52 Minutes after Bombing’, MTV News [online], 12 June 2006 (http://www.mtv.com/news/1534088/autopsy-finds-al-zarqawi-died-of-internal-injuries-52-minutes-after-bombing) (accessed 23 March 2015).

20    Ibid.

21    ‘How Zarqawi Was Found and Killed’, BBC News [online], 9 June 2006 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5060468.stm) (accessed 23 March 2015).

22    Scott Stewart, ‘Why US Bounties on Terrorists Often Fail’, Stratfor Global Intelligence [online], 12 April 2012 (https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/why-us-bounties-terrorists-often-fail) (accessed 23 March 2015).

23    John F. Burns, ‘US Strike Hits Insurgent at Safehouse’, New York Times, 8 June 2006.

24    Quoted in D. Hazan, ‘Al-Zarqawi: A Post Mortem Prior to His Killing, Al-Zarqawi Had Lost His Sunni Allies’, Inquiry and Analysis Report No. 284, Middle East Media Research Institute, 30 June 2006.

25    Bill Roggio, ‘Joining al-Qaeda, Declining al-Qaeda’, Long War Journal [online], 31 January 2006 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2006/01/joining_alqaeda_decl.php) (accessed 24 March 2015).

26    Emily Hunt, ‘Zarqawi’s “Total War” on Iraqi Shiites Exposes a Divide among Sunni Jihadists’, PolicyWatch 1049, Washington Institute [online], 15 November 2005 (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/zarqawis-total-war-on-iraqi-shiites-exposes-a-divide-among-sunni-jihadists) (accessed 20 March 2015).

27    Bill Roggio, ‘The Iraqi Insurgent Divide Widens’, Long War Journal [online], 26 January 2006 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2006/01/the_iraqi_insurgent.php) (accessed 24 March 2015).

28    Hazan, ‘Al-Zarqawi’.

29    David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 3; Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare (Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, 1999).

30    Jason Burke, Peter Beaumont and Mohammed al-Ubeidy, ‘How Jordanians Hunted Down Their Hated Son’, The Observer, 11 June 2006.

31    Bill Roggio, ‘The Abu Omar al-Bagdadi Saga’, Long War Journal [online], 10 March 2007 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/03/the_abu_omar_albagda.php) (accessed 24 March 2015).

32    Bill Roggio, ‘Unconfirmed Report: Abu Omar al Baghdadi Killed; al Qaeda’s Information Minister Confirmed Killed’, Long War Journal [online], 3 May 2007 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/05/unconfirmed_report_a_1.php) (accessed 24 March 2015).

33    Bill Roggio, ‘Islamic State of Iraq Leader Reported Captured’, Long War Journal [online], 23 April 2009 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/04/islamic_state_of_ira_1.php) (accessed 24 March 2015).

34    ‘Responding to the Doubts’, Dabiq 7, 2015, p. 25.

35    CBS News, 7 May 2008.

36    Martin Chulov, ‘My Husband the al-Qaida Kingpin’, The Guardian, 16 July 2010.

37    Michael R. Gordon, ‘Leader of Al-Qaeda Group in Iraq Was Fictional, US Military Says’, New York Times, 18 July 2007.

38    Bill Roggio, ‘Al Qaeda Continues Attacks on Awakening Security Forces’, Long War Journal [online], 25 December 2007 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/12/al_qaeda_continues_a.php) (accessed 24 March 2015).

39    Chulov, ‘My Husband the Al-Qaida Kingpin’.

40    ‘Iraq Sentences al-Qaeda Chief’s Widow to Life’, AFP, 29 June 2011.

41    Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 50–1.

42    Quoted in Nibras Kazimi, ‘The Caliphate Attempted’, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, 7, 2008, pp. 17–18.

43    Quoted in Nibras Kazimi, ‘Would-be Caliph’s Inaugural Address to the Islamic ‘Ummah’, Talisman Gate blog, 23 December 2006 (http://talismangate.blogspot.co.uk/2006/12/would-be-caliphs-inaugural-address-to.html) (accessed 24 March 2015).

44    Ibid.

45    Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013), p. 247.

46    Ibid., p. 247.

47    The Washington Post received the leaked Devlin report: Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks, ‘Anbar Picture Grows Clearer, and Bleaker’, Washington Post, 28 November 2006.

48    Nibras Kazimi, ‘Al-Baghdadi Names Pseudonyms – for Ministerial Portfolios’, Talisman Gate blog, 19 April 2007 (http://talismangate.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/al-baghdadi-names-pseudonymsfor.html) (accessed 24 March 2015).

49    Chulov, ‘My Husband the al-Qaida Kingpin’.

50    Martin Chulov, ‘Al-Qaida Terrorist’s Widow to Be Hanged’, The Guardian, 9 May 2011.

51    Jim Garamone, ‘Masri Now Leads Iraq Al Qaeda, Coalition Officials Say’, US Department of Defense [online], 16 June 2006 (http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=16029) (accessed 24 March 2015).

52    Ibid.

53    Aaron Y. Zelin, ‘The War between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement’, Research Notes 20, Washington Institute [online], June 2014 (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-war-between-isis-and-al-qaeda-for-supremacy-of-the-global-jihadist) (accessed 23 March 2015).

54    See Chapter 4.

55    Letter from Adam Gadahn, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point [online], January 2011, SOCOM-2012-0000004, pp. 7–9 (https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/letter-from-adam-gadahn-original-language-2) (accessed 24 March 2015).

56    Ibid.

57    Letter from Hafiz Sultan, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point [online], 28 March 2007, SOCOM-2012-0000011 (https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/letter-from-hafiz-sultan-original-language-2) (accessed 24 March 2015).

58    Giles Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy et al., ‘Mortality after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-sectional Cluster Sample Survey’, The Lancet, 11 October 2006.

59    Iraq Body Count.

60    Peter Beaumont, ‘135 Die in Bombing as “Civil War” Grips Iraq’, The Observer, 4 February 2007.

61    Austin Long, ‘The Anbar Awakening’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, 50:2, 2008, p. 75.

62    Quoted in Kazimi, ‘Would-be Caliph’s Inaugural Address to the Islamic ‘Ummah’.

63    Author interview, 2015.

 

 

7: Wake-up call

 

  1    Gary W. Montgomery and Timothy S. McWilliams (eds), Al-Anbar Awakening, Volume II: Iraqi Perspectives – From Insurgency to Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004–2009 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), pp. 20–1, testimony of Miriam relating to her cousin’s husband.

  2    Najim Abed Al Jabouri and Sterling Jensen, ‘The Iraqi and AQI Roles in the Sunni Awakening’, Prism, 2:1 (2011), p. 9.

  3    Montgomery and McWilliams (eds), Al-Anbar Awakening, Volume II, p. 35.

  4    See chapter 2.

  5    Austin Long, ‘The Anbar Awakening’, Survival, 1 April 2008; author interview with Dr David Kilcullen, 20 February 2015.

  6    Montgomery and McWilliams (eds), Al-Anbar Awakening, Volume II, p. 140, testimony of Sheikh Sabah al-Sattam Effan Fahran al-Shurji al-Aziz.

  7    Ibid., p. 140, testimony of Sheikh Sabah al-Sattam Effan Fahran al-Shurji al-Aziz.

  8    Author interview, 2015.

  9    Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, ‘British “Vicar of Baghdad” Claims Isis Beheaded Four Children for Refusing to Convert to Islam’, The Independent, 8 December 2014.

10    Robin Perrie, ‘You’ve Just Eaten Your Son: IS “Served Kidnap Victim to His Mum”’, The Sun, 2 March 2015.

11    Peter BetBasoo, ‘Incipient Genocide: The Ethnic Cleansing of the Assyrians of Iraq’, Assyrian International News Agency, 12 June 2007, revised 3 September 2014.

12    Ibid., p. 5. The story is also told in Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, ‘Iraq: Is Any Suffering like Our Suffering?’, Barnabas Aid, January–February 2007.

13    Author interview, 2015.

14    Combatting Terrorism Center Archives, West Point Military Academy, AQI document (http:/ctc.usma.edu/aq/pdf/IZ-060316-01-Trans.pdf).

15    Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013), p. 247.

16    Author interview, 2015.

17    See chapter 6 and also Peter R. Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), pp. 121–2.

18    George W. Bush, Decision Points (London: Virgin, 2011), p. 367.

19    James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton (co-chairs), The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward – A New Approach (New York: Vintage, 2006) (aka Baker–Hamilton report), p. 30.

20    Ibid., p. 15.

21    Ibid., p. 30.

22    Mark Tran, ‘Iraq Study Group Urges Troop Withdrawal’, The Guardian, 6 December 2006.

23    Speech by George W. Bush on the Surge, 10 January 2007.

24    Author interview, 2015.

25    Adam Strickland, ‘Meet FFFA Partner Jassim Suwaydawi, the Lion of Sofia, Part 1’, Fund for Fallen Allies [online], 7 August 2013 (http://fundforfallenallies.org/news/2013/08/07/meet-jassim-suwaydawi-lion-sophia-part-i) (accessed 25 March 2015).

26    Mansoor, Surge, pp. 132–3.

27    Ibid., pp. 44–6.

28    Author interview, 2015.

29    Ibid., pp. 137–8.

30    Kaplan, The Insurgents, p. 262.

31    Author interview, 2015.

32    Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General Petraeus and the Search for a Way out of Iraq (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008), pp. 320–1.

33    Ibid., p. 254.

34    Bill Roggio, ‘Al-Qaeda’s Chlorine Attacks: The Dirty War in Anbar’, Long War Journal [online], 17 March 2007 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/03/al_qaedas_chlorine_a.php) (accessed 25 March 2015).

35    ‘“Chlorine Bomb” Hits Iraqi Village’, BBC News [online], 16 May 2007 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6660585.stm) (accessed 25 March 2015).

36    Letter from Hafiz Sultan, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point [online], 28 March 2007, SOCOM-2012-0000011 (https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/letter-from-hafiz-sultan-original-language-2) (accessed 24 March 2015).

37    Abdelhak Mamoun, ‘Urgent: ISIS Kills 300 Iraqi Soldiers by Chlorine Gas Attack in Saqlawiyah’, Iraqi News [online], 22 September 2014 (http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/urgent-isis-kills-300-iraqi-soldiers-chlorine-gas-attack-saqlawiyah) (accessed 25 March 2015).

38    Brian Fishman (ed.), ‘Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: Al-Qaida’s Road in and out of Iraq’, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, July 2008, pp. 32–41.

39    Ibid., p. 42.

40    Ibid., pp. 55–6.

41    Ahmed S. Hashim, Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), pp. 44–5.

42    Kevin Drum, ‘The Myth of AQI’, Washington Monthly [online], 6 September 2007 (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012011.php) (accessed 25 March 2015).

43    Mansoor, Surge, pp. 137–8.

44    Jonathan Steel, ‘Baghdad’s Day of Sectarian Death: Five Car Bombs, 160 Killed’, The Guardian, 24 November 2006.

45    Toby Dodge, Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), p. 39.

46    See Chapter 6.

47    Mansoor, Surge, p. 67.

48    Author interview, 2015.

49    Rod Nordland, ‘Some Progress Seen in Baghdad’, Newsweek, 17 November 2007.

50    Author interview, 2015.

51    Nordland, ‘Some Progress Seen in Baghdad’.

52    Patrick Cockburn, ‘Iraq: Violence Is Down – but Not Because of America’s “Surge”’, Independent on Sunday, 14 September 2008.

53    ‘Operation Phantom Thunder’, Institute for the Study of War [online] (http://www.understandingwar.org/operation/operation-phantom-thunder) (accessed 25 March 2015).

54    ‘Operation Arrowhead Ripper’, Institute for the Study of War [online] (http://www.understandingwar.org/operation/operation-arrowhead-ripper) (accessed 25 March 2015).

55    Letter from Hafiz Sultan, ‘Dear Brother Adnan’, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point [online], 28 March 2007, SOCOM-2012-0000011 (https://www. ctc.usma.edu/posts/letter-from-hafiz-sultan-original-language-2) (accessed 24 March 2015).

56    Bill Roggio, ‘Samara Mosque Bombing Suspects Identified; Reports of Violence’, Long War Journal [online], 13 June 2007 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/06/samarra_mosque_bombi.php) (accessed 25 March 2015).

57    Mansoor, Surge, p. 160.

58    Author interview, 2015.

59    Bill Roggio, ‘Letters from al Qaeda Leaders Show Iraqi Effort Is in Disarray’, Long War Journal [online], 11 September 2008 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/09/letters_from_al_qaed.php) (accessed 25 March 2015).

60    ‘Operation Phantom Thunder’, Institute for the Study of War [online].

61    ‘Death Toll from Suicide Bombings in NW IRAQ RISES to 500’, Xinhua news agency, 15 July 2007.

62    Bill Roggio, ‘USAF Kills al Qaeda Emir behind Yazidi Villages Attacks’, Long War Journal [online], 9 September 2007 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/09/usaf_kills_al_qaeda.php) (accessed 25 March 2015).

63    ‘Tribal Chiefs Killed in Baghdad Hotel Blast’, Al Arabiya News [online], 25 June 2007 (http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2007/06/25/35867.html) (accessed 30 April 2015).

64    Anthony H. Cordesman, Iraq’s Insurgency and the Road to Civil Conflict, Volume 2 (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008), p. 517.

65    Joshua Partlow, Ann Scott Tyson, and Robin Wright, `Bomb Kills a Key Sunni Ally of US’, Washington Post, 14 September 2007.

66    Montgomery and McWilliams (eds), Al-Anbar Awakening, Volume II, p. 48.

67    ‘Operation Phantom Phoenix’, Institute for the Study of War [online] (http://www.understandingwar.org/operation/operation-phantom-phoenix) (accessed 25 March 2015).

68    Iraq Body Count, based on database 2007–10.

69    Bill Roggio, ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq Uses Disabled Women in Baghdad Bombings’, Long War Journal [online], 1 February 2008 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/02/al_qaeda_in_iraq_use.php) (accessed 25 March 2015).

70    ‘Twin Bombings Kill Scores in Baghdad’, CBS News [online], 1 February 2008 (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/twin-bombings-kill-scores-in-baghdad) (accessed 25 March 2015).

71    Roggio, ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq Uses Disabled Women in Baghdad Bombings’.

72    Roggio, ‘Letters from al Qaeda Leaders Show Iraqi Effort Is in Disarray’.

73    Ibid.

74    Zawahiri refers to the letter of 25 January 2008 in a later missive he wrote and signed on 6 March 2008: see Bill Roggio, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Tony Badran, ‘Intercepted Letters from al-Qaeda Leaders Shed Light on State of Network in Iraq’, Foundation for Defense of Democracies [online], 12 September 2008 (http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/intercepted-letters-from-al-qaeda-leaders-shed-light-on-state-of-network-in) (accessed 25 March 2015).

75    Ibid.

76    Otaibi was eventually killed during a battle in Paktia province, Afghanistan, in May 2008, according to Bill Roggio, ‘Pakistani Taliban, Iraqi al Qaeda Operatives Killed in Afghanistan’, Long War Journal [online], 11 May 2008 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/05/pakistani_taliban_ir.php) (accessed 30 April 2015).

77    Roggio, ‘Letters from al Qaeda Leaders Show Iraqi Effort Is in Disarray’.

78    Author interview, 2015.

79    Author interview, 2015.

 

 

8: Savagery under new management

 

  1    Nicholas A. Heras, ‘Former al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQ) “Governor” Executed by Iraqi Government’, Militant Leadership Monitor, 4:4, 2013.

  2    Scott Stewart, ‘Jihadists in Iraq: Down for the Count?’, Stratfor Global Intelligence [online], 29 April 2010 (https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100428_jihadists_iraq_down_count) (accessed 25 March 2015).

  3    Martin Chulov, Isis: The Inside Story, The Guardian, 11 December 2014.

  4    Martin Chulov, ‘My Husband the al-Qaida Kingpin’, The Guardian, 16 July 2010; Chulov, ‘Isis’.

  5    ‘Iraq Sentences al-Qaeda Chief’s Widow to Life’, AFP, 29 June 2011.

  6    Martin Chulov, ‘Al-Qaida Terrorist’s Widow to Be Hanged’, The Guardian, 9 May 2011.

  7    Stewart, ‘Jihadists in Iraq’.

  8    ‘Iraq: A Bleak Future for the Islamic State of Iraq?’, WikiLeaks, email ID 1324208, 18 October 2012 (https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/13/1324208_iraq-a-bleak-future-for-the-islamic-state-of-iraq-.html) (accessed 25 March 2015).

  9    Mike Mount, ‘Reward for Wanted Terrorist Drops’, CNN [online], 13 May 2008 (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/13/pentagon.masri.value) (accessed 25 March 2015).

10    Ibid., remark attributed to Jamie Graybeal, spokesman for US Central Command.

11    Author interview, 2015.

12    ‘Re: [CT] New AQI Leadership: al-Qurashi and al-Qurashi’, WikiLeaks, email ID 381027, 17 May 2010 (https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/38/381027_re-ct-new-aqi-leadership-al-qurashi-and-al-qurashi-.html) (accessed 25 March 2015).

13    Letter from Osama bin Laden to ‘Sheikh Mahmud’, Combatting Terrorism Centre at West Point [online], SOCOM 2012-0000019-HT, 4 July 2010 (https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/letter-from-ubl-to-atiyatullah-al-libi-4-original-language-2) (accessed 25 March 2015).

14    BBC News, Al-Qaeda ‘military leader’ Abu Suleiman killed in Iraq’, 25.2.11.

15    ‘Fw: [CT] [OS] IRAQ – Al Qaeda Members in Iraq, Shaving Their Beards, Wearing Jeans and Pledging Allegiance to Their Caliph by Mobilemessaging’, WikiLeaks, 28 May 2010, email ID 386943 (https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/38/386943_fw-ct-os-iraq-al-qaeda-members-in-iraq-shaving-their-beards.html) (accessed 25 March 2015).

16    Kieran Corcoran, ‘ISIS Terror Chief “Believed Dead”: Iraqi Military Confirm Warlord WAS Injured in US-led Airstrike as Speculation Grows Feared Jihadist Perished in Attack’, Mail Online, 10 November 2014 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2827728/ISIS-terror-chief-believed-dead-Iraqi-military-confirm-warlord-injured-led-airstrike-speculation-grows-feared-jihadist-perished-attack.html) (accessed 30 April 2015).

17    Martin Chulov and Kareem Shaheen, ‘Isis Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “Seriously Wounded in Airstrike”’, The Guardian, 21 April 2015.

18    Confidential source, 2015

19    Author interview, 2014.

20    Peter Beaumont, ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: The Isis Chief with the Ambition to Overtake al-Qaida’, The Guardian, 12 June 2014.

21    Bill Roggio, ‘ISIS Confirms Death of Senior Leader in Syria’, Long War Journal [online], 5 February 2014 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/02/isis_confirms_death.php) (accessed 25 March 2015).

22    See chapter 5.

23    See further Aaron Y. Zelin, ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Islamic State’s Driving Force’, BBC News [online], 31 July 2014 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28560449) (accessed 25 March 2015).

24    Ibid.

25    The Biography of Khalifa Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Amir Ul Mu’minin (Commander of the Believers), written, it is thought, by a Bahraini ideologue named Turki al-Binali under the pen name Abu Humam Bakr bin Abd al-Aziz al-Athari and originally published in July 2013.

26    Zelin, ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’.

27    Author interview, 2014.

28    The Biography of Khalifa Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

29    ‘Kopf des Kalifats’, Süddeutsche Zeitung [online], 18 February 2015 (http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/is-anfuehrer-al-baghdadi-kopf-des-kalifats-1.2356920) (accessed 25 March 2015).

30    Ibid.

31    Al Monitor, The many names of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, by Ali Hashem, 23.3.15.

32    The Biography of Khalifa Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

33    Ibid.

34    Author interview, 2014.

35    Ruth Sherlock, ‘How a Talented Footballer Became World’s Most Wanted Man, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’, The Telegraph [online], 11 November 2014 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10948846/How-a-talented-footballer-became-worlds-most-wanted-man-Abu-Bakr-al-Baghdadi.html) (accessed 25 March 2015).

36    Ibid.

37    Author interview, 2014.

38    ‘Youssef Qaradawi Says ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Was Once Muslim Brotherhood; First English Translation of Statement’, Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch [online], 21 October 2014 (http://www.globalmbwatch.com/2014/10/21/featured-youssef-qaradawi-isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-part-muslim-brotherhood-english-translation-statement) (accessed 25 March 2015). The article includes a link to the Qaradawi interview.

39    Musa Kahn Jalalzai, ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Afghanistan’, Daily Times (Pakistan), 20 January 2015.

40    ‘Lashkar-e-Jhangvi: Incidents and Statements involving Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’, South Asia Terrorism Portal [online] (http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/terroristoutfits/lej.htm) (accessed 25 March 2015).

41    See chapter 2. The group was then known as Sipah-e-Sahaba before a split.

42    Syed Ali Abbas Zaidi, ‘ISIS Links with Pakistan: Past and Present’, Laaltain [online], 9 July 2014 (http://www.laaltain.com/isis-links-pakistan-past-present) (accessed 25 March 2015).

43    Sherlock, ‘How a Talented Footballer Became World’s Most Wanted Man’.

44    Zeerak Fahim, ‘ISIS Chief Lived in Kabul During Taliban Rule’, Pajhwok Afghan News [online], 11 July 2014 (http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2014/07/11/isis-chief-lived-kabul-during-taliban-rule) (accessed 25 March 2015).

45    Ibid.

46    The Biography of Khalifa Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

47    Bill Roggio, ‘Joining al-Qaeda, Declining al-Qaeda’, Long War Journal [online], 31 January 2006 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2006/01/joining_alqaeda_decl.php) (accessed 24 March 2015).

48    Detainee personnel record for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

49    Author interview, 2014.

50    Author interview, 2015.

51    Email from James Skylar Gerrond, former US police captain at Camp Bucca, to author on 22 January 2015. Author interviewed Gerrond in 2014.

52    Richard Barrett, ‘The Islamic State’, Soufan Group, November 2014. This report lists many of the ex-Bucca inmates in senior IS positions.

53    Author interview, 2014.

54    Peter R. Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), pp. 151–3.

55    Ibid.

56    Author interview, 2015.

57    Author interview, 2014.

58    Lamiat Sabin, ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Profile: The Mysterious Leader of Isis – and Why He Is Called the ‘Invisible Sheikh’, Independent on Sunday, 9 November 2014.

59    See chapter 7.

60    Quoted in ‘A Jaysh al-Mujahideen Amir’s Testimony on Abu Bakr’, Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi’s blog, 12 December 2014 (http://www.aymennjawad.org/2014/12/a-jaysh-al-mujahideen-amir-testimony-on-abu-bakr) (accessed 26 March 2015).

61    ‘Kopf des Kalifats’, Süddeutsche Zeitung [online], 18 February 2015 (http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/is-anfuehrer-al-baghdadi-kopf-des-kalifats-1.2356920) (accessed 25 March 2015).

62    Quoted in Roggio, ‘Joining al-Qaeda, Declining al-Qaeda’.

63    The Biography of Khalifa Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

644    Martin Chulov, ‘Isis: The Inside Story’, The Guardian, 11 December 2014.

65    Jethro Mullen, Greg Botelho and Nic Robertson, ‘Source: Wife of ISIS Leader al-Baghdadi Arrested in Lebanon’, CNN [online], 3 December 2014 (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/02/world/meast/lebanon-isis-leader-family/index.html) (accessed 26 March 2015).

66    Al Monitor, the many names of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, by Ali Hashem, 23 March 2015.

67    The Biography of Khalifa Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

68    Author interview, 2014.

69    Christoph Reuter, ‘The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State’, Spiegel Online International, 18 April 2015 (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html) (accessed 29 April 2015).

70    Translation of Wikibaghdady, collected by Yousef bin Tashfin, 14–15 December 2013.

71    Reuter, ‘The Terror Strategist’.

72    Ibid.

73    Ibid.

74    Bill Roggio, ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq’s Security Minister Captured in Anbar’, Long War Journal [online], by 1 December 2010 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/12/al_qaeda_in_iraqs_se_1.php) (accessed 26 March 2015).

75    Sam Jones, ‘Opaque Structure Adds to Challenge of Defeating Isis’, Financial Times, 24 August 2014.

76    Iraq Body Count, the average of the three annual deaths totals for 2010 to 2012.

77    Translation of Wikibaghdady, 15 December 2013.

78    ‘Terrorist Designation of Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri’, media note, US Department of State [online], 4 October 2011 (http://m.state.gov/md174971.htm) (accessed 26 March 2015).

79    Author interview, 2015.

80    Martin Chulov, ‘Baghdad Church Siege Survivors Speak of Taunts, Killings and Explosions’, The Guardian, 1 November 2010.

81    Anthony Shadid, ‘Church Attack Seen as Strike at Iraq’s Core’, New York Times, 1 November 2010.

82    Author interview, 2014.

83    Raffi Khatchadourian, ‘Azzam the American: The Making of an al-Qaeda Homegrown’, New Yorker, 22 January 2007.

84    Letter from Adam Gadahn, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point [online], January 2011, SOCOM-2012-0000004 (https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/letter-from-adam-gadahn-original-language-2) (accessed 24 March 2015).

85    ‘Iraq’s Qaeda Pledges Support to Zawahiri, Vows Attacks’, Reuters, 9 May 2011.

86    Quoted in Bill Roggio, ‘Al-Qaeda Suicide Bomber Kills 28 Iraqis in Attack in Baghdad Mosque’, Long War Journal [online], 28 August 2011 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/08/al_qaeda_suicide_bom_4.php) (accessed 26 March 2015).

87    Ibid.

88    ‘String of Baghdad Attacks Kills at Least 69’, CBS News [online], 22 December 2011 (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/string-of-baghdad-attacks-kills-at-least-69) (accessed 26 March 2015).

89    Rania Abouzeid, ‘The Jihad Next Door: The Syrian Roots of Iraq’s Newest Civil War’, Politico [online], 23 June 2014 (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/al-qaeda-iraq-syria-108214.html#.VRPd-_ysX9V) (accessed 26 March 2015).

 

 

9: Shia folly

 

  1    See Chapter 1.

  2    Author interview with Brigadier General Saad Maan, recorded in Baghdad on 23 October 2014.

  3    Author interview, 2015.

  4    ‘Fake Bomb Detector Seller James McCormick Jailed’, BBC News [online], 2 May 2013 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22380368) (accessed 26 March 2015).

  5    Caroline Hawley and Meirion Jones, ‘Export Ban for Useless “Bomb “Detector”’, BBC Newsnight [online], 22 January 2010 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8471187.stm) (accessed 26 March 2015).

  6    Author interview, 2015; ‘James McCormick Guilty of Selling Fake Bomb Detectors’, BBC News [online], 23 April 2013 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22266051) (accessed 30 April 2015).

  7    The Guardian, Fake bomb detector conman jailed for 10 years, by Robert Booth, 2 May 2013.

  8    Suadad al Salhy, ‘Iraq Police Official Charged in Bomb Device Scandal’, Reuters, 17 February 2011.

  9    ‘Iraq Orders “Corruption” Arrests’, BBC News [online], 11 October 2005 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4329686.stm) (accessed 26 March 2015).

10    Dispatch filed by Caroline Hawley for BBC News on 11 October 2005.

11    Ibid.

12    ‘Corruption by Country/Territory: Iraq’, Transparency International [online] (http://www.transparency.org/country#IRQ) (accessed 26 March 2015).

13    Anthony H. Cordesman, Sam Khazai and Daniel Dewit, ‘Shaping Iraq’s Security Forces’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 16 December 2013, p. 29.

14    Anthony H. Cordesman and Sam Khazai, Iraq in Crisis (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), p. 134.

15    Ibid., p. 135.

16    Alexandra Zavis, ‘Iraqi Troops Not Ready to Go It Alone’, Los Angeles Times, 1 September 2008.

17    Sam Dagher, ‘Iraqi Report on Corruption Cites Prosecutors’ Barriers’, New York Times, 5 May 2009.

18    Fred Lambert, ‘Iraqi PM: Bagdad Govt. Paying Salaries of 50,000 Non-existent Iraqi Soldiers’, UPI [online], 30 November 2014 (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/11/30/Iraqi-PM-Baghdad-govt-paying-salaries-of-50000-non-existent-Iraqi-soldiers/1821417385384/?spt=sec&or=tn) (accessed 26 March 2015).

19    Author interview, 2015.

20    Author interview, 2015.

21    See chapter 5.

22    Author interview, 2015.

23    Quoted in Dexter Filkins, ‘What We Left Behind’, New Yorker, 28 April 2014.

24    Author interview, 2015.

25    ‘Severe Abuse at Ministry of Interior Site 4 Detention Facility’, WikiLeaks [online], 10 June 2006, canonical ID 06BAGHDAD1960_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06BAGHDAD1960_a.html) (accessed 26 March 2015)

26    Seymour M. Hersh, ‘Torture at Abu Ghraib’, New Yorker, 10 May 2004. This is a particularly thorough piece on the affair, based on a leaked official report into what happened.

27    Duncan Gardham and Paul Cruickshank, ‘Abu Ghraib Photos “Show Rape”’, The Telegraph [online], 27 May 2009 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html) (accessed 30 April 2015). Quote attributed to Major General (Retd.) Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq in 2004.

28    See also ‘Demarche to Iraqi Interior Minister on Site 4’, WikiLeaks [online], 7 August 2006, canonical ID 06BAGHDAD2842_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06BAGHDAD2842_a.html) (accessed 26 March 2015).

29    ‘Maliki Reshapes the National Security System’, WikiLeaks [online], 15 May 2007, canonical ID 07BAGHDAD1593_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07BAGHDAD1593_a.html) (accessed 26 March 2015).

30    Ibid.

31    ‘Majority Government Needed, PM Maliki Tells Codel McCain’, WikiLeaks [online], 11 July 2007, canonical ID 07BAGHDAD2298_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07BAGHDAD2298_a.html) (accessed 26 March 2015).

32    Andrew Slater, ‘The Monster of Mosul: How a Sadistic General Helped ISIS Win’, Daily Beast [online], 19 June 2014 (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/19/iraq-put-a-death-squad-commander-and-torturer-in-charge-of-mosul-no-wonder-isis-is-winning.html) (accessed 26 March 2015).

33    ‘Part 2 of 2: Sectarian Violence Forces Major Shift in Baghdad’, WikiLeaks [online], 12 July 2007, canonical ID 07BAGHDAD2318_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07BAGHDAD2318_a.html) (accessed 26 March 2015).

34    Arwa Damon, ‘Shadowy Iraq Office Accused of Sectarian Agenda’, CNN [online], 1 May 2007 (http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/01/iraq.office/index.html) (accessed 26 March 2015).

35    Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General Petraeus and the Search for a Way out of Iraq (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008), pp. 156–7.

36    Ibid, pp. 156–7.

37    ‘Maliki Reshapes the National Security System’, WikiLeaks [online], 15 May 2007, canonical ID 07BAGHDAD1593_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07BAGHDAD1593_a.html) (accessed 26 March 2015).

38    Author interview, 2015.

39    Ibid.

40    Ali Khedery, ‘Why We Stuck with Maliki and Lost Iraq’, Washington Post, 3 July 2014.

41    Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends, p. 260.

42    Peter R. Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), p. 215.

43    ‘Loose Ends: Iraq’s Security Forces between US Drawdown and Withdrawal’, Middle East Report No. 99, International Crisis Group, 26 October 2010, p. 28.

44    Ibid., p. 28

45    Martin Chulov, ‘Iraq Disbands Sunni Militia That Helped Defeat Insurgents’, The Guardian, 2 April 2009.

46    Rod Nordland, ‘Arrests of Sunni Leaders Rise in Baghdad’, New York Times, 29 July 2009.

47    Author interview, 2015.

48    Author interview, 2015.

49    ‘Iraq’s Secular Opposition: The Rise and Decline of al-Iraqiya’, Middle East Report No. 127, International Crisis Group, 31 July 2012.

50    Author interview, 2015

51    ‘Iraq’s Secular Opposition: The Rise and Decline of al-Iraqiya’, p. 22.

52    Quoted ibid.

53    Cordesman and Khazai, Iraq in Crisis, p. 96.

54    Author interview, 2015.

55    Lara Jakes and Rebecca Santana, ‘Iraq Withdrawal: US Abandoning Plans to Keep Troops In Country’, AP, 15 October 2011.

56    Martin Chulov, ‘Saddam Hussein Deputy Tariq Aziz Calls for US Forces to Stay in Iraq’, The Guardian, 5 August 2010.

57    ‘Iraqi General Says Planned US Troop Pull-out ‘Too Soon’, BBC News [online], 12 August 2010 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10947918) (accessed 26 March 2015).

58    Author interview, 2015.

59    Kareem Raheem, ‘Iraq Blasts Kill 100 as Fugitive VP Gets Death Sentence’, Reuters [online], 9 December 2012 (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/09/09/us-iraq-hashemi-idUKBRE88806O20120909) (accessed 26 March 2015).

60    Ibid.

61    Author interview, 2015.

62    Sinan Salaheddin and Adam Schreck, ‘Iraq Confirms Arrest of Minister’s Bodyguards’, The Washington Post, 21 December 2012.

63    Patrick Markey and Raheem Salmani, ‘Protests Erupt after Iraqi Minister’s Staff Detained’, Daily Star (Lebanon), 22 December 2012.

 

 

10: Scourge of Syria

 

  1    Author interview.

  2    In Arabic, ISIS is often referred to as Da’esh, which is an acronym for the full name of the group between April 2013 and June 2014, ad-Dawlat al-Islamiyah fi al-Iraq wash-Sham.

  3    Author interview, 2015.

  4    Al-Manarah al-Bayda Foundation for Media production, audio message from Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, rejection of merger of Nusra with ISI to form ISIS, 10 April 2013; in it Jawlani suggests it was he who suggested to Baghdadi the idea of heading a team to Syria in 2011.

  5    Bill Roggio, ‘Al Nusrah Front Claims Credit for Suicide Bombing in Damascus’, Long War Journal [online], 30 April 2012 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/04/al_nusrah_front_clai_1.php) (accessed 30 March 2015).

  6    ‘Jabhat al-Nusra’, Mapping Militant Organizations [online] (http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/493) (accessed 30 March 2015).

  7    Jennifer Cafarella, ‘Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria: An Islamic Emirate for al-Qaeda’, Middle East Security Report 25, Institute for the Study of War, December 2014.

  8    Author interview, 2015.

  9    ‘The Collapse of Syria’s “Moderate” Rebels’, Soufan Group [online], 3 March 2015 (http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrief-the-collapse -of-syrias-moderate-rebels) (accessed 30 March 2015) estimates 1,600 rebel groups.

10    Bill Roggio, ‘Al Nusra Front Claims Complex Suicide Assault on Syrian Army HQ’, Long War Journal [online], 28 September 2012 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/09/al_nusrah_front_clai_5.php) (accessed 30 March 2015). This article reveals that by late September 2012, Nusra had ‘claimed responsibility’ for twenty-four of the thirty-one suicide attacks in the Syrian civil war.

11    Bill Roggio, ‘Al Nusrah Front Seizes Control of Syrian City of Raqqah’, Long War Journal [online], 8 March 2013 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/03/al_nusrah_front_seiz_1.php) (accessed 30 March 2015).

12    See Chapter 8 and Bill Roggio, ‘ISIS Confirms Death of Senior Leader in Syria’, Long War Journal [online], 5 February 2014 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/02/isis_confirms_death.php) (accessed 25 March 2015).

13    Christoph Reuter, ‘The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State’, Spiegel Online International, 18 April 2015 (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html) (accessed 29 April 2015).

14    Wikibaghdady, 15 December 2013.

15    Wikibaghdady, 15 December 2013.

16    Al Manarah al Bayda Foundation for Media production, audio message from Abu Muhammad al Jawlani, rejection of merger of Nusra with ISI to form ISIS, 10 April 2013.

17    Letter of Ayman al-Zawahiri, to the leaders of Islamic State of Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra in al-Sham; see Basma Atassi, ‘Qaeda Chief Annuls Syrian–Iraqi Jihad Merger’, Aljazeera [online], 9 June 2013 (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/2013699425657882.html) (accessed 30 March 2015).

18    Ibid.

19    ‘Iraqi al-Qaeda Chief Rejects Zawahiri Orders’, Aljazeera [online], 15 June 2013 (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/ 2013615172217827810.html) (accessed 30 March 2015).

20    Wikibaghdady, 20 December 2013.

21    Wikibaghdady, 8 January 2014.

22    Wikibaghdady, 12 January 2014.

23    Author interview, 2015.

24    Interview with Hassan Aboud, head of the political bureau of the Islamic Front, Aljazeera, 4 December 2014.

25    ‘Senior FSA Opposition Commander Killed by Rival ISIL’, Alalam [online], 15 March 2014 (http://en.alalam.ir/news/1576069) (accessed 30 March 2015).

26    Michael Peel, ‘Syrian Rebel Infighting Grows as al-Qaeda Kills Rival Commander’, Financial Times, 12 July 2013.

27    Valerie Szybala, ‘Syrian Rebels Attack ISIS’, Institute for the Study of War Syria Updates [online], 5 January 2014 (http://iswsyria.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/syrian-rebels-attack-isis.html) (accessed 30 March 2015).

28    Richard Spencer, ‘Al-Qaeda-linked Rebels Apologise after Cutting Off Head of Wrong Person’, The Telegraph [online], 14 November 2013 (http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:DTSTL&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=14A1869319AB9820&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=126A5C6AD2F04B4F98782CE44224BC4F) (accessed 30 March 2015).

29    Aron Lund, ‘Syria’s Ahrar al-Sham Leadership Wiped Out in Bombing’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [online], 9 September 2014 (http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=56581) (accessed 30 March 2015).

30    Reuter, ‘The Terror Strategist’.

31    ‘ISIS, Opposition Factions in Raqqa Discuss Captive Exchange’, Syrian Observer [online], 11 May 2014 (http://syrianobserver. com/EN/News/26866/ISI S+Opposition+Factions+in+Raqqa+ Discuss+Captive+Exchange) (accessed 30 April 2015), from a story by al-Quds al-Arabi.

32    Romain Caillet, ‘The Islamic State: Leaving al-Qaeda Behind’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [online], 27 December 2013 (http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=54017) (accessed 30 March 2015).

33    ‘How Did Raqqa Fall to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria?’, SyriaUntold [online], 8 January 2014 (http://www.syriauntold.com/en/2014/01/how-did-raqqa-fall-to-the-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-syria) (accessed 30 March 2015).

34    Author interview.

35    Patrick Cockburn, ‘Dozens Die as Anger Spreads over Iraq Army Raid on Protest Camp’, The Independent, 23 April 2013.

36    See Chapter 4.

37    Author interview, 2015.

38    ‘Iraqi PM Warns against “Sectarian War’”, Aljazeera [online], 25 April 2013 (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/04/2013425123452971800.html) (accessed 30 March 2015).

39    Author interview, 2015.

40    ‘Iraq Sunni Unrest Prompts TV Channel Licence Suspension’, BBC News [online], 28 April 2013 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22329641) (accessed 30 March 2015).

41    ‘Iraqi PM Warns against “Sectarian War’”.

42    ‘Iraq Jailbreaks: Hundreds Escape in Taji and Abu Ghraib’, BBC News [online], 22 July 2013 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23403564) (accessed 30 March 2015).

43    Iraq Body Count, 2012 and 2013; the average annual death toll in Iraq for the period 2003–14, including the 2006, 2007 and 2014 outliers, is 12,533.

44    Iraq Body Count, 2012 and 2013.

45    See Alex Bilger, ‘ISIS Annual Reports Reveal Metrics-driven Military Command’, Institute for the Study of War, 22 May 2014.

46    See Chapter 7.

47    ‘Bomb Attack Kills Officers in Iraq’s Anbar Province’, BBC News [online], 21 December 2013 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25478063) (accessed 30 March 2015).

48    ‘Maliki’s Policies: The Quest for Salvation at Iraq’s Expense’, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies [online], 9 January 2014 (http://english.dohainstitute.org/release/05adf2f2-29bc-4b67-a115-b37a0476b365) (accessed 30 March 2015).

49    Kirk H. Sowell, ‘Maliki’s Anbar Blunder’, Foreign Policy [online], 15 January 2014 (http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/01/15/malikis-anbar-blunder) (accessed 30 March 2015).

50    Garrett Brinker and Nigel Cory, ‘Violence, Distrust, and Instability: Iraq’s Future in Uncertain Times’, Georgetown Public Policy Review [online], 13 March 2014 (http://gppreview.com/2014/03/13/violence-distrust-and-instability-iraqs-future-in-uncertain-times) (accessed 30 March 2015).

51    ‘Iraq MP Ahmed al Alwani Arrested in Deadly Ramadi Raid’, BBC News [online], 28 December 2013 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25534541) (accessed 30 March 2015).

52    AFP, ‘Iraq Sentences Sunni Ex-MP to Death for Murder’, Daily Mail, 23 November 2014.

53    ‘Maliki’s Policies’.

54    Mushreq Abbas, ‘Resolution of Anbar Crisis Requires Security, Political Coordination’, tr. Kamal Fayad, Al Monitor [online], 3 January 2014 (http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/01/iraq-anbar-protests-crisis-security-political-solution.html) (accessed 30 March 2015).

55    Thomas Joscelyn, ‘Chechen-led Group Swears Allegiance to Head of Islamic State of Iraq and Sham’, Long War Journal [online], 27 November 2013 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/11/muhajireen_army_swea.php) (accessed 30 March 2015).

56    Caillet, ‘The Islamic State’.

57    Ibid.

58    Yasir Ghazi and Tim Arango, ‘Iraq Fighters, Qaeda Allies, Claim Fallujah as New State’, New York Times, 3 January 2014.

59    ‘Iraqi City in Hands of al-Qaida-linked Militants’, Voice of America [online], 4 January 2014 (http://www.voanews.com/content/iraqi-city-in-hands-of-alqaidalinked-militants/1823591.html) (accessed 30 March 2015).

60    Author interview, 2015.

61    Brian Michael Jenkins, ‘Brothers Killing Brothers: The Current Infighting Will Test al-Qaeda’s Brand’, Rand Corporation, 2014.

62    Aron Lund, ‘Who and What Was Abu Khalid al-Suri? Part 1’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [online], 24 February 2014 (http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=54618) (accessed 30 March 2015).

63    Translation of statement by Ayman al-Zawahiri, acknowledging ISIS is not part of al-Qaeda, 3 February 2014.

64    Ibid.

65    Ellen Knickmeyer, ‘Al-Qaeda Disavows Rebel Group Fighting Syrian Regime’, Wall Street Journal, 3 February 2014.

66    ‘Global Overview 2014: People Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence’, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, May 2014, p. 59.

67    Ibid., pp. 13–14.

68    See Chapter 9.

69    See Chapter 9.

70    Report, ‘Analysis: What We Talk about When We Talk about Iraq and Syria’, Caerus Associates [online] (http://caerusassociates.com/ideas/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-iraq-and-syria) (accessed 30 March 2015); Yasir Abbas and Dan Trombly, ‘Inside the Collapse of the Iraq Army’s 2nd Division’, War on the Rocks [online], 1 July 2014 (http://warontherocks.com/2014/07/inside-the-collapse-of-the-iraqi-armys-2nd-division) (accessed 30 March 2015).

71    Ibid.

72    Wladimir van Wilgenburg, ‘ISIS Seen as Liberators by Some Sunnis in Mosul’, Al Monitor [online], 11 June 2014 (http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/06/isis-mosul-takeover-residents-blame-iraqi-army.html) (accessed 30 March 2015).

73    ‘Iraq: Abusive Commander Linked to Mosul Killings’, Human Rights Watch [online], 11 June 2013 (http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/11/iraq-abusive-commander-linked-mosul-killings) (accessed 30 March 2015).

74    Ned Parker, Isabel Coles and Raheem Salman, ‘Special Report: How Mosul Fell – An Iraqi General Disputes Baghdad’s Story’, Reuters [online], 14 October 2014 (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/10/14/us-mideast-crisis-gharawi-special-report-idUKKCN0I30Z820141014) (accessed 30 March 2015).

75    Ibid.

76    Ibid.

77    Hugh Naylor, ‘Maliki Ignored ISIL Warnings before Mosul’s Fall, Says City’s Governor’, The National [online], 18 June 2014 (http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/maliki-ignored-isil-warnings-before-mosulx2019s-fall-says-cityx2019s-governor) (accessed 30 March 2015).

78    Author interview, 2015.

79    Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Human Rights Office, ‘Report on the Protection of Civilians in the Armed Conflict in Iraq: 5 June to 5 July 2014’, p. 11.

80    Ibid., pp. 10–12.

81    Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Human Rights Office, ‘Report on the Protection of Civilians in the Armed Conflict in Iraq: 5 June to 5 July 2014’, p. 10.

82    Author interview.

 

 

11: The furnace of war

 

  1    ‘Iraq Kurdistan Independence Referendum Planned’, BBC News [online], 1 July 2014 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28103124) (accessed 21 April 2015).

  2    See Chapter 7.

  3    Author interview 2014; the figure for murdered Christians in the parish of St George’s Baghdad is as of 6 July 2014, the date of the interview.

  4    See Chapter 8.

  5    See Chapter 7.

  6    Nissim Rejwan, The Last Jews of Baghdad, Remembering a Lost Homeland (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004); the last Ottoman yearbook in 1917 for Baghdad numbers 80,000 Jews among the city’s 202,200 inhabitants. This is also the subject of The Last Jews of Iraq, a programme on BBC Radio 4, broadcast on 4 December 2011 and presented by Alan Yentob.

  7    Naomi E. Pasachoff and Robert J. Littman, A Concise History of the Jewish People (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), p. 310.

  8    Reverend Canon Andrew White, sermon to congregation of St George’s Church, Baghdad, 6 July 2014.

  9    Mailonline, Four young Christians brutally beheaded by ISIS for refusing to convert to Islam, says British Vicar of Baghdad forced to flee, by Tim MacFarlan, 12 December 2014. Based on the interview Canon Andrew White gave to Orthodox Christian News, Before Being Killed Children Told ISIS ‘No, We Love Jesus’, 28 November 2014.

10    ‘What Comes to You of Good Is from Allah: Message from Abu Muhammad al-Adnani al-Shami, Spokesman of Islamic State of Iraq and Sham’, al-Furqan media centre, 12 June 2014.

11    AFP, ‘ISIS Destroys Shrines, Shiite Mosques in Iraq’, Al Arabiya News [online], 5 July 2014 (http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/07/05/ISIS-destroys-Shiite-mosques-shrines-in-Iraq.html) (accessed 21 April 2015).

13    Author interview, 2014.

14    Tim Arango, ‘Escaping Death in Northern Iraq’, New York Times, 3 September 2014.

15    ‘Iraqi Teams Exhume Mass Graves of Soldiers in Tikrit’, BBC News [online], 7 April 2015 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32197107) (accessed 21 April 2015).

15    Author interview, Canon Reverend Andrew White, July 2014.

16    ‘What Comes to You of Good Is from Allah’.

17    Hayder al-Khoei, ‘Could Isis Take Iraqi’s Capital?’, New Statesman, 19 June 2014.

18    Daniel Howden, ‘Sistani Renounces Fatwa on Gays’, The Independent, 16 May 2006.

19    The Official Website of the Office of His Eminence Al-Sayyid Ali al-Hussein al-Sistani (http://www.sistani.org/english) (accessed 21 April 2015).

20    Mark Oliver, Laura Smith and news agencies, ‘Shia Shrine Blasts Spark Reprisal Attacks’, The Guardian, 22 February 2006.

21    Thomas L. Friedman, ‘A Nobel for Sistani’, New York Times, 20 March 2005.

22    Ali Mamouri, ‘Sistani Issues Fatwa against Sectarian Violence in Iraq’, Al Monitor [online], 11 October 2013 (http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/10/iraqi-moderates-manage-sectarianism.html) (accessed 21 April 2015).

23    Abbas Kadhim and Luay Al Khateeb, ‘What Do You Know about Sistani’s Fatwa?’, Huff Post Politics [online], 7 October 2014 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luay-al-khatteeb/what-do-you-know-about-si_b_5576244.html) (accessed 21 April 2015).

24    Dina al-Shibeeb, ‘Sistani’s Disapproval of Maliki is Bad Elections News for the Premier’, Al Arabiya News [online], 24 April 2014 (http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/2014/04/24/Sistani-s-disproval-of-Maliki-is-bad-elections-news-for-the-premier.html) (accessed 21 April 2015).

25    Nour Malas, ‘Iraqi Leader Maliki Loses Backing of Shiite Figure and Iran for New Term’, Wall Street Journal, 22 July 2014.

26    ‘Iraq Crisis: Maliki Quits as PM to End Deadlock’, BBC News [online], 15 August 2014 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28798033) (accessed 21 April 2015).

27    Farnaz Fassihi, ‘Iran Deploys Forces to Fight al Qaeda-Inspired Militants in Iraq’, Wall Street Journal, 12 June 2014.

28    Dexter Filkins, ‘The Shadow Commander’, New Yorker, 30 September 2013.

29    Bill Roggio, ‘Mugniyah behind Establishment of Mahdi Army’, Long War Journal [online], 23 February 2008 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/02/mugniyah_behind_esta.php) (accessed 21 April 2015).

30    Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, ‘Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and “Other Means”’, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, October 2008, p. 6.

31    Confidential briefing, 2014

32    Nancy Trejos and Robin Wright, ‘Iranians Captured inside Iraq’, Washington Post, 12 January 2007.

33    Bill Roggio, ‘Iran Continues to Train Shia Terror Groups for Attacks in Iraq’, Long War Journal [online], 15 August 2008 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/08/map_details_irans_op.php) (accessed 21 April 2015).

34    The five main militias are the Badr Brigades (or Badr Corps or Badr Organization), the Mahdi Army, the Saraya al-Salam (an offshoot of Mahdi Army), the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and the Kata’ib Hizbullah (Hizbullah Brigades), reportedly another offshoot of the Mahdi Army’s ‘special groups’.

35    See Chapter 4.

36    ‘Absolute Impunity, Militia rule in Iraq’, Amnesty International, October 2014, pp. 6–7.

37    ‘Iraq Tikrit: Looting and Lawlessness Follow Recapture’, BBC News [online], 4 April 2015 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32181503) (accessed 30 April 2015).

38    See Chapter 5.

39    Bill Roggio, ‘“Shiite Zarqawi” Returns to Baghdad from Iran’, Long War Journal [online], 21 August 2010 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/08/shiite_zarqawi_retur.php) (accessed 23 March 2015).

40    To complicate matters further, Badr left SCIRI following the 2006–7 civil war in Iraq; SCIRI, then renamed the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), established a new militia called the Knights of Hope.

41    See Chapter 5.

42    Felter and Fishman, ‘Iranian Strategy in Iraq’, pp. 7–8.

43    Ibid., pp. 7–8.

44    Author interview, 2013.

45    See Chapter 9.

46    Author interview, 2013.

47    ‘Iranian advisor clarifies “Baghdad capital of Iranian empire” remark’, Al Arabiya [online], 13 March 2015 (http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/03/13/Iranian-advisor-clarifies-Baghdad-capital-of-Iranian-empire-remark.html) (accessed 21 April 2015).

48    ‘Iran President’s Advisor’s [sic] Responds to Iraq Criticism’, Alalam [online], 11 March 2015 (http://en.alalam.ir/news/1684363) (accessed 21 April 2015).

 

 

12: Car bombs and other expenses

 

  1    Author interview, 2013.

  2    Alex Bilger, ‘ISIS Annual Reports Reveal Metrics-driven Military Command’, Institute for the Study of War, 22 May 2014, p. 10.

  3    See Chapter 4.

  4    ‘Pakistan “Catches al-Qaeda Chief”’, BBC News [online], 4 May 2005 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4512885.stm) (accessed 21 April 2015).

  5    Letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 9 July 2005.

  6    See Chapters 6 and 7.

  7    John F. Burns and Kirk Semple, ‘US Finds Iraq Insurgency Has Funds to Sustain Itself’, New York Times, 26 November 2006.

  8    Ibid.

  9    Wikibaghdady, 14 December 2013.

10    Richard Spencer, ‘Militant Islamist Group in Syria Orders Christians to Pay Tax for Their Protection’, The Telegraph [online], 27 February 2014 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10666204/Militant-Islamist-group-in-Syria-orders-Christians-to-pay-tax-for-their-protection.html) (accessed 30 April 2015).

11    Joseph Thorndike, ‘How ISIS Is Using Taxes to Build a Terrorist State’, Forbes [online], 18 August 2014 (http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2014/08/18/how-isis-is-using-taxes-to-build-a-terrorist-state/) (accessed 30 April 2015).

12    Ibid.

13    Bilger, ‘ISIS Annual Reports Reveal Metrics-driven Military Command’, p. 10.

14    Ibid., p.10. Car bomb totals include vehicle suicide bombings known as SVBIEDs, or suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.

15    Jessica D. Lewis, ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq Resurgent’, Middle East Security Report 14, Institute for the Study of War, September 2013, p. 7.

16    See Chapter 10.

17    Jessica Lewis, ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’s “Breaking the Walls” Campaign Achieves Its Objectives at Abu Ghraib’, Institute for the Study of War Iraq Updates [online], 28 July 2013 (http://iswiraq.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/al-qaeda-in-iraqs-breaking-walls.html) (accessed 21 April 2015).

18    Lewis, ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq Resurgent’, p. 7.

19    Duraid Adnan, ‘Wave of Car Bombs Kills Dozens in Iraq’, International New York Times, 29 July 2013.

20    Lewis, ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq Resurgent’, p. 21.

21    Elizabeth Dickinson, ‘Playing with Fire: Why Private Gulf Financing for Syria’s Extremist Rebels Risks Igniting Sectarian Conflict at Home’, Analysis Paper 16, Saban Centre at Brookings, December 2013, p. 12.

22    Martin Chulov, ‘How an Arrest in Iraq Revealed Isis’s $2 Billion Jihadist Network’, The Guardian [online], 15 June 2014 (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/15/iraq-isis-arrest-jihadists-wealth-power) (accessed 30 April 2015).

23    Jack Moore, ‘Mosul Seized: Jihadis Loot $429m from City’s Central Bank to Make Isis World’s Richest Terror Force’, International Business Times [online], 11 June 2014 (http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mosul-seized-jihadis-loot-429m-citys-central-bank-make-isis-worlds-richest-terror-force-1452190) (accessed 30 April 2015).

24    Jeffrey Bender, ‘Iraqi Bankers Say ISIS Never Stole $430 Million from Mosul Banks’, Business Insider [online], 17 July 2014 (http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-never-stole-430-million-from-banks-2014-7?IR=T) (accessed 30 April 2015).

25    Vasudevan Sridharan, ‘List of World’s Richest Terror Networks Revealed’, International Business Times [online], 12 November 2014 (http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/list-worlds-richest-terror-networks-unveiled-1474351) (accessed 30 April 2015).

26    ‘Iraqi PM Maliki says Saudi, Qatar Openly Funding Violence in Anbar’, Reuters, 9 March 2014.

27    Ramtanu Maitra, ‘ISIS: Saudi-Qatari-funded Wahhabi Terrorists Worldwide’, Executive Intelligence Review, 29 August 2014.

28    Madawi Al-Rasheed, ‘The Wahhabis and the Ottoman Caliphate, The Memory of Historical Antagonism’, in Demystifying the Caliphate: Historical Memory and Contemporary Contexts, ed. Madawi Al-Rasheed, Carol Kersten and Marat Shterin (London: Hurst, 2013), pp. 118–28.

29    ‘Saudis Said Failing to Crack Down on al Qaeda Donors’, Reuters, 12 September 2007.

30    Steve Clemons, ‘“Thank God for the Saudis”: ISIS, Iraq, and the Lessons of Blowback’, The Atlantic, 23 June 2014.

31    Chris Zambelis, ‘To Topple the Throne: Islamic State sets its Sights on Saudi Arabia’, Terrorism Monitor, 13:5, 2015.

32    Ibid.

33    Council on Foreign Relations, The Sunni-Shia Divide, A CFR Info Guide Presentation, HYPERLINK “http://www.cfr.org/peace-conflict-and-human-rights/sunni-shia-divide/p33176” \l “!/” http://www.cfr.org/peace-conflict-and-human-rights/sunni-shia-divide/p33176#!/

34    ‘Ambassador [Zalmay] Khalilzad Seeks Post-Iraqi Elections Support from Saudi Leaders’, WikiLeaks [online], 2 January 2006, canonical ID 06RIYADH7_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06RIYADH7_a.html) (accessed 21 April 2015).

35    Ibid.

36    Author interview, 2015.

37    See Chapter 7 for more details.

38    Brian Fishman (ed.), ‘Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: Al-Qaida’s Road in and out of Iraq’, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, July 2008, pp. 34–5.

39    Lori Plotkin Boghardt, ‘Saudi Funding of ISIS’, PolicyWatch 2275, Washington Institute [online], 23 June 2014 (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/saudi-funding-of-isis) (accessed 21 April 2015).

40    Wikibaghdady, 27 December 2013.

41    ‘Quilliam Exclusive: Alleged Leaks from Islamic State Reveal International Network of bribery’, Quilliam [online], 14 November 2014 (http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/blog/quilliam-exclusive-alleged-leaks-from-islamic-state-reveal-international-network-of-bribery/) (accessed 21 April 2015).

42    Wikibaghdady, 20 December 2013.

43    Wikibaghdady, 20 December 2013.

44    ‘Terrorist Finance: Action Request for Senior Level Engagement on Finance’, WikiLeaks [online], 30 December 2009, canonical ID 09STATE131801_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09STATE131801_a.html) (accessed 21 April 2015).

45    Ibid.

46    ‘Saudi Interior Ministry Briefs Special Advisor Holbrooke and Treasury DAS Glaser on Terrorism Finance’, WikiLeaks [online], 29 May 2009, canonical ID 09RIYADH716_a (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09RIYADH716_a.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

47    Boghardt, ‘Saudi Funding of ISIS’.

48    Ibid.

49    Author interview, 2014.

50    Author interview, 2015.

51    David Rhode, ‘Libya Peace Talks May Be Doomed by Meddling Powers: US’, Reuters, 8 December 2014.

52    ‘Qatar Pays Price for Its Generous Support to Muslim Brotherhood’, Middle East Online, 11 May 2013 (http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=58685) (accessed 22 April 2015).

53    ‘German Minister Accuses Qatar of Funding Islamic State Fighters’, Reuters [online], 20 August 2014 (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/08/20/uk-iraq-security-germany-qatar-idUKKBN0GK1I220140820) (accessed 22 April 2015).

54    Ibid.

55    Dickinson, ‘Playing with Fire’, p. 1.

56    Ibid., p. 1.

57    ‘Turkish–Iranian Rivalry on the Rise’, Daniel Pipes [online], 25 July 2011, updated 6 April 2015 (http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/07/turkish-iranian-rivalry-on-the-rise) (accessed 22 April 2015).

58    As of February 2015, Professor Aktay sat on the AKP’s Central Decision and Executive Council (MKYK), which is chaired by President Erdoğan.

59    Author interview, 2015.

 

 

13: ‘Long live death!’

 

  1    See Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, Constitutional Analysis of the Constitution of Madina [sic], Article 30.

  2    Ibid., Article 29.

  3    ‘Islamic State “Accepts” Boko Haram’s Allegiance Pledge’, BBC News [online], 13 March 2015 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-31862992) (accessed 22 April 2015).

  4    ‘The Bay’ah from West Africa’, Dabiq 8, 2015, pp. 14–15.

  5    Erin Banco, ‘ISIS Establishes Stronghold In Derna, Libya’, International Business Times [online], 10 November 2014 (http://www.ibtimes.com/isis-establishes-stronghold-derna-libya-1721425) (accessed 30 April 2015).

  6    One of the twenty-one victims, a national of Chad, is said not to have been a Christian, but chose their fate after seeing his Coptic friends die, and then refusing to reject Christ. Before being murdered he is reported to have said, ‘Their God is my God.’

  7    ‘Daesh (ISIS) Releases Video of Beheading 21 Kidnapped Egyptians + video’, Alalam [online], 15 February 2015 (http://en.alalam.ir/news/1676783) (accessed 22 April 2015).

  8    Maggie Michael, ‘Isis Beheading of Coptic Christians: The Egyptian Village Wracked by Grief for Young Men Killed by Militants’, The Independent [online], 17 February 2015 (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-beheading-of-coptic-christians-the-egyptian-village-wracked-by-grief-for-young-men-killed-by-militants-10051487.html?origin=internalSearch) (accessed 30 April 2015).

  9    A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross, Al Hayat Media Center, video posted on 15 February 2015.

10    ‘IS Releases new “Killing”  Video of Ethiopian Christians’, BBC News [online], 20 April 2015 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32373166) (accessed 30 April 2015).

11    Ruth Sherlock, ‘Islamic State: Inside the Latest City to Fall under Its Sway’, The Telegraph [online], 10 March 2015 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/11460124/How-Gaddafis-home-city-in-Libya-fell-under-the-rule-of-Islamic-State-jihadists.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

12    ‘Remaining and Expanding’, Dabiq 5, 2014, pp. 22–33.

13    ‘French Hostage Herve Gourdel Beheaded in Algeria’, BBC News [online], 24 September 2014 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29352537) (accessed 30 April 2015).

14    Radwan Mortada, ‘Khorasan Pledge Splits al-Qaeda’, Alakhbar English [online], 23 April 2014 (http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/19516) (accessed 22 April 2015).

15    The Independent, Isis accused of beheading captives in Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk as advance towards Syrian capital Damascus continues, by Adam Withnall, 6 April 2015.

16    Graeme Wood, ‘What ISIS Really Wants’, The Atlantic, March 2015.

17    ‘Remaining and Expanding’.

18    The Washington Post, What the 60-plus  members of the anti-Islamic State coalition are doing, by Sebastian Payne, 25 September 2014.

19    ‘ISIS Militants Execute Six Opponents in Raqqa’, ARA News [online], 3 February 2015 (http://aranews.net/2015/02/isis-militants-execute-six-opponents-raqqa/) (accessed 22 April 2015).

20    Ruth Sherlock, Yilmaz Ibrahim Pasha and Magdy Samaan, ‘Islamic State Foiled in Attempt to Kidnap Syrian Rebel Leader in Turkey’, The Telegraph [online], 19 October 2014 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11173013/Islamic-State-foiled-in-attempt-to-kidnap-Syrian-rebel-leader-in-Turkey.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

21    Reuters, ‘Iraq Says Over 300 Tribe Members Killed by ISIS’, Al Arabiya [online], 3 November 2014 (http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/11/03/Iraq-says-322-tribe-members-killed.html) (accessed 30 April 2015).

22    Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss, ‘Islamic State Overruns Town in Anbar, Executes Awakening Fighters’, Long War Journal [online], 14 December 2014 (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/12/islamic_state_overruns_town_in.php) (accessed 30 April 2015).

23    Simon Tomlinson, ‘The Caliphate’s Food Queues: Hundreds Queue for Hours as They Wait for Food in ISIS Capital’, Mail Online, 7 April 2015 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3028921/The-photographs-ISIS-WON-T-posting-propaganda-Hundreds-queue-hours-wait-food-caliphate-s-capital.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

24    Abu Mohammed, ‘Pollution Aggravates Leishmaniasis inside Raqqa’, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently [online], 20 March 2015 (http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=840) (accessed 22 April 2015).

25    The photos were supplied to Mail Online and other media outlets by the website Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently.

26    See Chapter 2.

27    See Chapter 7.

28    Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), p. 50.

29    Al-Furqan Media Center, Islamic State, Audio message by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, posted 14 May 2015 by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor, ‘In New Audio Speech, Islamic State (ISIS) Leader Al-Baghdadi Issues Call to Arms to All Muslims’.

30    See Chapter 10.

31    ‘How Did Raqqa Fall to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria?’, SyriaUntold [online], 8 January 2014 (http://www.syriauntold.com/en/2014/01/how-did-raqqa-fall-to-the-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-syria) (accessed 30 March 2015).

32    Mosul Eye community, Facebook, 19 April 2015.

33    Author interview, 2015.

34    See Chapter 10.

35    See Chapter 7.

36    Abu Mohammed, ‘ISIS Prevents Dentists from Curing Women’, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently [online], 20 April 2015 (http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=994) (accessed 22 April 2015).

37    Tim Arango, ‘Sunni Extremists in Iraq Seize 3 Towns from Kurds and Threaten Major Dam’, New York Times, 3 August 2014.

38    Steve Hopkins, ‘Full Horror of the Yazidis Who Didn’t Escape Mount Sinjar: UN Confirms 5,000 Men Were Executed and 7,000 Women Are Now Kept as Sex Slaves’, Mail Online, 14 October 2014 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2792552/full-horror-yazidis-didn-t-escape-mount-sinjar-confirms-5-000-men-executed-7-000-women-kept-sex-slaves.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

39    See ‘Islamic State (ISIS) Releases Pamphlet on Female Slaves’, MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor [online], 4 December 2014 (http://www.memrijttm.org/islamic-state-isis-releases-pamphlet-on-female-slaves.html) (accessed 30 April 2015).

40    See Chapters 6 and 7.

41    ‘The Revival of Slavery before the Hour’, Dabiq 4, 2014. p. 14.

42    Ibid., p. 15.

43    Ibid., p. 15.

44    Ibid., p. 16.

45    ‘Iraq: ISIS Escapees Describe Systematic Rape’, Human Rights Watch [online], 15 April 2015 (http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/14/iraq-isis-escapees-describe-systematic-rape) (accessed 22 April 2015).

46    Ibid.

47    Abu Mohammed, ‘ISIS Fighters Are Desperately Trying to Obtain VIAGRA, Spending Money on Kinky Underwear for Their “Wives”…Then Subjecting Them to “Brutal, Abnormal” Sex Acts According to Doctors in Syria’, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently [online], 17 February 2015 (http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=589) (accessed 22 April 2015).

48    Ibid.

49    Hisham al-Hashimi and Telegraph Interactive Team, ‘Revealed: The Islamic State “Cabinet”, from Finance Minister to Suicide Bomb Deployer’, The Telegraph [online], 9 July 2014 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10956193/Revealed-the-Islamic-State-cabinet-from-finance-minister-to-suicide-bomb-deployer.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

50    Charles Lister, ‘Islamic State Senior Leadership: Who’s Who’, available at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2014/11/profiling-islamic-state-lister/en_whos_who.pdf?la=en (accessed 22 April 2015).

51    ‘The Rise of ISIS’, Frontline, PBS, 28 October 2014. Source: The Soufan Group.

52    Christoph Reuter, ‘The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State’, Spiegel Online International, 18 April 2015 (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html) (accessed 29 April 2015).

53    Charles Lister, ‘Profiling the Islamic State’, Brookings Doha Center, Analysis Paper 13, November 2014, p. 5.

54    See Chapter 8.

55    Bassem Mroue, ‘Key al-Qaida Militant Reportedly Killed in Syria’, Associated Press, 27 January 2014.

56    Ruth Sherlock and Magdy Samaan, ‘Islamic State Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Close Aide Killed in US Airstrike’, The Telegraph [online], 9 November 2014 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11219630/Islamic-State-leader-Abu-Bakr-al-Baghdadis-close-aide-killed-in-US-air-strike.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

57    ‘Iraq Confirms: Islamic State Group Leader Injured, Deputy Killed’, i24 News [online], 10 November 2014 (http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/middle-east/50331-141109-iraq-investigating-is-chief-s-fate-after-air-strikes) (accessed 22 April 2015).

58    See Chapter 3 for the Ba’athist credentials of al-Turkmani and Chapter 8 for his stay in Camp Bucca.

59    ‘Abu Muslim al-Turkmani: From Iraqi Officer to Slain ISIS Deputy’, Al Arabiya News [online], 19 December 2014 (http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/profiles/2014/12/19/Abu-Muslim-al-Turkmani-From-Iraqi-officer-to-slain-ISIS-deputy.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

60    Syed Choudhury, ‘Can ISIS Mint Its Own Currency?’, Middle East Monitor [online], 19 November 2014 (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/blogs/politics/15359-can-isis-mint-its-own-currency) (accessed 22 April 2015).

61    Borzou Daragahi, ‘Isis Declares Its Own Currency’, Financial Times, 13 November 2014.

62    Around eight cents in November 2014.

63    Hashimi et al., ‘Revealed: the Islamic State “Cabinet”’.

64    Lorenzo Vidino, ‘Hisba in Europe? Assessing a Murky Phenomenon’, European Foundation for Democracy, June 2013, p. 9.

65    Abu Mohammed, ‘ISIS Militants Threatened to Give 80 Lashes to Anybody Caught Watching El Clasico Because Game Is “Product of Decadent West”’, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently [online], 26 March 2015 (http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=860) (accessed 22 April 2015).

66    Ibid.

67    See Chapter 8.

68    ‘Rule of Terror: Living under ISIS in Syria’, Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, United Nations, 14 November 2014, paragraph 46.

69    Author interview, 2015.

70    ‘Women Stoned to Death in Syria for Adultery’, Associated Press, 30 June 2014.

71    ‘Islamic State Video Purports to Show Boy Executing Two Spies’, Clarion Project [online], 13 January 2015 (http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-young-boy-executes-two-russian-spies) (accessed 22 April 2015).

72    ‘The Lions of Tomorrow’, Dabiq 8, 2015, pp. 20–1.

73    ‘Child Soldiers’, War Child [online] (http://www.warchild.org.uk/issues/child-soldiers) (accessed 22 April 2015).

74    Abu Ibrahim Raqqawi, ‘IS Boot Camps Rob Raqqa’s Children of Their Childhood’, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently [online], 7 January 2015 (http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=150) (accessed 22 April 2015).

75    ‘The Lions of Tomorrow’, p. 20.

76    Raqqawi, ‘IS Boot Camps Rob Raqqa’s Children of Their Childhood’.

77    The men were from the 17th Syrian army division, the 93rd brigade and the al-Tabqah airbase, according to Raqqawi, ‘IS Boot Camps Rob Raqqa’s Children of Their Childhood’.

78    Children on the Front Line, BBC World Service Radio, 31 March 2015.

79    Abu Ibrahim Raqqawi, ‘ISIS Followers Celebrate Jordanian Pilot Death at Outdoor Screening Party’, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently [online], 4 February 2015 (http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=443) (accessed 22 April 2015).

80    Abu Mohammed, ‘Jordanian Pilot Burned Alive: Moaz al-Kasasbeh Was “Heavily Drugged So He Would Not Scream”,’ Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently [online], 12 February 2015. IS posted Healing the Believers’ Chests on 3 February 2015.

81    ‘Jordan Pilot Ejected over Syria after “Technical Failure”,’ AFP, 26 December 2014.

82    See Chapter 6.

83    ‘Jordanian Pilot Was Dead before Islamic State Proposed Swap, Negotiator Says’, Asahi Shimbun [online], 21 February 2015 (http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201502210049) (accessed 22 April 2015).

84    Mohammed al-Falidat, ‘Jordan’s Security Services Gamble on Maqdisi’, Al-Araby, 7 February 2015.

85    Quoted in ‘Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s Efforts to Arrange Prisoner Exchange Deal to Free Jordanian Pilot’, MEMRI [online], 13 February 2015 (http://www.memrijttm.org/sheikh-abu-muhammad-al-maqdisis-efforts-to-arrange-prisoner-exchange-deal-to-free-jordanian-pilot.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

86    Author interview, 2015.

87    ‘Jordan Executes Sajida al-Rishawi after Pilot Murder’, Al Arabiya News [online], 4 February 2015 (http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/02/04/Jordan-to-execute-jailed-would-be-bomber-jihadists-security.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

88    Lamiat Sabin, ‘Who Is Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, the Female Suicide Bomber at the Heart of “Isis” Japanese Prisoner Swap Plan?’, The Independent [online], 24 January 2015 (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/who-is-sajida-mubarak-atrous-alrishawi-the-female-suicide-bomber-at-the-heart-of-isis-prisoner-swap-plan-10000572.html) (accessed 22 April 2015).

89    ‘Japan Outraged at IS ‘‘‘Beheading’’’ of Hostage Kenji Goto’, BBC News [online], 1 February 2015 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31075769) (accessed 30 April 2015).

90    Roya TV, Jordan, interview with Maqdisi, 6 February 2015; transcript translated by MEMRI and published on 8 February 2015.

91    Quoted in ‘Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s Efforts to Arrange Prisoner Exchange Deal to Free Jordanian Pilot’.

 

 

14: Killing the caliphate

 

1    Author interview, anon., 2014.

2    Author interview with firemen, 20 October 2014; there’s a short report about the attack on the mosque from Agence France-Press, on NDTV, Fresh Attack at Baghdad Shiite Mosque Kills at Least, 11, 20 October 2014.

3    NDTV, Fresh Attack at Baghdad Shiite Mosque Kills at Least 11, 20 October 2014.

4    Al-Hayat Media Center [IS], Inside Ayn al-Islam [as Kobani is also known], IS propaganda film presented by John Cantlie.

5    Anne Barnard and Karam Shoumali, ‘Kurd Militia Says ISIS Is Expelled From Kobani’, New York Times, 26 January 2015.

6    According to London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights; see Kunal Dutta, ‘Kobani ‘‘Back in Kurdish Hands’’ after Isis Militants Desert City’, The Independent, 27 January 2015.

7    Katrina Montgomery, ‘180,000 Refugees from Kobani Mark the Biggest Department in the Biggest Refugee Criris, Ever’, Syria Deeply, 9 October 2014.

8    Confidential sources, April 2015.

9    Confidential sources, 2015.

10    Martin Chulov and Kareem Shaheen, ‘Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ‘‘Seriously Wounded in Air Strike’’’, The Guardian, 21 January 2015.

11    Mark Piggott, ‘Isis: ’New leader’ is former physics teacher Abu Alaa Afri replacing paralysed al-Baghdadi’, International Business Times, 23 April 2015.

12    Confidential sources, 2015.

13    See Chapter 6 / Charles Lister from the Brookings Institute mentions an Aouf Abd al-Rahman al Arfi [sic] in his compilation of Islamic State senior leaders, Brookings Doha Center Analysis paper, 1 December 2014. Other than that there is precious little mention of Afri until he assume.

14    BBC, Islamic State deputy leader ‘killed in Iraq air strike’, 13 May 2015.

15    Confidential sources, 2015.

16    Kieran Corcoran, ‘ISIS Terror Chief “Believed Dead”: Iraqi Military Confirm Warlord WAS Injured in US-led Airstrike as Speculation Grows Feared Jihadist Perished in Attack, Reuters and Mail Online, 10 November 2014.

17    Ruth Sherlock and Magdy Samaan, ‘Islamic State Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Close Aide Killed in Airstrike’, The Telegraph, 9 November 2014; Abu Suja’s death was confirmed by his relatives to the Iraqi security advisor and analyst Hisham al-Hishami whose contacts within IS were widely considered second to none

18    Ibid.

19    The Guardian, Isis leader incapacitated with suspected spinal injuries after air strike, by Martin Chulov, 1 May 2015.

20    Al-Furqan Media Center, Islamic State, Audio message by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, posted 14 May 2015 by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor, ‘In New Audio Speech, Islamic State (ISIS) Leader Al-Baghdadi Issues Call to Arms to All Muslims’.

21    See Chapter 1.

22    Author interview, 2014.

23    Author interview, 2014.

24    ‘Islamic State ‘Seizes Syrian ‘‘Oil Field’’, Al Jazeera, 3 July 2014.

25    Sneha Dhanker, ‘ISIS Takes Over Baiji, Iraq’s Largest Oil Refinery’, International Business Times, 18 June 2014.

26    Author interview with Hoshyar Zebari, October 2014.

27    Author interview, 2014.

28    ‘Iraq PM Rebuts US Criticism of Security Forces’, AFP, 25 May 2015.

29    Author interview, 2015.

30    Martin Robinson, ‘‘‘The Dawn of a New Era Has Begun’’’: ISIS Supporters Hand Out Leaflets in London’s Oxford Street Encouraging People to Move to Newly Proclaimed Islamic State, Mail Online, 13 August 2014.

31    Sam Webb, ‘ISIS on Oxford Street: Two Men in Court Accused of Handling Out Pro-Terror Leaflets in Central London’, Daily Mirror, 22 April 2015.

32    ‘Militant Muslim Warns Royal Wedding Terror Attack is Highly Likely’ Mail Online, Daily Mail, 1 April 2011.

33    Dominic Glover, ‘ISIS Hate Preacher Anjem Choudary Hopes to Quit Britain for ‘‘Freedom’’ of Islamic State’ International Business Times, 7 November 2014.

34    Author interview, 2015.

35    Richard Spillett, Rebecca Camber and Ian Drury, ‘The Schoolgirl Jihadi Brides, Three Girls from One British School Fly Off to Join ISIS: Police Face Questions over How They Were Able to Board Turkey Flight, Mail Online, Daily Mail, 21 February 2015.

36    Confidential source 2015.

37    Carol Anne Grayson (Radical Sister) blog, ‘Alan Henning: Open Letter from Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a Sha’riah Ruling and an appeal from a revert sister’,  (https://activist1.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/alan-henning-open-letter-from-abu-muhammad-al-maqdissi-a-sharia-ruling-and-an-appeal-from-a-revert-sister/), 22 September 2014.

38    Tim Golden, ‘Jihadist or Victim: Ex-Detainee Makes a Case’, New York Times, 15 June 2005.

39    For more details see The Story of Cerie Bullivant, February 2010, https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/sites/default/files/control-orders-case-study-cerie-bullivant.pdf

40    Press conference 26 February 2015, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MngUaaOIVqg

41    ‘ISIS Releases New ‘‘‘We Will Burn America Video’’’, 13 April 2015.

42    Dabiq, Issue 9, ‘They Plot And Allah Plots’, by John Cantlie, ‘The Perfect Storm, What started as an explosive moment in Iraq has now suddenly turned into a global phenomenon that the West and the democratic world as a whole is ill-equipped to deal with’, pp.77, al-Furqan Media Centre, Islamic State.

43    Author interview, 2014.

44    Author interview, 2015.

45    Author interview, 2015.