ISIS: The State of Terror Part 11

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

J. M. BERGER.

It was a long road to this book and many people helped along the way. I can't list them all here, but I can make a dent.

First of all, I want to thank Jessica Stern for inviting me to work on this project with her. I am extraordinarily grateful for both the vote of confidence and the opportunity to collaborate with someone whose work I have admired for years. I would not have had this opportunity to work on this important subject at such length without her, and she brought many ideas and resources to the book that would otherwise have been absent. For all this and more, I thank her.

Over the course of many years slogging it out alone, I have been fortunate to encounter others as well who have also placed their confidence in me and allowed me pleasure and privilege of their insights.

Those relations.h.i.+ps, and all I have learned from them, are reflected in these pages, often very directly. Among those most represented are Aaron Zelin of the Was.h.i.+ngton Inst.i.tute for Near East Policy and Heather Perez, colleagues and friends whom I trust completely for their judgment, knowledge, and skills. I'm lucky to know both of them, and I couldn't have done this without them.

Providing additional crucial input on the ma.n.u.script itself were valued friends and esteemed colleagues Will McCants and Charles Lister, both of the Brookings Inst.i.tution, and Brian Fishman of the New America Foundation. Their invaluable feedback on the book is surpa.s.sed only by everything I've learned from their work in the past and expect to learn in the future.

As ISIS was on the rise, before this book was even a glimmer in anyone's eye, I was lucky to share the counsel, collaboration, conversation, feedback, friends.h.i.+p, and good (if occasionally gallows) humor of Clint Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Inst.i.tute and Aaron Weisburd. It was a pleasure to learn from these pros, and I look forward to learning more.

Many more have generously shared their expertise and camaraderie over the years, and to each I owe an individual debt of knowledge or support, or both. The list includes but is by no means limited to Humera Khan, Daniel Kimmage, Kirsten Fontenrose, Tamar Tesler, Christina Nemr, Thomas Hegghammer, Peter Bergen, J. C. Brisard, Dave Gomez, Don Ra.s.sler, Chris Heffelfinger, Rachel Milton, and many others, including some who for various reasons cannot be named.

John Horgan and Mia Bloom deserve an extra-special shout-out here for their professional support, personal friends.h.i.+p, and the role they played in bringing Jessica and me together for this project. (Not to mention Thomas Hegghammer, who first introduced us some months earlier.) In the world of journalism, I am thankful for those who have had the good grace to take me seriously, especially James Gordon Meek of ABC News, Scott Shane of the New York Times, Thana.s.sis Cambanis of the Boston Globe, and Josh Meyer of the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative.

Patiently and creatively supporting my education on the technical and social media side of things have been, among others, Daniel Sturtevant, Bill Strathearn, Jonathan Morgan, Justin Seitz, Yasmin Green, and Brendan Ballou.

For giving me platforms from which to write, I thank Foreign Policy, and editors Ben Pauker, Blake Hounsh.e.l.l, Peter Scoblic, Susan Gla.s.ser, Uri Friedman, Noah Shactman, Hillary Claggett, and many others. And given my work's focus on social media, both in the book and out, I would be remiss not to mention those who have over the medium of Twitter consistently encouraged me, shared their knowledge, or both, including @NewNarrative, @el_grillo1, @stick631, @hipbonegamer, @ibsiqilli, @gregorydjohnsen, @blogsofwar, @morgfair, and @hlk01.

For the writing and research of this book, many hands helped carry the load. They include Jessica's research a.s.sistant Abigail Dusseldorf, who put in many long hours on a host of issues; my research a.s.sistant Sam Haas, who provided critical help on ISIS's external operations and a host of other matters; and on Twitter-related issues, Jonathan Morgan, Youssef Ben Ismail, Yasmin Green, and Jana Levene. Without their labors, this wouldn't have come together, and all helped make this book better and more complete.

At Ecco Books, the enthusiastic support and editing of Daniel Halpern was one of the primary factors in making this project happen, with Gabriella Doob sharing editing duties and catching countless fixes. Martha Kaplan of the Martha Kaplan Agency provided tremendous a.s.sistance in bringing all the elements together and sage counsel along the way.

Finally, I want to thank my family, most especially my wife, Janet, without whom none of this would have been possible, or even imaginable. Most of the people named herein are part of a complex web of events and capabilities. Subtract any of them, and the course of my career might have veered away from this moment. But no one is more essential than Janet. From the start of my interest in the topic of terrorism, through long years during which that interest seemed of questionable utility, through the writing of my first book and through every step of writing this book, Janet's emotional, logistical, and editing support have been crucial. None of my professional steps forward could or would have happened without her, but my grat.i.tude to her for all the things she has enabled in my work is only a tiny fraction of my grat.i.tude for all the things she has brought to my life.

JESSICA STERN.

First, I thank Dan Halpern, whom I am lucky to call my editor, whose idea it was to write this book. I would not have dared to tackle the topic without Dan's encouragement and counsel. I also thank Gabriella Doob, a.s.sociate editor at Ecco, for her extraordinary efforts on our behalf, including lightning-fast editing and other help.

J. M. Berger is a beloved scholar, and after this experience of working with him, I understand why. I could not have done this without him as coauthor, sometimes editor, sometimes antagonist, sometimes cheerleader. As is perhaps not surprising, I first noticed J.M.'s work on social media, when I started following him to observe his conversations with Omar Hammami, the now deceased member of the terrorist group Al Shabab. J.M. follows terrorists online as obsessively as I would speak to them, were that still possible. Very few people develop an intuition about terrorists. J.M. is one of them, and I feel lucky to have had the chance to work with him.

My colleague Saida Abdi brought J.M. to my attention. Thank you, Saida. And Thomas Hegghammer, you are the reason I met J.M. in the flesh.

I thank all those who were willing to read the ma.n.u.script and provide comments, including, especially, Scott Atran, Dean Atkins, Mia Bloom, Brian Fishman, Martha Kaplan, Will McCants, Charles Lister, and Aaron Zelin. I have learned so much from all of you.

John Horgan and Mia Bloom have been great friends to both of us throughout the project.

We had a team of research a.s.sistants who were vitally important, Sam Haas, my doctoral student Megan McBride (who also wrote the appendix), Jennie Spector, and Youssef Ben Ismail. I thank especially Abigail Dusseldorp, who often worked with us from early morning until late at night.

Martha Kaplan, you are the best agent in the world, always seeing the best in me, pus.h.i.+ng me further than I imagine to be possible.

The Hoover Inst.i.tution has provided me an intellectual home away from home and a set of excellent colleagues, the Members of the Task Force on National Security and Law. I thank you all for the conversations we've had over the years, which have taught me a great deal.

Jennifer Leaning and Jacqueline Bhabha provided me an inst.i.tutional home at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health. I cherish you both and am in awe of your good works in the world.

Ron Schouten, a.s.sociate professor of psychiatry at Ma.s.s General Hospital, thank you for teaching me about psychopathy and for being such a good ally and collaborator.

Ted Flinter, an outstanding former student, announced out of the blue that he wanted to fund my research. Ha.s.san Abbas, another remarkable former student, came to see me while I was laboring over the end of time. When the student appreciates the teacher, it means the world.

My own professors-Ash Carter, Matthew Meselson, and Richard Zeckhauser-taught me how to think about national security. You continue to inspire me.

Several anonymous Iraqi citizens were kind enough to spend time with me, both in the United States and abroad. They helped me a great deal in my efforts to make sense of the rise of ISIS.

Finally, I thank my family. I thank especially Chet and Evan. Thank you for making love possible.

This book is written with the victims of ISIS's terrorism very much in mind and heart. My thoughts and prayers are with the citizens who are bravely fighting ISIS in their midst.

NOTES.

INTRODUCTION.

1."Profile: James Foley, US Journalist Beheaded by Islamic State," BBC World News, August 20, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-28865508.

2.Rukmini Callimachi, "The Horror Before the Beheadings: Isis Hostages Endured Torture and Dashed Hopes, Freed Cellmates Say," New York Times, October 25, 2014.

3."Bigley's Wife Tells of Her Grief," BBC World News, October 9, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3729158.stm; Joel Roberts, "Report: j.a.panese Hostage Killed," CBS News, October 30, 2009, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/30/iraq/main652421.shtml; Toby Harnden, "South Korean Hostage Beheaded by al-Qaeda," The Telegraph, June 23, 2004, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1465300/South-Korean-hostage-beheaded-by-al-Qaeda.html; videos downloaded from al Qaeda in Iraq file servers, 2004 to 2006.

4.David Remnick, "Going The Distance," New Yorker, January 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/27/going-the-distance-2?currentPage=all.

5.Conversation with Haidar Alaloom (Senior Policy a.n.a.lyst and Strategist at Humanize Global), November 2014.

6.George W. Bush, "Speech at the National Endowent for Democracy," October 6, 2005, http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/10.06.05.html.

7.Thomas Carothers, "The End of the Transition Paradigm," Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1 (2002): 521. See also Fareed Zakaria, "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy," Foreign Affairs, November/December 1997.Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003); F. Gregory Gause, "Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?" Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005.

8.David Kirkpatrick, "ISIS' Harsh Brand on Islam Is Rooted in Austere Saudi Creed," New York Times, September 24, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/world/middleeast/isis-abu-bakr-baghdadi-caliph-wahhabi.html?_r=0.

9.Ed Husain, "Saudis Must Stop Exporting Extremism," New York Times, August 22, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/opinion/isis-atrocities-started-with-saudi-support-for-salafi-hate.html.

10.Section on naming adapted from J. M. Berger, "What's in a Name?" IntelWire, August 10, 2014, http://news.intelwire.com/2014/08/whats-in-name.html.

11.Patrick Lyons and Mona El-Naggar, "What to Call Iraq Fighters? Experts Vary on S's and L's," New York Times, June 18, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/world/middleeast/islamic-state-in-iraq-and-syria-or-islamic-state-in-iraq-and-the-levant.html?_r=0.

12.J. M. Berger, "Gambling on the Caliphate," IntelWire, June 29, 2014, http://news.intelwire.com/2014/06/gambling-on-caliphate.html.

13.Liz Peek, "Obama's Use of ISIL, Not ISIS, Tells Another Story," Fox News, August 24, 2014.

14.Matt Apuzzo, Twitter post.

15.Adam Taylor, "France is ditching the 'Islamic State' name," The Was.h.i.+ngton Post, September 17, 2014, http://www.was.h.i.+ngtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/17/france-is-ditching-the-islamic-state-name-and-replacing-it-with-a-label-the-group-hates/.

16.Portions of this discussion of terminology were adapted from J. M. Berger, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam (Was.h.i.+ngton, DC: Potomac Books, 2011).

17.Steve Emerson, "Abdullah a.s.sam: The Man Before Osama Bin Laden," International a.s.sociation for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals website, undated, http://www.iacsp.com/itobli3.html, accessed August 25, 2010.

18.Just war requires that two conditions be met: just cause (jus ad bellum) and just means or justice in war (jus in bello). Jus in bello requires that the belligerents' methods be proportional to their ends, and that they do not directly target noncombatants. While terrorism may, in principle, meet the requirement of a just cause, it does not meet the second: Terrorists by definition target noncombatants, which is explicitly prohibited by both the Judeo-Christian and Islamic Just War Tradition. The double effects rule modifies this requirement to allow for acts of war that inadvertently result in loss of civilians lives, which military strategists call collateral damage. What matters here, according to philosopher Steven Lee, is intention. There is a morally relevant difference, he argues, "between merely foreseeing the deaths of noncombatants as an effect of military activity and intending to bring about those deaths; the principle of discrimination rules out the activity only in the latter case." Steven Lee, "Is the Just War Tradition Relevant in the Nuclear Age?" Research in Philosophy and Technology 9 no. 85. But, what if the adversary knows in advance that many civilian lives will be lost in an attack that is aimed at military targets? This is a moral problem that military strategists still grapple with. The ability to aim at a particular target, with minimal damage, is what makes drones so attractive to those who aim to comply with the law of war. See also, James Turner Johnson, Modern Contemporary Warfare (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) and John Kelsay, Arguing the Just War in Islam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007).

19.Terrorists' goals can be instrumental (changing the world) and expressive (drawing attention to a cause) or both. For more on this topic, see Jessica Stern and Amit Modi, "Producing Terror: Organizational Dynamics of Survival," in Thomas Biersteker and Sue Eckert, eds., Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Rutledge, 2007).

20.Kenneth Anderson writes frequently on this topic. See, for example, "Alan Dershowitz on Degrees of 'Civilia.n.a.lity,'" Kenneth Anderson's Law of War and Just War Theory Blog, July 22, 2006, http://kennethandersonlawofwar.blogspot.com/2006/07/alan-dershowitz-on-degrees-of.html. See also, Monika Hlavkova, "Reconstructing the Civilian/Combatant Divide: A Fresh Look at Targeting in Non-international Armed Conflict," Journal of Conflict & Security Law 19 no. 2 (2014): 25178.

21.Peter Singer, "Facing Saddam's Child Soldiers," Brookings Inst.i.tution, January 14, 2003, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2003/01/14iraq-singer.

22.Tim Arango, "A Boy in ISIS. A Suicide Vest. A Hope to Live," New York Times, December 28, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/27/world/middleeast/syria-isis-recruits-teenagers-as-suicide-bombers.html.

23.Article 26 of the Rome Statute states that: "The Court shall have no jurisdiction over any person who was under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged commission of the offence." Matthew Happold, "The Age of Criminal Responsibilty in International Criminal Law," in Karin Arts and Vesselin Popovski, eds., International Criminal Accountability and Children's Rights (The Hague: T.M.C. a.s.ser Press, 2007) http://www.a.s.ser.nl/Default.aspx?site_id=9&level1=13337&level2=13345. The prosecution of children under 18 is relegated to national courts, and national laws regarding the age of criminal responsibility vary. The Paris Principles, "Principles and Guidelines on Children a.s.sociated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups," urges that children accused of war crimes be considered "primarily as victims," and "not only as perpetrators," which would seem to leave room for debate. "The Paris Principles: Principles and Guidelines on Children a.s.sociated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups," United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, February 2007, http://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/ParisPrinciples310107English.pdf. For a case in which a child was treated as a war criminal, see "United States of America vs. Omar Ahmed Khadr," available at http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2010/10/26/10/stip.source.prod_affiliate.56.pdf.

24.Arango, "A Boy in ISIS. A Suicide Vest. A Hope to Live."

CHAPTER 1. THE RISE AND FALL OF AL QAEDA IN IRAQ.

1.Mary Anne Weaver, "The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," Atlantic, June 8, 2006, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/07/the-short-violent-life-of-abu-musab-al-zarqawi/304983/.

2.Jean-Charles Brisard, Zarqawi: The New Face of Al-Qaeda (New York: Other Press, 2004).

3.Barbara Metcalf, "Traditionalist Islamic Activism: Deoband, Tablighis and Talibs," Social Service Research Council, November 1, 2004.

4.Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of G.o.d: Why Religious Militants Kill (New York: Ecco, 2003).

5.Weaver, "The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."

6.Ibid.

7.a.s.saf Moghadam, "The Salafi-Jihad as a Religious Ideology," CTC Sentinel 1, no. 3 (February 2008), https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-salafi-jihad-as-a-religious-ideology.

8.Nibras Kazim, "A Virulent Ideology in Mutation: Zarqawi Upstages Maqdisi," Hudson Inst.i.tute, http://www.hudson.org/content/researchattachments/attachment/1368/kazimi_vol2.pdf.

9.Weaver, "The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."

10.Nir Rosen, "Iraq's Jordanian Jihadis," New York Times Magazine, February 19, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/magazine/iraq.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

11.Henry Schuster, "Al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda in Jordan," CNN.com, November 12, 2005, http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/11/zarqawi.jordan/index.html?_s=PM:WORLD.

12.Brisard, Zarqawi.

13.Weaver, "The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."

14.Ibid.; Bruce Reidel, The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leaders.h.i.+p, Ideology, and Future (Brookings Inst.i.tution Press, 2010), 94.

15.Craig Whitlock, "Al-Zarqawi's Biography," Was.h.i.+ngton Post, June 8, 2006, http://www.was.h.i.+ngtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060800299_pf.html.

16.Weaver, "The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."

17.Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Postwar Findings About Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar a.s.sessments (Was.h.i.+ngton, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006), http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf, 92; "Ansar al-Islam," Stanford University Mapping Militant Organizations, last updated August 14, 2014.

18.R. Jeffrey Smith, "Hussein's Prewar Ties to Al-Qaeda Discounted: Pentagon Reports Says Contacts Were Limited," Was.h.i.+ngton Post, April 6, 2007.

19."Full Text of Colin Powell's Speech," Guardian, February 5, 2003, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/05/iraq.usa.

20.U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Postwar Findings, 110; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (Was.h.i.+ngton, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), 66; Smith, "Hussein's Prewar Ties to Al-Qaeda Discounted."

21."President Bush Pledges to Rout Terrorism 'Wherever It Exists,'" IIP Digital, February 2003, http://iipdigital.usemba.s.sy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2003/02/200302141[email protected]#axzz3KQBs2LRT.

22.Abu Musab al-Suri as summarized in Lawrence Wright, "The Master Plan," New Yorker, September 11, 2006.

23.Donna Miles, "Bush Calls Iraq Central Front in Terror War, Vows Victory," U.S. Department of Defense, press release, October 6, 2005, http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=18145.

24.Jessica Stern, "How America Created a Terrorist Haven," New York Times, August 20, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/20/opinion/how-america-created-a-terrorist-haven.html.

25.Statistics based on data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism's Global Terrorism Database and meet the following criteria: each event is an intentional act of violence committed or threatened by a nonstate actor; it is committed with the purpose of attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal (crit1 = 1); it is designed to coerce, intimidate, or convey a message to an audience beyond its immediate victims (crit2 = 1); it is committed outside the context of legitimate warfare and violates the conventions outlined in international humanitarian law (crit3 = 1); it is unambiguous in meeting this criteria (doubtterr = 0) but not necessarily carried out successfully (success = 0, 1). See Jessica Stern and Megan McBride, "Terrorism after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq," http://costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/articles/47/attachments/McBride1.pdf.

26.National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Global Terrorism Database, 2012, http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd. See Stern and McBride, "Terrorism after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq," accessed January 31, 2013.

27.Visions of Humanity, "Terrorism Index 2007: Global Rankings," edited by Inst.i.tute for Economics and Peace, 2007, accessed November 2014.

28.Brian Fishman, "Redefining the Islamic State," New America Foundation, August 2011, http://security.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/Fishman_Al_Qaeda_In_Iraq.pdf.

29.Brian Fishman, "Redefining the Islamic State," New America Foundation, August 2011, http://security.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/Fishman_Al_Qaeda_In_Iraq.pdf; Maamoun Yousef, "Islamic Web Sites Criticize Jordan Bombing," a.s.sociated Press, November 15, 2005.

30.Sharon Otterman, "Iraq: Debaathification," Council on Foreign Relations, April 7, 2005, http://www.cfr.org/iraq/iraq-debaathification/p7853#p3.