by Meredith Tax
32“Assault on Kobane,” 2015; “The Turkish government is trying not to upset ISIS,” Harvest, December 1, 2014, http://turkeyharvest.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-turkish-government-is-trying-not-to.html.
33“We reproduce below a very informative Ask May Anything (AMA) from Reddit with a verified PKK fighter active in Kobane, Cizre, Bakur (Turkey) and Bashur (Iraq),” Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland), Facebook, July 20, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/WorkersSolidarityMovement/photos/a.974071899285290.1073741894.132000150159140/1175786155780529/.
34Weiss, “Confessions of an ISIS Spy,” 2015.
35Yvo Fitzherbert, “Rebuilding Kobani: call for help from a city in ruins,” Roar Magazine, February 18, 2015, http://roarmag.org/2015/02/rebuilding-kobani-ypg-pyd/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28ROAR+Magazine%29&utm_content=FeedBurner.
36Joey Lawrence, “ Guerrilla Fighters of Kurdistan,” Joey L. blog, June 6, 2015, http://www.joeyl.com/blog/all/post/guerrilla-fighters-of-kurdistan.
37Ben Hubbard, “Mass Killings by ISIS Fighters in Syrian Kurdish Town,” The New York Times, June 26, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/world/middleeast/mass-killings-by-isis-fighters-in-syrian-kurdish-town.html?_r=0.
38Tom Perry, “Syrian Kurds now say they now control territory the size of Qatar and Kuwait combined,” Reuters, August 14, 2015, http://www.businessinsider.com.au/syrian-kurds-now-say-they-now-control-territory-the-size-of-qatar-and-kuwait-combined-2015-8.
39Author’s discussions with Sinam Mohamad, European Representative of Rojava and Co-Chair of TEV-DEM, November 2, 4, 5, 2015, in New York City.
40Tom Anderson and Eliza Egret, “Rebuilding Kobane,” Red Pepper, January 2016, http://www.redpepper.org.uk/rebuilding-kobane/.
41“Congress Approving $721 Million for Syrian Rebels,” Roll Call, December 12, 2014, http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress_approving_721_million_for_syrian_rebels-238703-1.html; Samuel Osborne, “US supplies Syrian rebels with 50 tonnes of weapons in airdrop,” The Independent, October 13, 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-airdrops-50-tonnes-of-weapons-to-new-syrian-rebel-coalition-a6692126.html.
42Michael R. Gordon and Rukmini Callimachi, “Kurdish Fighters Retake Iraqi City of Sinjar from ISIS,” The New York Times, November 13, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/world/middleeast/sinjar-iraq-islamic-state.html.
43Fehim Tastekin, “Kurdish rivalry delays victory in Sinjar,” Al-Monitor, February 3, 2015, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/turkey-syria-iraq-kurdish-rivalry-yezidi-lan.html; Mahmut Bozarslan, “Kurdish infighting complicates Sinjar offensive,” Al-Monitor, November 12, 2015, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/11/turkey-iraq-krg-sinjar-pkk-yazidis-town-kurds-cannot-share.html.
44Tastekin, “Kurdish rivalry,” 2015.
45Jake Hess, “Washington’s Secret Back-Channel Talks with Syria’s Kurdish ‘Terrorists,’” Foreign Policy, October 7, 2014, http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/07/washingtons-secret-back-channel-talks-with-syrias-kurdish-terrorists/.
46International Crisis Group, “Syria’s Kurds: A Struggle Within a Struggle,” Middle East Report No. 136, January 22, 2013, footnote 59, http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/media-releases/2013/mena/syrias-kurds-a-struggle-within-a-struggle.aspx.
47Harut Sassounian, “Turkey Pays Former CIA Director and Lobbyists to Misrepresent Attacks on Kurds and ISIS,” Huffington Post, August 19, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harut-sassounian/turkeys-pays-former-cia-d_b_8002534.html.
48Mutlu Civiroglu, “PYD’s Salih Muslim: We Are Awaiting an Invitation for Talks with Washington,” Rudaw, August 16, 2013, http://rudaw.net/english/interview/16082013; Asli Aydintasbas, “PYD Leader holds Turkey responsible for fate of Kobani,” Al-Monitor, September 23, 2014, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2014/09/turkey-syria-kobani-isis-kurds-salih-muslim.html; Paul Richter, “U.S. denies Kurdish ally Salih Muslim’s request to visit,” The Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2015, http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-denies-visa-request-fromally-20150130-story.html.
49Robert Ellis, “Turkey heads in the wrong direction—and Europe helps it on the way,” The Independent, November 2, 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/turkey-heads-in-the-wrong-direction-and-europe-helps-it-on-the-way-a6718131.html.
50“Journalist Spotlight, Khaled Yacoub Oweis Reveals How He Scored Exclusive on Syrian Army Moving Missiles to Avoid Strike,” Reuters, September 5, 2013, http://www.reutersbest.com/articles/view/2449/journalist-spotlight-khaled-yacoub-oweis-reveals-how-he-scored-exclusive-on-syrian-army-moving-missiles-to-avoid-strike.
51Khaled Yacoub Oweis, “The West’s Darling in Syria,” SWP, October 2015, 1, http://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publications/swp-comments-en/swp-aktuelle-details/article/the_wests_darling_in_syria.html.
52Anthony Shadid, “Killing of Opposition Leader in Syria Provokes Kurds,” The New York Times, October 8, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/middleeast/killing-of-opposition-leader-in-syria-provokes-kurds.html; “Assad ordered killing of Kurdish activist Mashaal Tammo: Leaked Files,” Al-Arabiya, October 10, 2012, http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/10/10/242928.html.
53Oweis, “The West’s Darling,” 8.
54“Syria: US ally’s razing of villages amounts to war crimes,” Amnesty International, October 13, 2015, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/10/syria-us-allys-razing-of-villages-amounts-to-war-crimes/; “We Had Nowhere Else To Go”: Forced Displacement and Demolitions in Northern Syria, http://www.amnesty.org.au/images/uploads/crisis/Syria_Nowhere_to_go_Amnesty_report.pdf.
55“YPG General Commander Hemo on Syrian Democratic Force, US Weapons & Amnesty Report,” Personal Website of Mutlu Civiroglu, October 15, 2015, http://civiroglu.net/2015/10/15/ypg-general-commander-hemo-on-syrian-democratic-force-us-weapons-amnesty-report/.
56“YPG General Hemo,” 2015.
57“Syria: Arbitrary detentions and blatantly unfair trials mar PYD fight against terrorism,” Amnesty International, September 7, 2015, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/syria-abuses-mar-pyd-fight-against-terrorism/.
58Gita Sahgal, email message to author, October 15, 2015. For an account of Sahgal’s 2010 dispute with Amnesty, see Meredith Tax, “Gitagate, Two Years After,” Dissent, June 27, 2012, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/gitagate-two-years-after.
59Badirkan Ali, “The Reality of Ethnic Cleansing and Kurdish State in Syria,” Jadaliyya, August 25, 2015, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/22468/the-reality-of-ethnic-cleansing-and-kurdish-state-1/.
60“There’s no ‘ethnic cleaning’ in Til Abyad against the Turkmen and Arabic population,” Interview with Rami Abdulrahman, head of the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR),” London, Gesellshaft fur bedrohte volker, June 24, 2015, https://www.gfbv.de/en/news/theres-no-ethnic-cleansing-in-til-abyad-against-the-turkmen-and-arabic-population-7568/.
61John R. Bolton, “To Defeat ISIS, Create a Sunni State,” The New York Times, November 24, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/opinion/john-bolton-to-defeat-isis-create-a-sunni-state.html?_r=0.
62Yerevan Saeed, “YPG dismisses Amnesty report accusing Kurds of ethnic cleansing,” Rudaw, October 19, 2015, http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/191020152.
63“We reproduce below a very informative Ask May Anything (AMA) from Reddit with a verified PKK fighter active in Kobane, Cizre, Bakur (Turkey) and Bashur (Iraq),” Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland), Facebook, July 20, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/WorkersSolidarityMovement/photos/a.974071899285290.1073741894.132000150159140/1175786155780529/.
64Staal, “Saleh Muslim Interview,” 2014.
65Hawzhin Azeez, Facebook, January 23, 2016, https://www.facebook.com/hawzhin.azeez/posts/1051483404914555?fref=nf.
Chapter 8: The Birth of Daesh
1Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 48.
2AWAAZ-South Asia Watch, “The Islamic Right—Key Tendencies,”
June 2006, http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/files/2013/03/Islamic-Right-Key-Tendencies.pdf.
3Meredith Tax, Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights (New York and London: Centre for Secular Space, 2012), 18–20.
4“Interview Vali Nasr,” Frontline, October 25, 2001, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/interviews/nasr.html.
5“Wikileaks: Saudis ‘chief funders of Sunni militants,’” BBC News, December 5, 2010, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11923176.
6A. Azzam, “Defence of the Muslim Lands: The First Obligation after Ima[n],” Religioscope, n.d., http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/azzam_defence_1_table.htm.
7Dilip Hiro, “The Cost of an Afghan ‘victory,’” The Nation, January 28, 1999, http://www.thenation.com/article/cost-afghan-victory.
8Wright, Looming Tower, 133; Yassin Musharbash, “The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants,” Der Spiegel, August 12, 2005, http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-future-of-terrorism-what-al-qaida-really-wants-a-369448.html.
9Hiro, “Cost,” 1999.
10Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015), 29.
11Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Takfirism: a messianic ideology,” Le Monde Diplomatique, July 3, 2007, http://mondediplo.com/2007/07/03takfirism. Syed Saleem Shahzad was a crusading Pakistani journalist, known for his exposures of links between the Pakistani secret intelligence agency the ISI, and jihadis; after receiving many death threats and being arrested by the ISI, he was found dead in a ditch in 2007.
12David Ignatius, “How ISIS Spread in the Middle East—and how to stop it,” The Atlantic, October 29, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/how-isis-started-syria-iraq/.
13Dexter Filkins, “Did George W. Bush Create ISIS?,” The New Yorker, May 15, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/did-george-w-bush-create-isis.
14Yifat Susskind, “Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq,” MADRE, March 9, 2007, 3, http://www.madre.org/uploads/misc/1268922752_iraqreport.pdf.
15Liz Sly, “The hidden hand behind the Islamic State militants? Saddam Hussein’s,” The Washington Post, April 4, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-hidden-hand-behind-the-islamic-state-militants-saddam-husseins/2015/04/04/aa97676c-cc32-11e4-8730-4f473416e759_story.html.
16Huda Ahmed, “Women in Iraq,” Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Progress Amid Resistance, ed. Sanja Kelly and Julia Breslin (New York: Freedom House/Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 2–3.
17Susskind, 2007, 1.
18Susskind, 2007, 7.
19Quoted in Charles Lister, “Jihadi Rivalry: The Islamic State Challenges al-Qaida,” Brookings Doha Center Analysis, 16, January 2016, 4, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2016/01/27-islamic-state-challenges-alqaida-lister; Susan B. Glasser and Walter Pincus, “Seized Letter Outlines Al Qaeda Goals in Iraq,” The Washington Post, October 12, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/11/AR2005101101353.html.
20Weiss and Hassan, ISIS 18, 29, 59.
21Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 68–71.
22Houzan Mahmoud, “A symptom of Iraq’s tragedy,” The Guardian, June 12, 2006, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/12/theendofzarqawitheusmade.
23Terri Judd, “For the Women of Iraq, the War is Just Beginning,” The Independent, June 8, 2006, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/for-the-women-of-iraq-the-war-is-just-beginning-481497.html.
24Nadje al-Ali, “Iraq: gendering authoritarianism,” openDemocracy 5050, July 15, 2013, https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/nadje-al-ali/iraq-gendering-authoritarianism.
25Rania Abouzeid, “Out of Sight; A former prostitute tries to rescue Iraq’s most vulnerable women,” The New Yorker, October 5, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/05/out-of-sight-letter-from-baghdad-rania-abouzeid.
26Martin Chulov, “ISIS: the Inside Story,” The Guardian, December 11, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story.
27Christoph Reuter, “The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State,” Der Speigel, April 18, 2015, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html.
28Chulov, “Inside Story,” 2014; Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 120–123; Tim Arango, “Top Qaeda Leaders in Iraq Reported Killed in Raid,” The New York Times, April 19, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/world/middleeast/20baghdad.html?_r=0.
29Chulov, “Inside Story,” 2014; Reuter, “Terror Strategist,” 2015.
30Rania Abouzeid, “The Jihad Next Door,” Politico, June 23, 2014, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/al-qaeda-iraq-syria-108214_full.html.
31Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, p. 144; Abouzeid, “Jihad Next Door,” 2014.
32Abouzeid, “Jihad Next Door,” 2014.
33Abouzeid, “Jihad Next Door,” 2014.
34Naharnet Newsdesk, “Al-Nusra Commits to al-Qaida, Deny Iraq Branch ‘Merger’,” Naharnet.com, April 10, 2013, http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/78961-al-nusra-commits-to-al-qaida-deny-iraq-branch-merger/.
35Thomas Joscelyn, “Analysis: Zawahiri’s letter to al Qaeda branches in Syria, Iraq,” The Long War Journal, June 10, 2013, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/06/analysis_alleged_let.php. Although Zawahiri’s decision and the feud in general were not made public until June, when Al Jazeera broadcast a letter from him dated May 23, it is likely that the parties involved were given the message privately much earlier.
36“Iraqi al-Qaeda chief rejects Zawahiri orders,” Al Jazeera, June 14, 2013, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/2013615172217827810.html.
37Hussein Jemmo, Al-Qaeda’s Internal Divide Grows in Syria,” Al-Monitor, Aug. 19, 2013, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2013/08/al-qaeda-internal-divide-syria-islamic-state-jabhat-nusra.html.
38Reuter, “Terror Strategist,” 2015.
39Kendal Nizan, “When our ‘friend’ Saddam was gassing the Kurds,” Le Monde Diplomatique, March 1998, http://mondediplo.com/1998/03/04iraqkn.
40Christoph Reuter has been reporting for decades from the Middle East, and has written a book on suicide bombers (2002) and another on daily life in Iraq (2002). In April 2015, the Der Speigel publishing house brought out his most recent book, Die schwarze Macht: Der »Islamische Staat« und die Strategen des Terrors (The Black Power: The “Islamic State” and the Strategists of Terror).
41Reuter, “Terror Strategist,” 2015.
42Sarah Birke, “How ISIS Rules,” The New York Review of Books, February 5, 2015, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/feb/05/how-isis-rules/.
43Aron Lund, “Who and What was Abu Khalid al-Suri? Part 1,” Syria in Crisis, February 24, 2014, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Mohammed Al Attar, “Al Raqqa: The realities of the military brigades, the administration of the liberated city and the revolution to come,” Heinrich Böll Stiftung Middle East, September 18, 2013, http://lb.boell.org/en/2013/09/18/raqqa-reality-military-brigades-administration-liberated-city-and-revolutions-come.
44Matthew Barber, “The Raqqa Story: Rebel Structure, Planning, and Possible War Crimes,” Syria Comment, April 3, 2013, http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/the-raqqa-story-rebel-structure-planning-and-possible-war-crimes/.
45Firas al-Hakkar, “The Mysterious Fall of Raqqa, Syria’s Kandahar,” Al Akhbar, November 8, 2013, http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/17550.
46Barber, “Raqqa Story,” 2013.
47“ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Sham): An enemy of the revolution and an ally of the Assad regime,” Comment Middle East, March 19, 2014, http://www.commentmideast.com/2014/03/isis-islamic-state-in-iraq-and-sham-an-enemy-of-the-revolution-and-an-ally-of-the-assad-regime/; “How Did Raqqa Fall to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria?” Syria Untold, January 13, 2014, http://www.syriauntold.com/en/2014/01/how-did-r
aqqa-fall-to-the-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-syria/.
48Alison Tahmizian Meuse, “Raqqa’s RSA Brigades Join Jabhat al-Nusra,” Syria Deeply, September 20, 2013, http://www.syriadeeply.org/articles/2013/09/2493/raqqas-fsa-brigades-join-jabhat-al-nusra/.
49Al-Hakkar, “Myserious Fall,” 2013. See also Chapter 7, pp. 196–7
50Al-Hakkar, “Mysterious Fall,” 2013. Because Assad is an Alawite, this accusation is frequently made against Alawites and other Shia.
51Al-Hakkar, “Mysterious Fall,” 2013.
52Al Attar, “Al Raqqa,” 2013.
53Mona Hamdan, “Father Paolo: The ‘Icon’ of the Syrian Revolution,” Al-Monitor, August 13, 2013, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/08/syria-italian-priest-abducted-raqqa.html; Al Attar, “Al Raqqa.” 2013.
54Michael Weiss, “The schoolteacher versus al Qaeda,” NOW Media, November 13, 2013, https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/520562-520562-facing-down-the-devil.
55“The Raqqa woman who faced the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” Syria Untold, October 17, 2013, http://www.syriauntold.com/en/2013/10/the-raqqa-woman-who-faced-the-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-syria/; Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 187–189.
56Doha Hassan, “ISIS is the child of the regime,” NOW Media, November 11, 2013, https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/reportsfeatures/520161-isis-is-the-child-of-the-regime.
57“The Woman in Pants,” https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151674274772016&set=vb.262595243783140&type=2&theater.
58“The Woman in Pants,” author’s transcript of video interview.
59Its name is translated as Descendants, Offspring, or Grandsons of the Prophet.
60Reuter, “Terror Strategist,” 2015; al-Hakkar, “Mysterious Fall,” 2013.
61Meuse, “Raqqa’s RSA Brigades,” Syria Deeply, September 20, 2013.
62Al-Hakkar, “Mysterious Fall,” 2013.
63Sarah Birke, “How al-Qaeda Changed the Syrian War,” The New York Review of Books, December 27, 2013, http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/dec/27/how-al-qaeda-changed-syrian-war/; Reuter, “Terror Strategist,” 2015.