ISIS: The State of Terror Part 2

Extensive media coverage highlighted the case, as journalists publicly mourned one of their own, and ISIS spread images of the execution far and wide on social media, even prompting Twitter to intervene in ways it had long scorned, by suspending dozens of ISIS supporters' accounts.

By the time the second execution came, exactly as promised, followed by the addition of a third victim to the queue-this time a British citizen-a slow rumble was spreading through America and the world. ISIS expanded its targeted messaging to include "the allies of America," with special attention to the United Kingdom, and threats to bordering countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

In corner stores and restaurants, on television and radio broadcasts, over dinner tables and on social media, people began to ask: Why can't the most powerful nations on earth stop these medieval-minded killers? The questions soon transformed into an anger not seen since the days after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

"These guys need to be killed," a middle-aged police officer with a friendly face was heard saying in an even tone to a store owner in Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts-one of the most notoriously liberal cities in the United States-and the sentiment was repeated again and again, around the world, at greater or lesser length, and with greater or lesser intensity.

Who are these men? Where did they come from? What do they want? How are they transforming the nature of terrorism and the war the international community is fighting against it?

What can we do about ISIS? What should we do?

These are the questions that fuel this book.

If journalism is the first draft of history, a book such as this can only be the second draft, and certainly not the final word. It is written at a point in history when ISIS has fully emerged in the world, but before its ultimate fate has become clear.

Regardless of that fate, what ISIS has accomplished so far will have long-term ramifications for jihadist and other extremist movements that may learn from its tactics. A hybrid of terrorism and insurgency, the former al Qaeda affiliate, booted out of that group in part due to its excessive brutality, is rewriting the playbook for extremism. It has inverted many of the dynamics that have applied to violent extremism for a century or longer and changed the rules of engagement on multiple fronts. It is a daring experiment in the power of horror, but also in the marketing of utopia. While most observers view ISIS's "state" as a dystopia, ISIS claims to have formed as a refuge from an impure world, a place where believers can be secure in the knowledge that they are living in accordance with Islam, at least as interpreted by ISIS. And it has doc.u.mented its attempts at governance with the same attention to detail as its well-publicized atrocities.

There are many dimensions to the rise of ISIS. Some see the problem as explainable only with reference to compet.i.tion among neighboring states for access to oil, natural gas, and pipelines.5 Some blame the problem on poor governance and lack of democratic inst.i.tutions, accusing the U.S. government of evangelism in regard to spreading democracy6 while paying too little attention to the importance of civil and political rights.7 Some view ISIS as a symptom of a kind of "untamed Wahhabism,"8 deliberately spread by Saudi Arabia and others,9 or as a prop in a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, among other states. Still others see it as the public face of the resurgent Ba'athist party, determined to take back what it lost (and more) immediately after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. While researching the book, we heard many points of view.

We are observers of violent extremism, with many years of experience speaking to terrorists, monitoring their messages, and studying their organizations and beliefs. Therefore our book is an effort to situate ISIS within the global jihadist movement, and within the field of extremism more broadly, so that its true implications can be better understood.

This book is written in the midst of a fast-changing story; in the short period between the book's completion and its publication, ISIS could conceivably double in size or be dealt a ma.s.sive defeat. Although neither outcome seems probable, ISIS's short history is a series of contradictions and surprises, and we believe that whatever its fate as an organization, it has inst.i.tuted transformative changes in strategy, messaging, and recruitment that will linger long after its so-called caliphate has crumbled to dust.

Within a short span, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and his fanatical followers have sketched out a new model for fringe movements to exploit changing social dynamics and new technologies, exerting an influence over world politics that is wildly disproportionate to its true size and strength.

To cover this ground, we will examine the history of the organization, its innovative propaganda and unprecedented manipulation of social media, and its recruitment of foreign fighters. We also explore the stark contrast it has drawn to the terrorist organization from which it sprang, al Qaeda, as well as a mult.i.tude of other extreme ideologies. Finally, although ISIS's evolution is ongoing, we believe some preliminary conclusions can be drawn about how to frame and approach the problem of countering this murderous movement.

There are many other important elements to this phenomenon and the conflict surrounding it, and we look forward to future books that explore some of the issues we could not. Given the fluid nature of the story, updates on ISIS and especially those pertinent to the topics covered in this book will be available at Intelwire.com.

ON NAMES AND DEFINITIONS.

Definitions of many of the religious terms used in this book are included in a glossary and an appendix, and readers are encouraged to consult those sections for more information. In addition, we believe it is useful to discuss here the name of the group itself and some terms that are used frequently in relation to the "Islamic State" organization.

The group has renamed and rebranded itself multiple times. It is known as the Islamic State (its most recent self-appellation), but it is also frequently referred to as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS), or as Daesh, a derogatory term extracted from its Arabic acronym.10 Differences between ISIS and ISIL stem from issues of technical transliteration and geography. The Obama administration steadfastly referred to the group as ISIL long after most journalists had switched to ISIS (which was also generally the acronym used by the group itself in English communications).11 When the Islamic State dropped the -IS or -IL from its name at the end of June 2014, concurrent with its declaration that it was now a caliphate, it seemed this was the end of the naming controversy.12 But most journalists continued to refer to it as ISIS, while President Obama continued to refer to it as ISIL.13 The rationale for the latter, as explained by Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times14 and others, is that referring to the Islamic State by its self-appointed name would legitimize its declaration of an Islamic caliphate.15 Extremist groups often adopt a name that reflects their greater ambitions, and as a rule, people refer to them by the names they choose. Does it legitimize the concept of a white-only state to use the name "Aryan Nations"? Ironically, treating the Islamic State differently serves to elevate its claim to legitimacy, making it a special case requiring delicate handling, instead of just another extremist group. The insistence on ISIL also hints at an incorrect presumption that Muslims in general might be inclined to take the extremists seriously, and that the undecided might be swayed by nomenclature.

We prefer Islamic State as the most correct usage, but the vernacular (led by journalists) has embraced ISIS-meaning that for purposes of clarity, ISIS is much more readily a.s.sociated with the content of the book in the minds of most readers.

On a more mundane level, the acronym IS presents challenges in a work of this length. For instance, the contraction "IS's" is unappealing, and the pairing of IS with the verb "is" also leads to the unpalatable "IS is," both of which would recur endlessly in the text.

In concession to these issues, we will generally employ the acronym ISIS.

An older semantic debate surrounds the use of the word jihad. A more comprehensive definition is included in the appendix, but we will briefly discuss our usage of the term here. The vast majority of the world's Muslims are peaceful people, and many of them object to militants' appropriation of the word and concept of jihad, which they understand to apply to nonviolent activities such as self-improvement or seeking justice.16 Military jihadists do not make such qualifications when they call their work jihad.

"Whenever jihad is mentioned in the [Quran], it means the obligation to fight. It does not mean to fight with the pen or to write books or articles in the press, or to fight by holding lectures." Those are the words of Abdullah Azzam, the galvanizing force behind the volunteer jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.17 This book will generally follow Azzam's usage. We acknowledge there is a legitimate debate in the public square on this issue, but this book expediently uses the term as jihadists use it.

Another area where definitions are murky involves distinctions among terrorism, insurgency, and war. For purposes of this book, we define terrorism as an act or threat of violence against noncombatants, with the objective of exacting revenge, intimidating, or otherwise influencing an audience. We define terrorists as nonstate actors who engage in violence against noncombatants in order to accomplish a political goal or amplify a message. Two characteristics of terrorism are critical for distinguis.h.i.+ng it from other forms of violence. First, it is aimed at noncombatants. It is this characteristic of terrorism that distinguishes it from legitimate war-fighting. The laws of war, and both the Islamic and Judeo-Christian just war traditions explicitly forbid deliberately targeting noncombatants.18 Thus, terrorist acts might usefully be defined as war crimes that are perpetrated by nonstate actors. Second, terrorists use violence for dramatic purpose: instilling fear in the target audience is often more important than the physical result. This deliberate creation of dread is what distinguishes terrorism from simple murder or a.s.sault.19 Terrorists may be supported by states, but they have a fundamental quality of independence-or at least of disavowal and deniability. Thus, the Third Reich would not be considered a terrorist organization, but American and European neo-n.a.z.is would.

The characteristics of terrorism, as we have defined it, raise additional th.o.r.n.y questions. How do we define "noncombatants"?20 The term is controversial. A soldier on the battlefield is unquestionably a combatant. But what if the country is not at war, and the soldier is sleeping in his barracks, as was the case for the victims of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing? In our view, noncombatants include civilians, military personnel not engaged in conflict, and political leaders (such as Anwar Sadat). Second, are child soldiers combatants or non-combatant victims? While it is clearly illegal under international law to recruit child soldiers, there is no consensus about the treatment of children who commit war crimes or terrorism.21 This question is particularly important in regard to ISIS, which, according to the United Nations, "prioritizes children as a vehicle for ensuring long-term loyalty, adherence to their ideology and a cadre of devoted fighters that will see violence as a way of life."22 (For more on this topic, see Chapter 9).

Will these child-perpetrators of atrocities be treated as victims of ISIS's war, or as terrorists? International law is not yet clear on this issue.23 A Syrian child, who said that ISIS recruited him by "brainwas.h.i.+ng" him with stories about s.h.i.+'a soldiers' rape of Sunni women, defected to Iraqi authorities while claiming to his ISIS masters that he planned to carry out a suicide attack.24 The case highlights the uncertainties regarding how child-perpetrators should and will be treated.

While ISIS claims to be a state, for purposes of this book, we will generally discuss ISIS as a nonstate actor, albeit one at the very edge of the definition, possessing extraordinary infrastructure and expertise, much of it acquired or stolen from state actors, and a will to govern. Similarly, ISIS pushes the boundaries of the definition of insurgency, which is usually defined as an armed rebellion by non-state actors against a recognized government. At the time of this writing, ISIS was fighting an insurgency against the Iraqi and Syrian governments. It was engaging in acts of terrorism against noncombatants. And it was the de facto authority in parts of both Iraq and Syria. For the time being, we believe ISIS is best defined as a hybrid terrorist and insurgent organization.

ISIS is a movement and an organization that sits at the nexus of a rapidly changing region and world. While it is rooted in history, ISIS has also introduced new elements to our understanding of radical Islamism, terrorism, and extremism writ large. For this reason, it commands a disproportionate share of the world's attention. Into these dark unexplored waters this book intends to wade, in search of understanding.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE RISE AND FALL OF AL QAEDA IN IRAQ.

The world awakened to the threat of ISIS in the summer of 2014, but that is not where its story begins.

What we know today as ISIS emerged from the mind of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian thug-turned-terrorist who brought a particularly brutal and sectarian approach to his understanding of jihad.

Many diverse factors contributed to the rise of ISIS, but its roots lie with Zarqawi and the 2003 invasion of Iraq that gave him purpose.

Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al Kalaylah was born in the industrial town of Zarqa, Jordan, located about fifteen miles from Amman. He was a Bedouin, born into a large, relatively poor family, but part of a powerful tribe. He was a mediocre student who dropped out of school after ninth grade. Like many jihadists, he took on a nom de guerre based on the place he came from, Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

In his hometown, Zarqawi was not known as an especially pious person, but as a heavy drinker, a bully, and a brawler.1 His biographer reports that those who knew him in Zarqa said he drank like a fish and was covered in tattoos, two practices forbidden by Islam. He was known as the "green man" on account of the tattoos, which he would later try to remove with hydrochloric acid. He was arrested a number of times, for shoplifting, drug dealing, and attacking a man with a knife, among other crimes.2 In his early twenties, he joined Tablighi Jamaat, a South Asian Islamic revivalist organization, in part to "cleanse" himself from his life of crime. Tabligh Jamaat aims at creating better Muslims through "spiritual jihad"-good deeds, contemplation, and proselytizing.

According to the historian Barbara Metcalf, Tablighi Jamaat traditionally functioned as a self-help group, much like Alcoholics Anonymous, and most specialists claim that it is no more p.r.o.ne to violence than are the Seventh-Day Adventists, with whom Tablighi Jamaat is frequently compared.3 But a member of Tablighi Jamaat told coauthor Jessica Stern that jihadi groups were known to openly recruit at the organization's central headquarters in Raiwind, Pakistan.4 In 1989, just three months after joining Tablighi Jamaat, Zarqawi joined the insurgency against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, by which time the Soviets were already in withdrawal. The war had left him behind.

Zarqawi was not yet a leader, or even a fighter. In Afghanistan and over the border in Pakistan, he spent much of his time working on jihadist newsletters. While it might have seemed a humble start for someone who dreamed of battle, his introduction to jihadi media would later turn out to be useful.

But that was surely not clear at the time. "Zarqawi arrived in Afghanistan as a zero," one of his fellow jihadists told journalist Mary Anne Weaver, "a man with no career, just foundering about."5 He later trained and eventually fought in some of the most violent battles to emerge from the post-Soviet chaos in Afghanistan, when Afghan factions began fighting one another for control of the country. He found focus and earned a certain respect in the eyes of his peers. The experience changed him.

"It's not so much what Zarqawi did in the jihad-it's what the jihad did for him," the jihadist said to Weaver.6 Perhaps most important were the many relations.h.i.+ps he forged during this time. The jihadists he recruited or met during this period would one day form the kernel of an international network. And one new friend turned out to be particularly important to Zarqawi's future-Sheikh Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi, one of the architects of jihadi Salafism, an ideology based on the principle that any government that does not rule through a strict interpretation of Shariah is an infidel regime that must be violently opposed (a fuller description can be found in the appendix).7 Maqdisi would become Zarqawi's spiritual father and close friend, despite their very different backgrounds. A trained cleric of Palestinian origin who lived in various Arab countries before settling in Jordan, Maqdisi was the "bookish fatwah monk." Zarqawi would emerge as the man who would test Maqdisi's theories "in real time and in a real war."8 Both men returned to Jordan in 1993. They were involved in a series of botched terrorist operations, culminating in their arrest for possessing illegal weapons and belonging to a banned jihadi organization.9 Like Afghanistan, prison was transformative for Zarqawi, according to Nir Rosen, who interviewed many of the jihadist's Jordanian peers: Their time in prison was as important for the movement as their experiences in Afghanistan were, bonding the men who suffered together and giving them time to formulate their ideas. For some, it was educational as well. One experienced jihadi who knew Zarqawi in Afghanistan told me: "When I heard Zarqawi speak, I didn't believe this is the same Zarqawi. But six years in jail gave him a good chance to educate himself."10 Zarqawi tried to recruit his prison-mates into helping him overthrow the Jordanian leaders.h.i.+p. After he was released from prison in 1999, Zarqawi partic.i.p.ated in the foiled "Millennium Plot" timed for January 1, 2000, a plan to bomb two Christian holy sites, a border crossing between Jordan and Israel, and the fully booked 400-room Radisson hotel in Amman.

But he was again thwarted and the plot was disrupted by Jordanian security services.11 Zarqawi managed to escape, first to Pakistan and from there to Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden.12 By most accounts, the meeting with bin Laden did not go well. And why would it? The two men were united only by a broad commitment to violent jihad. Bin Laden and his early followers were mostly members of an intellectual, educated elite, while Zarqawi was a barely educated ruffian with an att.i.tude.

One version of the meeting, reported by Mary Anne Weaver, described this first encounter as uncomfortable. Bin Laden was put off by Zarqawi's insistence that all s.h.i.+'a Muslims must be killed, an ideological argument accepted by only the most extreme Sunni jihadists, who believe s.h.i.+'a are not true Muslims. Zarqawi was reportedly arrogant and disrespectful of bin Laden. Others in al Qaeda felt the brash young jihadist was not without his merits, however. He was eventually allowed to set up his own training camp in Afghanistan, albeit not officially under al Qaeda's wing. But the differences aired on the day bin Laden and Zarqawi met would continue to define the relations.h.i.+p between the two jihadists for years to come.13 Over the course of the next five years Zarqawi operated independently from, and yet with the support of, bin Laden and al Qaeda Central. His training camp in Herat, Afghanistan, was supported by al Qaeda funds with the consent of Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban. He spent time in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, where he recruited new fighters and grew his network. He was more focused on jihad in Muslim countries, such as Jordan, while bin Laden at the time was focused on the West, including his long-planned spectacular terrorist attack on the soil of the United States. In the days prior to September 11, bin Laden repeatedly sought bayah, a religiously binding oath of allegiance, from Zarqawi, who refused to comply.14 Nevertheless, when the Americans invaded Afghanistan after September 11, Zarqawi fought to defend al Qaeda and the Taliban.15 Wounded in battle, he fled in 2002 to Iran, and from there to Iraqi Kurdistan,16 where he joined Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish jihadist group. The Kurds are an ethnic group inhabiting Kurdistan, a region that includes contiguous parts of Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.

Zarqawi's members.h.i.+p in Ansar al-Islam would later be cited by the United States as evidence that he and al Qaeda were collaborating with Saddam Hussein. But the Kurdish group Zarqawi had joined viewed the Iraqi regime as apostate and aimed to establish a Salafi state governed by Shariah.17 Ironically, it was the invasion of Iraq that pushed Zarqawi into an alliance with bin Laden and led to al Qaeda's enduring presence in Iraq.18 Armed with irrational exuberance and a handful of dubious pretexts for war, the United States and its allies invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. The invasion had been justified by exaggerated claims that Iraq possessed or was close to possessing weapons of ma.s.s destruction, and by the false claim that Saddam Hussein was allied with al Qaeda. While Iraq had a long history of sponsoring terrorist groups, al Qaeda was not one of them.

Zarqawi's name first became widely known in the West when the Bush administration described him as the link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, claiming that Iraq had given safe haven to the terrorists, who now plotted mayhem with impunity inside its borders.

"From his terrorist network in Baghdad, Zarqawi can direct his network in the Middle East and beyond," Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council.19 But Zarqawi was neither collaborating with Saddam nor a member of al Qaeda.20 In the early days after the invasion, many Iraqis were overjoyed that the brutal dictator had been removed from power. By April 9, Baghdad had fallen and Saddam Hussein had fled. By May, President Bush announced, "Mission Accomplished."

President Bush had spearheaded a strategy of "taking the fight to the terrorists," which he would later repeatedly articulate as "We're taking the fight to the terrorists abroad, so we don't have to face them here at home."21 The statement proved half true. Iraq would be a lightning rod for jihadists, who flocked to a country where they had not been able to operate successfully before in order to confront American troops. But the invasion reinforced jihadi claims about America's hegemonic designs on the Middle East, providing a recruiting bonanza at a time when the terrorists needed it most.

Jihadi leaders around the globe described the U.S. occupation as a boon to their movement, which had begun to decline in large measure due to the destruction of al Qaeda's home base in Afghanistan. Abu Musab al Suri, one of the jihad's most prominent strategists, claimed that the war in Iraq almost single-handedly rescued the movement.22 As President Bush had claimed, Iraq became a "central front" in the war on terrorism.23 But it was a front that the United States had created.24 Soon after the invasion, terrorism within Iraq's borders rose precipitously.25 There were 78 terrorist attacks in the first twelve months following the U.S. invasion; in the second twelve months this number nearly quadrupled, to 302 attacks.26 At the height of the war, in 2007, terrorists claimed 5,425 civilian lives and caused 9,878 injuries.27 The violence also expanded abroad, as in 2005, when al Qaeda in Iraq bombed three hotels in Amman, Jordan.28 The coordinated attack had targeted Western-owned hotels, but the victims were almost all Jordanians, provoking an intense backlash within Jordan and angering many jihadists, who feared the operation would destroy al Qaeda's chances of winning support in the country.29 Iraq had erupted into civil war, and the allied mission quickly changed from combat to nation-building. When the mission changed direction, President Bush appointed L. Paul Bremer as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Bremer's first major decisions would prove critical to the subsequent destabilization of Iraq: disbanding the military, and firing all members of Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath Party from civil service positions.

More than 100,000 Sunni Ba'athists were removed from the government and military, leaving them unemployed, angry, and for the military personnel, armed.30 Lieutenant General Jay Garner warned that the policy rendered a large number of educated and experienced Iraqis "potential recruits for the nascent insurgency."31 One particularly important function impacted by the purge was the Iraqi border patrol. The weakened force provided little resistance to the dramatic flow of foreign fighters into the country.32 Zarqawi was there to seize the opportunity.

ZARQAWI RISES.

Zarqawi's career as a terrorist had been largely marked by failure and frustration, but the American invasion galvanized him to action and created an environment suitable for his brutal tactics and rabid sectarianism.

The Sunni and s.h.i.+'a branches of Islam had split soon after the death of Muhammad over the issue of who should succeed the Prophet of Islam as leader of the Muslims, or caliph. Sunnis believe that the caliph can be chosen by Muslim authorities. s.h.i.+'ites believe that the caliph must be a direct descendant of the Prophet through his son-in-law and cousin Ali.

Over generations, the separation had led to doctrinal differences and, at times, open sectarian conflict or war, although there were equally long periods of peace and cooperation. Today, sectarian tensions are intensely mixed with local and regional politics.

Under the rule of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, Iraq's s.h.i.+'a majority had been persecuted, ma.s.sacred by the thousands, and denied political partic.i.p.ation. After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, some of the s.h.i.+'a had risen up against Hussein, expecting support from the West, only to be crushed by the regime, resulting in tens of thousands of casualties.

"That's when the Hussein regime became far more sectarian and placed a lot of restrictions on Iraqi s.h.i.+'a, their religious inst.i.tutions and leaders, and on s.h.i.+'a pilgrims who once came to the country," said Phillip Smyth, who studies s.h.i.+'a and Iranian politics and extremism in the region. "Plus, his regime became far more tribally based, meaning he was using Sunnis mainly from the Tikrit area."33 The U.S. invasion and subsequent efforts to inst.i.tute a democratic system in Iraq had elevated the long-suppressed s.h.i.+'a into political power, while de-Ba'athification had simultaneously disenfranchised thousands of Sunnis.

The change also represented a significant s.h.i.+ft for U.S. interests and relations.h.i.+ps in the region. Ever since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which had installed a s.h.i.+'a theocracy fueled by anti-American sentiment, most U.S. allies in the Middle East were ruled by explicitly Sunni regimes.

"The elected officials of Iraq's post-war government are the first s.h.i.+'a leaders that the United States has had any direct and meaningful contact with since the Iranian revolution," wrote Vali Nasr, in his book The s.h.i.+a Revival, arguing that America had imagined Sunni democracies would rise in the wake of its intervention and was ill-prepared for the religious politics that followed.

Postwar Iraq was a recipe for sectarian conflict even without Zarqawi to stir the pot, but he wasted little time exploiting the opening.

In August 2003, Zarqawi's men bombed a UN mission center and the Jordanian emba.s.sy in Baghdad, setting a rapidly increasing pace of violence. At the end of August, he struck an important s.h.i.+'a mosque with a suicide bomber, killing at least ninety-five people, including Zarqawi's primary target, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al Hakim, one of the most prominent and beloved s.h.i.+'a clerics in Iraq.34 Despite the tensions between Zarqawi and bin Laden, in 2004 Zarqawi finally declared bayah (allegiance) to bin Laden and announced the creation of a new jihadist movement: Tanzim Qaedat al Jihad fi Bilad al Rafidayn, or al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, a reference to the fact that the Tigris and the Euphrates converge in Iraq.35 It became more commonly known in the West simply as al Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI. Aaron Zelin, a leading authority on al Qaeda and ISIS, described the affiliation as a "marriage of convenience,"36 rather than a meeting of minds.

Over the next few months Zarqawi and his new group continued to sow discord and attract international attention. Suicide bombings became a trademark tactic, leading to a reprimand from his spiritual mentor, Maqdisi.37 Foreign fighters also flocked to join AQI in large numbers, many of them pa.s.sing through established smuggling routes in Syria. Most originated in Saudi Arabia, with significant numbers from Libya, Yemen, elsewhere in North Africa, and Syria. The Syrian regime made a show of trying to crack down on the cross-border trafficking, to little effect. "For every example of co-operation from Syria, there are an equal number of incidents that are not helpful," a U.S. intelligence officer told one reporter.38 Zarqawi and AQI also used the Internet to market their cause in a way that al Qaeda Central had never quite mastered. Under pressure from counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al Qaeda Central's media output was devolving into long, boring videos of bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy, lecturing about the jihadi cause; Zarqawi and AQI, in contrast, began to release violent video clips of terrorist attacks and beheadings and distribute them online. (See Chapter 5.)39 Despite his pledge of bayah, Zarqawi continued to act independently of al Qaeda Central, and he pursued a strategy sometimes at odds with bin Laden's approach. Most central to the dispute were the related issues of takfir and the use of extreme savagery as a weapon.

Takfir, the p.r.o.nouncement of someone as an unbeliever, and therefore no longer a Muslim, is a matter of great gravity in Islam.40 Among jihadists, such a ruling is understood as a blanket permission to kill the subject or subjects as apostate.

Bin Laden was deeply troubled by jihadi groups that targeted Muslim civilians. Many letters seized from bin Laden's lair in Abbottabad when he was killed in May 2011 emphasize his frustration with regional groups that were undisciplined in their targeting. He urged his subordinates in al Qaeda to avoid domestic attacks that caused Sunni Muslim civilian casualties, pus.h.i.+ng them to focus instead on targeting America.41 Bin Laden was serious about the matter; he had revoked his support of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria in 1996 because of the group's "worrying ideology."42 Zawahiri, who would subsequently take charge of al Qaeda after bin Laden's death, tried to rein in Zarqawi's b.l.o.o.d.y practices. In a 2005 letter, Zawahiri warned the al Qaeda in Iraq leader that he was far too free in his targeting of Muslim civilians and too p.r.o.ne to display "scenes of slaughter."43 Zarqawi reluctantly implemented some of Zawahiri's advice. But what the senior leader saw as weakness and excess, the younger man and his followers understood as design. He found ideological support for his preexisting tendency in an important jihadi text by an ideologue known as Abu Bakr Naji (a pseudonym).

Written in 2004, the 113-page tract in Arabic was t.i.tled Idarat al Tawahhush, or in English, The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Ummah Will Pa.s.s. Attributed to an al Qaeda division devoted to research and a.n.a.lysis, it had been posted online to one of the earliest jihadist Internet forums, known as al Ekhlas, which is now defunct. It was translated into English in 2006 by noted scholar of political Islam Will McCants and released by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.44 The Management of Savagery was a compilation of lessons learned from previous jihadist failures, as well as an advancement in thinking about the movement's future direction. It outlined stages of the jihadist struggle including: *Disruption and exhaustion: In which terrorist attacks damage the economy of enemy powers and demoralize their populations.

*Management of Savagery: A phase of violent resistance with an emphasis on carrying out acts of highly visible violence, intended to send a message to both allies and enemies.

*Empowerment: The establishment of regions controlled by jihadists which can subsequently grow and unite toward the goal of re-creating the caliphate.45 Al Naji recommended drawing the United States into a continual series of conflicts in the Middle East to destroy its image of invincibility, and he also endorsed an embrace and wide broadcast of unvarnished violence as a tool to motivate would-be recruits and demoralize enemies.

Al Naji's tract was widely read and influenced many, perhaps nowhere more than in Iraq. Although al Qaeda in Iraq and its successors were happy to improvise when it suited them, the influence of Management could be clearly seen in both its military and media strategies.46 The use and depiction of violence are among the most important elements of the strategy: Those who have not boldly entered wars during their lifetimes do not understand the role of violence and coa.r.s.eness against the infidels in combat and media battles. . . . The reality of this role must be understood by explaining it to the youth who want to fight. . . . If we are not violent in our jihad and if softness seizes us, that will be a major factor in the loss of the element of strength, which is one of the pillars of the Umma of the Message.47 Zarqawi was also influenced by another jihadi ideologue, Abu Musab al Suri, whose 1,600-page book, A Call to a Global Islamic Resistance, famously advocated "leaderless resistance," the use of so-called lone wolf attacks (see Chapter 3).

Less discussed were the book's series of apocalyptic prophecies. Zarqawi published many communiques that detailed his fulfillment of al Suri's prophecies (see Chapter 10). These included apocalyptic struggles against the "Persians," which can be understood as s.h.i.+'a or Iranians.48 Zarqawi had long held an implacable hatred for s.h.i.+'a Muslims, predating the publications of al Suri's book. The two men may have met during the early 1990s, when they were both taking part in jihadist causes in Afghanistan. Many hours of video featuring al Suri's lectures were distributed widely online.49 Even as Zarqawi and AQI were sowing discord with their violent, sectarian attacks, in December 2005, Iraqis voted for their first full-term government and parliament.50 In 2006, the newly elected president, Jalal Talabani, a Sunni Kurd who was popular among both Sunnis and s.h.i.+'a, was pressured to compromise with s.h.i.+'a const.i.tuencies by appointing Nuri al Maliki prime minister, replacing another s.h.i.+'a politician who was perceived as showing favoritism to Sunni Arabs.51 At the time, Maliki was also perceived as being the less sectarian option and less beholden to neighboring Iran, which had taken a growing interest in Iraqi politics since the fall of Hussein.52 Both of these expectations were destined to be met by spectacular disappointment.

ZARQAWI FALLS.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi's reign of terror had made an impression in Iraq, igniting a cascade of violence as he continued to focus on sectarian targets, over al Qaeda Central's objections. In February 2006, the al Askari mosque in Samarra was bombed by militants, resulting in severe damage to its structure. AQI did not claim credit for the attack, but a captured member later confessed to orchestrating it. The remains of early s.h.i.+'a imams were interred at the mosque, considered a sacred site, and although no one was killed in the attack, it unleashed a wave of back-and-forth sectarian violence. There were dozens of retaliatory attacks on the first day, and thousands killed in the days that followed. The attack was widely seen as precipitating a full-on civil war that threatened the entire nation, portending ma.s.sive bloodshed to come.53 Nada Bakos, the CIA officer charged with taking Zarqawi down, was keenly aware of the missteps that had made her target into a clear and present danger to the ongoing stability of Iraq. Writing in Foreign Policy, she said: The war in Iraq provided al Qaeda with a new front for its struggle with the West. . . . The United States didn't "face down" al Qaeda in Iraq; it inadvertently helped Zarqawi evolve from a lone extremist with a loose network to a charismatic leader of al Qaeda.54 In June 2006, the efforts of Bakos and countless others were realized in an air strike that killed Zarqawi. There was optimism that the death of Zarqawi would change the situation on the ground in Iraq. The hope was that by taking out AQI's top leaders-a strategy ironically known as decapitation-the organization would collapse.

In its briefing on the attack, the Defense Department released a photo of Zarqawi's corpse, a miscalculation when dealing with a movement that glorifies martyrdom and has no inhibitions about images of death. Within twenty-four hours, al Qaeda's online supporters were using the photo of Zarqawi's dead body in online banners, videos, and tributes to his martyrdom.55 (The lesson was taken to heart in 2011 when Osama bin Laden was killed; no photos were released, and the body was secretly buried at sea.) Zawahiri issued a statement eulogizing Zarqawi, commending him for his commitment to the cause and praising the great services he had done as a servant of al Qaeda.56 He also used the eulogy as an opportunity to call for AQI to establish an Islamic state. Within a few months, a coalition of jihadist insurgents known as the Mujahideen Shura Council announced the formation of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). The council's formation had stemmed in part from AQI's recognition that it could not simply compete against other jihadist factions in its sphere of influence, and that at least some appearance of accommodation was needed.57 Zarqawi's successor as head of AQI, Abu Hamza al Muhajir, a seasoned Egyptian fighter, pledged loyalty to ISI, and its newly appointed leader, Abu Omar al Baghdadi, about whom little is known.58 Brian Fishman, who closely followed al Qaeda in Iraq as a fellow with the New America Foundation, wrote that for a time, Zawahiri's influence took hold. The ISI distanced itself from the sectarian slaughter and committed to the goals Zawahiri had sent to Zarqawi:59 Establish an Islamic authority or emirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate-over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni Arab areas, is [sic] in order to fill the void stemming from the departure of the Americans, immediately upon their exit and before un-Islamic forces attempt to fill this void.60 Zawahiri would come to regret some of that advice.

Despite its "clean slate," ISI continued to target civilians, even as violence soared from multiple directions. In December 2006, an average of 53 civilians were killed every twenty-four hours.61 In response to the growing levels of violence, U.S. General David Petraeus led a "surge" of U.S. troops into Iraq with the goal of securing the Iraqi population against the attacks carried out by ISI and other violent militant groups. This required not only an increase in the number of troops, but an entirely new strategy.

Instead of consolidating U.S. troops on big bases and handing the job as quickly as possible to Iraqi forces, General Petraeus sent the troops into the neighborhoods most affected by jihadi violence. Once the Iraqi people realized the troops were there to protect them they started to tell U.S. forces, by the general's account, "Here, let us tell you where the bad guys are, because we want them out of our neighborhood."62 The key to recruiting Sunni Arabs to join the fight against al Qaeda was to rea.s.sure them that they would be safe, according to Petraeus. He also had to persuade his own commanders to work with former insurgents who had earlier been targeting U.S. forces.

Over time, tens of thousands of former insurgents joined the fight to secure their communities against violence, as part of the so-called Sunni Awakening, or Sons of Iraq.63 The Awakening Movement was a critical part of the effort to defeat AQI. Aside from their own revulsion at the al Qaeda affiliate's gory tactics and indiscriminate slaughter, militia members were enticed by the promise that some would be integrated into the Iraqi army and local police forces on a permanent basis. But many were skeptical of these promises, and their skepticism would prove prescient.64 The surge achieved its goals, if only temporarily. By 2008, al Qaeda and other violent militants no longer overran the country and the situation stabilized. Relations among the various religious and ethnic communities had greatly improved, as had the economy. In 2008, Maliki surprised observers by sending the Iraqi military against powerful s.h.i.+'a militias-which had also opposed the U.S. occupation-in Basra and the Sadr City section of Baghdad, temporarily easing concerns of sectarian favoritism.65 "It was a new atmosphere and it was full of promise," wrote Zaid Al-Ali, author of The Struggle for Iraq's Future: How Corruption, Incompetence and Sectarianism Have Undermined Democracy.66 "U.S. officials, state security services, tribal forces, and some armed groups had forged an agreement to work together against the most extreme groups terrorizing Iraq's population. The major roads in those areas were lined with the flags of the Awakening Councils, and local fighters had decided to protect ordinary Iraqis from al Qaeda."67 But in 2010, Maliki's State of Law coalition failed to win a clear majority of the seats in parliament, endangering his position as prime minister. A series of political maneuvers ensued, some of which were questionably legal.

Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. amba.s.sador to Iraq from 2005 to 2009, believes that Maliki turned to Iran for support to keep his position.68 Phillip Smyth agrees, saying Maliki's coalition was boosted by the addition of Iranian proxies such as the Badr Organization, an outgrowth of Iranian-armed and -funded militias dating back to the 1980s. The organization's reward for supporting Maliki was a voice in government, including the appointment of one of its members as Iraq's minister of the interior.69 Khalilzad believes that pressure from Iran is what led Maliki to insist that U.S. forces leave in 2011, a turning point in the sectarian dimension of Iraqi politics. The timing of the exit was initially negotiated by the Bush administration. The Obama administration proposed an extension, but negotiations with the Iraqi government broke down.70 When the United States withdrew its troops in 2011, it also withdrew its "influence and its interest," according to Ryan Crocker, U.S. amba.s.sador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009.71 The administration became politically disengaged. "All at once the regular phone calls among senior-level personnel, senior-level visits, basically ceased," Crocker told PBS Frontline, noting there was only one visit to Iraq by a cabinet-level official between the end of 2011 and mid-2014.

"Given that we were hard-wired into their political system, they wouldn't be able to function effectively with each other among [sectarian] communities without us," Crocker said. "I think that [political] disengagement brought them all back to zero-sum thinking."72 As Crocker was leaving Iraq, he warned the administration about Maliki's dictatorial and sectarian tendencies, not for the first time. In his view, Maliki was motivated not by the desire to aggrandize himself, but by fear that "sooner or later a coalition of adversaries would overthrow him."73 Maliki had spent twenty years as a political exile in Syria and Iran, forced by Saddam to flee Baghdad because of his involvement with the underground s.h.i.+'a opposition.74 Even before U.S. troops left Iraq, Maliki's distrust of Sunni Iraqis led to a crackdown on the leaders of the Awakening Movement, who had been so important in reducing the threat of terrorist violence against civilians. One day after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, Prime Minister Maliki issued an arrest warrant for his Sunni vice president, Tariq Has.h.i.+mi, on charges of terrorism.75 U.S. officials concede that some members of Vice President Has.h.i.+mi's security forces may have been corrupt or been involved in plots to a.s.sa.s.sinate s.h.i.+'a leaders, but Has.h.i.+mi had been one of the first Sunni Arabs in Iraq to agree to partic.i.p.ate in the political process, at a great personal cost.76 His removal led Sunni political leaders to boycott the parliament. In addition to costing the Iraqi government the support of the Awakening militias, many disenfranchised Sunni fighters (whose salaries had started to dry up) were now dropped into a boiling cauldron of radicalizing influences.

Rather than attempting to reduce Sunnis' feelings of disenfranchis.e.m.e.nt, Maliki began to purge the government of prominent Sunnis, further increasing sectarian tensions.77 He brought terrorism charges against his popular finance minister and a Sunni Arab parliamentarian.78 Large protest camps arose in Sunni neighborhoods, including in Ramadi and Hawija, beginning in December 2012.79 But when al Qaeda's flag rose sporadically in the protests, Maliki panicked. On April 23, 2013, Maliki sent soldiers into Hawija to clear out the "insurgents and extremists."80 The Iraqi government reported five civilian deaths, but Human Rights Watch reported much higher numbers.81 Observers, including the prominent reporter Dexter Filkins, reported seeing hundreds of dead bodies.82 In December 2013, Maliki again deployed the army against a protest camp in Ramadi, where some 350 Sunnis were protesting abusive ant.i.terrorism laws, reigniting an active insurgency.83 According to Amnesty International, several s.h.i.+'a militias emerged with the encouragement and support of the Iraqi government, wearing military uniforms, and killing Sunni Arabs with impunity.84 Sunni Arabs were left disenfranchised, fearful of their government, and with few options other than supporting insurgency.85 Patrick c.o.c.kburn, a longtime reporter on the Middle East, argues, "Mr. Maliki is not to blame for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq, but he played a central role in pus.h.i.+ng the Sunni community into the arms of ISIS, something it may come to regret."86 Conditions eventually deteriorated so far that Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, leader of the country's s.h.i.+'a community, acknowledged that Sunnis had legitimate concerns and that the government had to be more inclusive of Sunni Arab and Kurdish minorities.87

CHAPTER TWO.

THE RISE OF ISIS.

After the death of Zarqawi, the Islamic State in Iraq had been handed setback after setback. When Abu Omar al Baghdadi, head of the ISI, was killed in 2010, it marked a turning point.

ISI's new leader was born Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai, but he operated under the nom de guerre Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.

His life story is ambiguous, spa.r.s.e on details, and few of those uncontested. He was reportedly born in 1971 to a Sunni Arab family in the Iraqi city of Samarra, a city just north of Baghdad. His family was said to be directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad.

According to a disputed but widely distributed biography published under a pseudonym by Turki al Binali, a Bahraini national who joined ISIS, Baghdadi was born into an observant Salafi family and "his brothers and uncles include preachers and teachers."1 According to Abu Ali, a neighbor of the family, Baghdadi remained in Samarra until he was eighteen, when he moved to Tobchi, a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Baghdad.2 He lived in a run-down apartment attached to the local mosque and reportedly enrolled in the Islamic University of Baghdad, eventually receiving a doctorate in Islamic culture and Shariah law. Abu Ali described him as a "quiet person, and very polite," but also a "conservative pract.i.tioner of Islam." He was said to have led prayers at the local mosque from time to time.3 During this period, Baghdadi was also a cla.s.smate of Ahmed al Dabash, who later became the leader of the Islamic Army of Iraq, a Sunni Arab insurgent group. Dabash remarked that the young Baghdadi "did not show much potential." He described Baghdadi as "quiet, and retiring. He spent time alone. . . . He was insignificant."4 Baghdadi reportedly led a quiet life until the United States and its allies invaded Iraq. In 2003, Baghdadi is believed to have begun on the path of jihad.5 Jamaat Jaysh Ahl al Sunnah wa-al-Jamaah (the Army of the Sunni People Group) was an insurgent group operating in Samarra, Diyala, and Baghdad. Baghdadi was a cofounder and the head of the group's Shariah committee.6 In late 2004 or early 2005, an American-led raid on a home near Fallujah led to the capture of many high-level insurgents and a man who was described as an "apparent hanger-on." The latter was registered at Camp Bucca detention center as Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al Badri.

There are conflicting accounts of Baghdadi from his time in Camp Bucca. A Pentagon official described him as "a street thug when we picked him up in 2004," a characterization that seems inconsistent with his background.7 Andrew Thompson, who served at one of the U.S.-run detention centers in Iraq, wrote an article with Jeremy Suri, a professor at University of Texas at Austin, arguing that the structure of Camp Bucca facilitated further radicalization among the prisoners.

Before their detention, Mr. al-Baghdadi and others were violent radicals, intent on attacking America. Their time in prison deepened their extremism and gave them opportunities to broaden their following. At Camp Bucca, for example, the most radical figures were held alongside less threatening individuals, some of whom were not guilty of any violent crime. Coalition prisons became recruitment centers and training grounds for the terrorists the United States is now fighting. . . .

Small-time criminals, violent terrorists and unknown personalities were separated only along sectarian lines. This provided a s.p.a.ce for extremists to spread their message. The detainees who rejected the radicals in their cells faced retribution from other prisoners through "Shariah courts" that infested the facilities. The radicalization of the prison population was evident to anyone who paid attention. Unfortunately, few military leaders did.8 In 2007, Major General Douglas Stone became the deputy commanding general of Multi-National Forces in Iraq with responsibility for in-country interrogation and detention. In this capacity, he was responsible for detainees at Camp Cropper, Camp Bucca, and Camp Ashraf. He spent the following year reforming prison conditions and installing innovative deradicalization, rehabilitation, and reintegration techniques, which expedited the release of low-risk prisoners and appeared to reduce recidivism.9 Most of the individuals taken into detention did not need to remain for long periods of time, or in many cases should not have been there in the first place, he told us. Many were not jihadists, but were unemployed citizens paid or coerced into joining the resistance. More than 80 percent of the detainees tested illiterate and were largely ignorant about Islam, which made them particularly susceptible to recruitment while in prison.

In interviews for this book, General Stone recounted the reintegration process: We studied the detainees: their tribal affiliations, their education level, their employment skills, their purported crimes, their leaders.h.i.+p skills, and the extent to which they subscribed to jihadi principles. We decided to separate the hard-core jihadists from the casual insurgents. Our biggest worry was that the real jihadists were using the prison as a terrorist training camp. We wanted to release the individuals who shouldn't have been there, or who could be easily reintegrated into Iraqi society, as quickly as possible. We hired hundreds of teachers to train detainees to read. We hired one hundred and fifty imams from around the globe to preach mainstream Islam. We offered them job training. After a couple of years, we were able to release most of the prisoners, with less than two percent ever returning to the fight. That left only the true problem cases. Only about five thousand were left. The majority were either former regime Baathists, former criminals, or serious takfiri ideologues, followers of Zarqawi's extreme beliefs regarding declaring other Muslims to be apostates. Even in American detention these takfiris were killing other detainees, cutting their eyes out, and trying to impose a version of Shariah that most Muslims would find quite abhorrent.10 Baghdadi's time in detention would only have made him more effective, General Stone said, pointing out that the individuals who spent time in Guantanamo pose a similar problem. Jihadists who get out of U.S. detention develop a kind of aura when reintegrated into their home communities, he said, making it easier for them to recruit others, or to symbolize defiance against a Western power.

Baghdadi was probably systematically organizing while he was in detention. Building up IOUs, getting to know whom to trust. He must have been plotting while he was incarcerated-he must have planned the whole rollout of the Islamic State. . . .

If you look at how Baghdadi has set up the top leaders.h.i.+p of ISIS, you can see how skilled he is. The guys at the top are all very skilled managers. Many of them are former Ba'athists. And to me a most important thing-he's actually designated someone to run ISIS detainee operations. He learned, from being in detention himself, that if you don't manage the prison well, the detainees will just organize themselves against you. And sure enough, his strategy has been to recruit his cadres from the prisons where jihadis were detained. He knows that's where to find hard-core radicals. But even if Baghdadi is ultimately replaced, the ideas that he is promoting will be with us a long time.

Baghdadi left Camp Bucca as an outspoken jihadi and soon joined the ranks of the ISI, then under the leaders.h.i.+p of Abu Omar al Baghdadi.

When a United StatesIraqi joint air strike targeted and killed Zarqawi's successors in April 2010, it wiped out the ISI's senior leaders.h.i.+p. With its leaders.h.i.+p in disarray and its relevance waning, ISI sought out a leader with both religious authority and a track record of strategic successes.

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi fit these criteria. His education in Islamic law far exceeded the leaders of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden studied business in college; his degree was reportedly in public administration.11 Ayman al Zawahiri was a surgeon.12 And the strength of Baghdadi's strategies would soon become clear.

In May 2010, he ascended to lead the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI).13 Baghdadi's first priority after becoming leader was his own personal safety. With ISI in shambles, Baghdadi set out to rebuild the organization, eliminating potential critics and replacing them with trusted allies, many of whom had spent several years with Baghdadi in Camp Bucca.

Among them were several Ba'athist leaders. Although AQI and ISIS are motivated by an ideological commitment to reviving an Islamic state based on their understanding of Shariah, they formed an alliance with the former Ba'athists,14 who had lost their jobs and status thanks to de-Ba'athification. According to some reports, the "Ba'athification" of ISIS may have been the brainchild of a former colonel in Saddam Hussein's army who spent time with Baghdadi at Camp Bucca.15 "In the early days of the alliance, the Ba'athists may have had the upper hand as they brought military and organization skills and a network of experienced bureaucrats that AQI and then ISI lacked," says Richard Barrett of the Soufan Group.16 The Ba'athists became a critically important part of ISIS. Baghdadi chose many of them to fill top organizational positions, including Abu Muslim al Turkmani, who became Baghdadi's second in command (until he was reportedly killed in late 2014), and the senior leader of the military council, Abu Ayman al Iraqi. According to Barrett, at least eight of ISI's senior leaders.h.i.+p members are former inmates at Camp Bucca.17 Learning from past leaders' mistakes, Baghdadi disguised his ident.i.ty from the earliest days, even in the presence of his closest advisors. Abdul Rahman Hamad, an ISIS fighter who spoke to Time magazine, stated, "[He] knew how men can be seduced by money, so he never shared his secrets with anyone."18 He became known among his men as the "invisible sheikh" or the "Ghost."19 With between 800 and 1,000 fighters in his ranks,20 Baghdadi would lead Iraq into its deadliest years since 2008.21 Under Baghdadi's leaders.h.i.+p, ISI escalated its violence throughout 2010 and 2011, including using coordinated suicide attacks in several locations on the same day. In October 2011, the U.S. Rewards for Justice Program instated a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest or capture of Baghdadi.22 By July 2012, in an atmosphere of growing sectarianism fueled in no small part by the policies of Prime Minister Maliki, Baghdadi had rebuilt the organization so substantially that he apparently felt no qualms about publicly pre-announcing his next move-a campaign called "Breaking Down the Walls," in which Baghdadi promised to liberate Iraqi prisons overflowing with insurgents and jihadists.23 Using covert channels to communicate with prisoners in advance, ISI spent the next year making good on Baghdadi's promise. The insurgents attacked eight prisons using improvised explosives. They freed hundreds of prisoners, many of whom were senior leaders of ISI and its predecessors, or experienced fighters who subsequently joined the organization.24 During the same one-year period, Baghdadi had courted the wrath of al Qaeda by declaring an expansion of the ISI into neighboring Syria, which was now engulfed in civil war. In defiance of al Qaeda's emir, Ayman al Zawahiri, the Islamic State in Iraq was to be known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, using the now notorious acronym ISIS.

From the ashes of near-total defeat, a new and virulent jihadist idea had emerged, and it aimed to terrorize the world with its brutal ambition.

SYRIA AND THE WAR WITH AL QAEDA.

The "Arab Spring" protests began in Tunisia in December 2010, and from there spread throughout the Arab League and beyond. By December 2013, rulers had been replaced in Tunisia, Egypt (twice), Libya, and Yemen; there were uprisings in Bahrain and Syria, and large-scale protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and beyond.25 The protests were fueled by inequality, corruption, and frustration with injustices suffered under long-standing dictators.h.i.+ps.26 What began as popular movements turned violent in some countries, but no one had ever seen anything like the civil war that erupted in Syria.