But the CIA’s interest in the Islamists had little to do with religious codes. Now that al-Qaeda had been chased from Afghanistan, the Ansar al-Islam base represented the largest known gathering of militants with ties—albeit minor ones—to Bin Laden’s group. Faddis’s orders were to assess the strength of the combined force of Arab and local Islamists living in the Iraqi enclave. If possible, he was also to determine how, if at all, Ansar’s militants were coordinating their operations with Iraqi government forces. Regardless of whether al-Qaeda and Iraq had colluded in the past, the White House
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