Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

by Joby Warrick

One file contained dozens of photographs, including a series of passport images showing Zarqawi trying on different looks and disguises, from clean-shaven businessman with wire-rimmed glasses to Arab sheikh with a mustache and checkered kaffiyah. Another held Zarqawi’s medical files, with more photos and notes about therapy for various war injuries. There were memos and e-mails laying out the terrorist group’s changing structure, in which Zarqawi carved out an “operational commander” role for himself while allowing Iraqis more visibility as the nominal leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Still other folders contained long e-mails to al-Qaeda leaders, including Bin Laden himself, as well as PowerPoint presentations and priceless video recordings of meetings of Zarqawi’s leadership council, in which the Jordanian discussed strategy and plans. While a few of the individual documents were already familiar to U.S. counterterrorism experts, others were new.