Black Flags (49 page)

“We’re trying to hold on to you”:
Stanley A. McChrystal,
My Share of the Task: A Memoir
(New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2013).

“We watched a guy dressed in all black come out”:
Author interview with Stanley A. McChrystal.

An autopsy found no evidence:
Final Autopsy Report, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, June 8, 2006.

“Why didn’t we think of that”:
Author interview with Rep. Steny Hoyer; see also Peter Baker,
Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House
(New York: Doubleday, 2013).

“I was happy”:
Author interview with Nada Bakos.

“I long had this mental image”:
Author interview with Abu Haytham.

“Your end is close”:
Author interview with Zaydan al-Jabiri.

Chapter 17

small army of men:
Author interview with two U.S. officials familiar with the events.

“If they get through that door”:
Ibid.

disliked the sight of blood:
Joan Juliet Buck, “Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert,”
Vogue
, Feb. 25, 2011.

“My judgment is that Syria will move”:
“John Kerry Praises Syria in 2011 Speech,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace speech, March 2011. For entire speech, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHMiLIZ_iwQ
.

“The last country in the world”:
Author interview with Robert S. Ford.

twenty-seven interrogation centers:
“Torture Archipelago: Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria’s Underground Prisons Since March 2011,” Human Rights Watch, July 3, 2012, retrieved from
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/07/03/torture-archipelago-0
.

“The country’s problems were being exacerbated”:
Author interview with Frederic C. Hof.

“The presence of the U.S. ambassador”:
“Syria Says US ‘Interfering’ As Ambassador Visits Hama,”
BBC News
, July 8, 2011.

“President Assad is not indispensable”:
“Clinton Says Syria’s Assad ‘Not Indispensable’,”
Voice of America
, July 10, 2011,
http://www.voanews.com/content/clinton-says-syrias-assad-not-indispensable—125382213/142106.html
.

“He has not led”:
Macon Philips, “President Obama: ‘The Future of Syria Must Be Determined by Its People, but President Bashar al-Assad Is Standing in Their Way,’ ”
White House Blog
, Aug. 18, 2011,
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/08/18/president-obama-future-syria-must-be-determined-its-people-president-bashar-al-assad
.

“very disgusted by the behavior”:
Author interview with Benjamin Rhodes.

“This kind of ideology lurks in dark corners”:
“Syria Speech by Bashar al-Assad,” June 20, 2011,
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/syria/bashar_assad_speech_110620.htm
.

Chapter 18

Now he would appeal to Assad directly:
Author interview with two senior officials familiar with the events.

“There are only a handful of true al-Qaeda types”:
Author interview with a senior official familiar with the events.

“Where is this Islamic state”:
Cole Bunzel, “From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State,” Brookings Institute,
Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World
, March 2015.

“Here in your midst”:
Wikimedia Foundation, Foreign Affairs Committee,
The ISIS Threat: The Rise of the Islamic State and Their Dangerous Potential
(Google eBook, Sept. 25, 2014).

astonishing array of electronic sleuthing tools:
Author interviews with three U.S. officials who participated in these events at the time.

“near-strategic defeat”:
Joby Warrick, “U.S. Cites Big Gains Against Al-Qaeda,”
Washington Post
, May 30, 2008.

“We didn’t become like them”:
Author interview with a senior U.S. official who helped oversee the operations.

“long, gloomy night and dark days”:
Steven Lee Myers, “New Qaeda ‘War Minister’ Warns of ‘Days Colored in Blood,’ ”
New York Times
, May 14, 2010.

Chapter 19

“There were not more than seven or eight of us”:
“Al-Jazeera Interview with Abu Mohamed Golani, the Head of al-Nusra in Syria,” Dec. 18, 2013, retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8uTGdun5Fg
.

“It was to be the face of the organization”:
Author interview with a senior U.S. official familiar with intelligence profiles on Baghdadi.

“He always had religious”:
Janine di Giovanni, “Who Is ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?,”
Newsweek
, Dec. 8, 2014.

“promoting of virtue and preventing of vice”:
Pieter van Nostaeyen, “The Biography of Sheikh Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Amir of the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham,”
World Press
, July 2013,
https://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-a-short-biography-of-the-isis-sheikh
.

“It actually feels like you’re in a microwave”:
Lt. Commander Vasilios Tasikas, “The Battlefield Inside the Wire,”
Military Review
, Sept.–Oct. 2009.

“Extremists mingled with moderates”:
Ibid.

“Deal with America and its allies”:
Paul Vale, “Islamic State’s Al-Baghdadi Says Group Will Fight to ‘Last Soldier,’ ” Associated Press, Nov. 13, 2014.

“Zarqawi was closer than a brother”:
Ruth Sherlock, “How a Talented Footballer Became World’s Most Wanted Man,”
Telegraph
[London], Nov. 11, 2014.

Khlifawi urged Baghdadi to accept:
Matthew Barber, “New ISIS Leaks Reveal Particulars of al-Qaeda Strategy,” from “Syria Comment” blog of the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Middle East Studies, Jan. 12, 2014.

“He cloaked himself”:
Author interview with senior U.S. official.

“We have crossed the boundaries”:
“The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria Shall Remain,” audio message posted June 6, 2013; translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

“There was a sense that this thing”:
Author interview with a senior U.S. official present during the debates.

“It was that slow car crash”:
Author interview with Mouaz Moustafa.

“All the different sects were there”:
Author interview with Noura al-Ameer.

Chapter 20

“We hereby bring the Islamic nation”:
Video posting, “New Jihad Group in Syria Announces Its Establishment,” Middle East Media Research Institute, Jan. 24, 2012.

“We said from the beginning, this is terrorism”:
Quoted in Alexandra Zavis and Katie Paul, “Syria Capital Hit by Massive Bombings,”
Los Angeles Times
, Dec. 24, 2011.

“Give your money to the ones who will spend it on jihad”:
David D. Kirkpatrick, “Qatar’s Support of Islamists Alienates Allies Near and Far,”
New York Times
, Sept. 7, 2014.

“It’s anyone’s game”:
Author interview with a senior Middle Eastern diplomat.

“In their view, it’s Assad”:
Author interview with a senior Middle Eastern intelligence official.

“This is not abstract”:
Author’s confidential interview with a senior aide to King Abdullah II.

“We thought going with the Americans”:
Adam Entous, “Covert CIA Mission to Arm Syrian Rebels Goes Awry,”
Wall Street Journal
, Jan. 26, 2015.

“Where are these revolutions going to stop?”:
Author interview with senior official familiar with the exchange.

“I have my red lines”:
Ibid.

“I didn’t think they were going to kill me”:
Author interview with Robert S. Ford.

“The regime was losing control”:
Ibid.

“The intelligence, frankly, was very worrisome”:
Author interview with Leon E. Panetta. See also Leon E. Panetta,
Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace
(New York: Penguin Press, 2014).

“every option appears worse than the next”:
Hillary Rodham Clinton,
Hard Choices
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014).

“We’re outside the game”:
Author interview with Panetta.

“He was willing to consider options”:
Author interview with Benjamin Rhodes.

“I think, candidly, that a lot of people”:
Ibid.

“But all of these steps were Band-Aids”:
Clinton,
Hard Choices
.

“We know how to do this”:
Author interview with Panetta.

Chapter 21

“You’re Shiites, right?”:
“Who Is the ISIL Iraqi Terrorist Who Executed the Three Syrian Truckers in Syrian–Iraqi border in 2013?,”
Liveleak.com
, retrieved March 2015. More at
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8d1_1398584978#mjwHKBEOjIWYc8Ou.99
.

He told a story:
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, “Give Good News to the Believers: The Declaration of the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham,” audio speech,
World Press
, April 2013, retrieved from
https://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/shaykh-abc5ab-bakr-al-e1b8a5ussaync4ab-al-qurayshc4ab-al-baghdc481dc4ab-e2809cannouncement-of-the-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-al-shc481m22-en.pdf
.

“Al-Nusra Front’s banner will remain”:
“Jabhat Al-Nusra Leader Abu Muhammad al-Joulani Pledges Allegiance to Al-Zawahiri,” audio message, posted April 10, 2013; translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

“Muslim blood is off-limits”:
“Al-Qaeda Chief Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Letter to the Leaders of the Two Jihadi Groups,” April 2014, retrieved from
https://archive.org/stream/710588-translation-of-ayman-al-zawahiris-letter/710588-translation-of-ayman-al-zawahiris-letter_djvu.txt
.