ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (35 page)

 238 
US Abrams tanks have been photographed:
Josh Rogin and Eli Lake, “Iran-Backed Militias Are Getting US Weapons,” BloombergView, January 8, 2015,
www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-08/iranbacked-militias-are-getting-us-weapons-in-iraq
.

 238 
The Pentagon announced:
Maggie Ybarra, “Pentagon: Most of Islamic State’s Oil Refineries in Syria Have Been Destroyed,”
Washington Times
, September 30, 2014,
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/30/pentagon-most-of-isis-oil-refineries-in-syria-have
.

 238 
Al-Abadi has claimed: “Iraq: ISIS Leader Baghdadi Injured, Stays in Syria,” Al Arabiya News, January 20, 2015,
english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/01/20/ISIS-leader-wounded-and-stays-mostly-in-Syria-says-Iraqi-PM.html
.

 240 
Even in the most fiercely contested battle for Kobane:
Dan Lamothe, “US Air Strikes in Syria Are Now Dwarfing Those in Iraq, Thanks to the Fight for One Town,”
Washington Post
, October 16, 2014,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/10/16/u-s-airstrikes-in-syria-are-now-dwarfing-those-in-iraq-thanks-to-the-fight-for-one-town
.

 240 
In October 2014 Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel:
Phil Stewart and Steve Holland, “Hagel, Under Pressure, Resigns as US Defense Secretary,” Reuters, November 24, 2014,
www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/24/us-usa-military-hagel-idUSKCN0J81AK20141124
.

 240 
in part because he cautioned: Justin Sink, “Hagel Memo Criticized WH Syria Strategy,”
The Hill
, October 30, 2014,
thehill.com/policy/defense/222354-hagel-memo-criticized-wh-syria-strategy
.

 241 
Harakat Hazm (the Movement of Steadfastness) posted: “US-Backed Rebel Group Criticizes Syria Strikes,” AFP, September 23, 2014,
news.yahoo.com/us-backed-rebel-group-criticises-syria-strikes-192612603.html
.

 241 
wrote Robert Ford, the former US ambassador: Robert S. Ford, “Remember Our Syrian Allies,”
New York Times
, October 3, 2014,
www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/opinion/remember-our-syrian-allies.html
.

 241 
In one strike, in the town of Kafr Daryan, Idlib: Josh Levs, Paul Cruickshank, and Tim Lister, “Source: Al Qaeda Group in Syria Plotted Attack Against US with Explosive Clothes,” CNN, September 23, 2014,
www.cnn.com/2014/09/22/world/meast/al-qaeda-syria-khorasan
.

 241 
as one rebel media activist put it: Fidaa Itani, “Opposition Fighters Are Rejecting US-Led Strikes in Syria,”
NOW Lebanon
, September 9, 2014,
now.mmedia.me/lb/en/reportsfeatures/564118-opposition-fighters-are-rejecting-us-led-strikes-in-syria
.

 241 
ISIS has pledged rhetorical solidarity: Tim Lister and Raja Razek, “Islamist Rivals in Syria Find a Common Enemy in ‘Crusaders’ Coalition,” October 6, 2014,
www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/world/meast/isis-al-nusra-syria
.

 242 
Chérif was arrested before he could join: Rukmini Callimachi and Jim Yardley, “From Amateur to Ruthless Jihadist in France,”
New York Times
, January 17, 2015,
www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/world/europe/paris-terrorism-brothers-said-cherif-kouachi-charlie-hebdo.html
.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are profoundly grateful to those whose knowledge and experience helped to bring an awful story to life. 

Our discussion of the early years of the Iraq insurgency and then the Sahwa owes enormously to our very own “Council of Colonels.” Derek Harvey, Rick Welch, Jim Hickey, and Joel Rayburn, whose friendship is already a nice return on this investment—all gave hours of themselves to be interviewed and in some cases reinterviewed via frantic emails dispatched at 3:00 in the morning. 

Major General Doug Stone ran the Sing-Sing for al-Qaeda in Iraq for a little more than a year, which was long enough for him to surmise that there were jihadists trying to
break into
Camp Bucca. Ali Khedery and Emma Sky explained how decisions taken in Washington, particularly toward the end of the Iraq War, affected fortunes in Baghdad (and Ninewah and Anbar and Salah ad-Din). Laith Alkhouri, whose job it is to listen daily to what terrorists are saying to one another, proved an excellent and humorous dragoman in what is no doubt a still-terrified Starbucks in midtown Manhattan. Shiraz Maher took time out of finishing his dissertation on jihadism to explain the various categories of foreign fighters flocking to join ISIS. Martin Chulov and Christoph Reuter, two of the finest Middle East correspondents in print, generously shared their own fieldwork with us to help us ferret out some of the more obscure details from the Syria conflict.

NOW Lebanon’s Hanin Ghaddar, apart from being the bravest and most principled editor we know, allowed work originally written for her magazine to be reproduced in this book. Alex Rowell read our drafts in their early stages and, as ever, offered insights,
which ended up in the final manuscript. Tony Badran, who has made a life’s work of studying the House of Assad, illuminated Syria’s collusion with the very terrorism it now claims to be fighting.

The
Guardian’s
Paul Webster,
Foreign Affairs
’s David Mikhail and Kathryn Allawala, and
Foreign Policy
’s David Kenner commissioned essays from the authors that led to research about ISIS before there was a book. (
Foreign Policy
’s Ben Pauker generously allowed a leave of absence from his pages that was only intermittently interrupted with passive-aggressive reminders that we were due back at work.) 

Lidiya Dukhovich, Olga Khvostunova, Boris Bruk, Grace Lee, Dmitry Pospelov, James Miller, Catherine Fitzpatrick, and Pierre Vaux at the Institute of Modern Russia and the
Interpreter
were already accustomed to fielding menacing or bewildering phone calls from another part of the world before being treated to few award-winning examples of these from the Middle East.

Colleagues, friends, and family who were similarly indulgent, patient, or helpful in seeing this project to completion include
Linda Weiss, Leslie Wilson, Augie Weiss, Michael Pregent, Chris Harmer, Jessica Lewis McFate, Farha Barazi, Mariam Hamou, Bayan Khatib, Nada Kiwan, Qusai Zakarya, Ammar Abdulhamid, Lina Sergie, Phillip Smyth, Mubin Shaikh, Mike Giglio, Borzou Daragahi, Hamdi Rifai, Mishaal al-Gergawi, Mahmoud Habboush, Craig Larkin, Abdulsalam Haykal, Ahmed Hassan and Abdulhamid Hassan, Kareem Shaheen, Sultan Al Qassemi, Iyad
al-Baghdadi, Abdullah al-Ghadawi, Elizabeth Dickinson, Faisal al-Yafai, Nick March, Hussain Abdullatif, Ghazi Jeiroudi, Abdulnaser Ayd, Abdulrahman Aljamous, Mousab al-Hammadi, and everyone at the
National
and Delma Institute.

And the team at Regan Arts who put this book together in record time: Lucas Wittmann, Lynne Ciccaglione, and Michael Moynihan, along with Laine Morreau, and Danielle Dowling

Finally, Mustafa L. and John Bundock started out as
fact-checkers on this book and gradually became research assistants. Any errors of fact or interpretation remain our own.

Regan Arts

65 Bleecker Street

New York, NY 10012

Copyright © 2015 by Michael Weiss & Hassan Hassan

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Regan Arts Subsidiary Rights Department, 65 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012.

First Regan Arts paperback edition, February 2015.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015930621

ISBN 978-1-941393-57-4

Cover art © Abaca