Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

by Joby Warrick

Sam Faddis was in another part of Iraq in March 2003, when, more than a week after the start of the U.S. invasion, the Bush administration finally authorized an attack on Ansar al-Islam’s camp. Dozens of Tomahawk missiles slammed into the compound at Sargat, leveling the buildings and destroying the equipment the Islamists used to mix their poisons. U.S. commandos, backed by hundreds of Kurdish militiamen, chased the remaining Islamists into hills, where some managed to scurry to safety across the Iranian border. From the dead and captured, the soldiers recovered passports and identity cards from more than a dozen countries, from Algeria to Yemen. But there was no sign of Zarqawi. Other CIA operatives later confirmed that the Jordanian had by then already moved to Baghdad to await the arrival of the U.S. troops. Among the first Americans to enter the shattered Ansar camp was a CIA operative who had been among the eight members of Faddis’s surveillance team. In his description to Faddis, the man described a ruined base and his sinking feeling that an opportunity had slipped away. “Everybody who mattered left before we got there,” the CIA officer told Faddis. “All that was left were the foot soldiers. The cannon fodder. “It was better than nothing,” he said. “But we missed our shot.”