Black Flags
Page 38
“Only God punishes by fire”: Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, “Muslims Condemn ISIS Killing of Jordanian Pilot,” The Islamists Are Coming (blog), Feb. 5, 2015.
“Henning worked with a charitable organization”: “Jihadi Ideologue Calls for Freeing British Hostage,” Associated Press, Sept. 20, 2014.
“I am concentrating now on trying”: “Daesh Releases New Audio Recording of Pilot Negotiation Attempts,” Al-Bawaba News, Feb. 18, 2015.
“They lied to me”: Maqdisi interview with Jordan’s Roya TV, Feb. 6, 2015, translation provided by Middle East Media Research Institute at http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/4767.htm.
“The radicalization of many of the actors”: Rami Khouri, “ISIS Is About the Arab Past, Not the Future,” lecture, May 11, 2015, at Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars.
“We are waging this war”: Suleiman al-Khalidi, “Jordanian King Vows ‘Relentless’ War on Islamic State’s Own Ground,” Reuters, Feb. 4, 2015.
“Islam has nothing to do with ISIS”: Ranya Kadri and Anne Barnard, “Jordan, Unabashed, Announces Latest Bombing Raid on ISIS Targets,” New York Times, Feb. 5, 2015.
“This is the beginning”: William Booth and Taylor Luck, “Jordan Rages Against Islamic State As Military Vows to Expand Airstrikes,” Washington Post, Feb. 6, 2015.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joby Warrick has been a reporter for The Washington Post since 1996. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, and the author of The Triple Agent.
A young Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayleh—the future Zarqawi—poses with his mother and a younger sibling in an undated family photo. (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan)
Zarqawi as he appeared around the time he left Jordan for Afghanistan in 1989 to join the mujahideen. (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan)
A foiled terrorist plot landed Zarqawi in a Jordanian prison in 1994, but he was released in a general amnesty in 1999, around the time this photo was taken. (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan)
A young Prince Abdullah in army uniform presents a gift of cermonial daggers to his father, Jordan’s King Hussein. (Royal Hashemite Court)
Jordan’s king and Queen Rania pose for an official portrait in 2010. (Royal Hashemite Court)
King Abdullah II meets with President George W. Bush at the White House a month after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Though relations are cordial, Abdullah warns that the coming U.S. invasion of Iraq would open a Pandora’s box in the region. (White House photo; Courtesy of George W. Bush Presidential Library)
The United Nations Iraq headquarters lies in ruins after a devastating suicide bombing that kills the mission chief and twenty-two others. The August 2003 attack is among the first linked to Zarqawi. (Defense Department photo)
Zarqawi, masked, stands behind seated American hostage Nick Berg, a Pennsylvania businessman captured in Iraq in 2004. The videotaped beheading of Berg becomes Zarqawi’s signature act, and the first of many such executions. (SITE Intelligence Group)
Zarqawi cradles a light machine gun for a publicity video in 2006. Despite widespread revulsion over his brutal tactics, Zarqawi’s reputation for fearlessness draws thousands of Islamist volunteers to Iraq. (SITE Intelligence Group)
Nada Bakos, pictured here in 2014, was the CIA’s chief “targeter” for Zarqawi during the early years of the Iraq war. (Courtesy of Nada Bakos)
Diplomat Robert S. Ford tried to encourage Iraqi Sunni politicians to run for office despite threats from Zarqawi. Later, as U.S. ambassador to Syria, he sounded the alarm about the growing presence of Islamists among the country’s rebel militias. (State Department photo)
General Stanley McChrystal inspects troops during a 2010 ceremony. As commander of U.S. special forces in Iraq, McChrystal helped devise the strategy that led to Zarqawi’s death in 2006 and the near destruction of his organization in the years that followed. (Defense Department photo)
Would-be terrorist Sajida al-Rishawi displays the suicide vest that failed to explode during Zarqawi’s 2005 attack on Western hotels in the Jordanian capital. (The Jordan Times)
Soldiers searching through rubble of Zarqawi’s safe house after the building is flattened by a U.S. fighter jet. (Defense Department photo)
Zarqawi was pulled alive from the rubble of his safe house but died minutes later from blast injuries, surrounded by U.S. troops. His body, pictured here, was taken to a U.S. military base so his identity could be confirmed. (Defense Department photo)
Huge crowds protest against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Hama, Syria, in July 2011. Intervention by U.S. diplomats delayed, but did not prevent, a bloody assault by government security forces. (Shaam News Network)
Future ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is photographed at the U.S. military detainee facility Camp Bucca in February 2004. (Defense Department photo)
ISIS soldiers march through the streets of Raqqa, the western Syrian city captured by the terrorist group and claimed as its capital in 2013. (SITE Intelligence Group)
ISIS leader Baghdadi proclaims himself leader of Islamic caliphate at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in the Iraqi city of Mosul. (SITE Intelligence Group)
ISIS terrorizes captured Iraqi and Syrian cities with public executions, from beheadings to crucifixions, such as this one in Raqqa’s main square. (SITE Intelligence Group)
A convoy of ISIS vehicles crosses the Iraqi desert in early 2014. With crucial support from sympathetic Iraqi Sunnis, the terrorist group is easily able to capture Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and much of Anbar Province. (SITE Intelligence Group)
ISIS propaganda video shows captured Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh before he is burned alive on video. (SITE Intelligence Group)
King Abullah II embraces the father of slain pilot al-Kasasbeh outside the family home in southern Jordan. (Royal Hashemite Court)
Jordanian fighter jets return home from a bombing mission in Syria after Jordan’s monarchy vows revenge for the execution of its captured pilot. “They will be hit hard,” the king declares. (Jordanian Armed Forces photo)