Middle East The hidden hand behind the Islamic State militants? Saddam Hussein's. CONFRONTING
THE 'CALIPHATE'| This is part of an occasional series about the
militant group Islamic State and its violent collision with the United
States and others intent on halting the group's rapid rise.
By mailto:liz.sly@washpost.com?subject...e Islamic State militants? Saddam Hussein’s.'
SANLIURFA, Turkey
- When Abu Hamza, a former Syrian rebel, agreed to join the Islamic
State, he did so assuming he would become a part of the group's promised
Islamist utopia, which has lured foreign jihadists from around the
globe.
Instead, he found himself being supervised by an Iraqi
emir and receiving orders from shadowy Iraqis who moved in and out of
the battlefield in Syria. When Abu Hamza disagreed with fellow
commanders at an Islamic State meeting last year, he said, he was placed
under arrest on the orders of a masked Iraqi man who had sat silently
through the proceedings, listening and taking notes.
Abu Hamza,
who became the group's ruler in a small community in Syria, never
discovered the Iraqis' real identities, which were cloaked by code names
or simply not revealed. All of the men, however, were former Iraqi
officers who had served under Saddam Hussein, including the masked man,
who had once worked for an Iraqi intelligence agency and now belonged to
the Islamic State's own shadowy security service, he said.
His
account, and those of others who have lived with or fought against the
Islamic State over the past two years, underscore the pervasive role
played by members of Iraq's former Baathist army in an organization more
typically associated with flamboyant foreign jihadists and the gruesome
videos in which they star.
Even with the influx of thousands of
foreign fighters, almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are
former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and
security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes,
according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group. They
have brought to the organization the military expertise and some of the
agendas of the former Baathists, as well as the smuggling networks
developed to avoid sanctions in the 1990s and which now facilitate the
Islamic State's illicit oil trading
http://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?hpid=z1
THE 'CALIPHATE'| This is part of an occasional series about the
militant group Islamic State and its violent collision with the United
States and others intent on halting the group's rapid rise.
By mailto:liz.sly@washpost.com?subject...e Islamic State militants? Saddam Hussein’s.'
SANLIURFA, Turkey
- When Abu Hamza, a former Syrian rebel, agreed to join the Islamic
State, he did so assuming he would become a part of the group's promised
Islamist utopia, which has lured foreign jihadists from around the
globe.
Instead, he found himself being supervised by an Iraqi
emir and receiving orders from shadowy Iraqis who moved in and out of
the battlefield in Syria. When Abu Hamza disagreed with fellow
commanders at an Islamic State meeting last year, he said, he was placed
under arrest on the orders of a masked Iraqi man who had sat silently
through the proceedings, listening and taking notes.
Abu Hamza,
who became the group's ruler in a small community in Syria, never
discovered the Iraqis' real identities, which were cloaked by code names
or simply not revealed. All of the men, however, were former Iraqi
officers who had served under Saddam Hussein, including the masked man,
who had once worked for an Iraqi intelligence agency and now belonged to
the Islamic State's own shadowy security service, he said.
His
account, and those of others who have lived with or fought against the
Islamic State over the past two years, underscore the pervasive role
played by members of Iraq's former Baathist army in an organization more
typically associated with flamboyant foreign jihadists and the gruesome
videos in which they star.
Even with the influx of thousands of
foreign fighters, almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are
former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and
security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes,
according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group. They
have brought to the organization the military expertise and some of the
agendas of the former Baathists, as well as the smuggling networks
developed to avoid sanctions in the 1990s and which now facilitate the
Islamic State's illicit oil trading
http://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?hpid=z1
