Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

by Joby Warrick

In many more instances, death was frighteningly random. In the weeks after sixteen U.S. marines had been killed in a series of ambushes around the city, the Americans were in a vengeful mood. Firefights erupted daily in residential neighborhoods, and bullets tore through bedrooms where families slept. Checkpoint sentries reflexively shot at motorists who approached too quickly or failed to heed warnings shouted at them in English. In the desert outside Ramadi, forty-five Iraqis had died when American warplanes struck a building that U.S. officials insisted was an insurgent safe house. Iraqis said the jets mistakenly struck a wedding celebration. Amateur video showed bodies of women as well as children and infants. Outraged and humiliated, Ramadi’s Sunnis initially welcomed the resistance fighters, including the foreign Islamists who poured into the city promising to drive away the invaders. Compared with the local insurgents, the Islamists were organized, disciplined, and fearless. But it was soon clear that their plans included more than fighting Americans. The foreigners commandeered houses and forcibly collected “taxes” and supplies from shopkeepers. Declaring themselves in charge, they rolled into residential neighborhoods armed with heavy weapons and a harsh moral code that banned drinking, smoking, female education, and Western fashion and hairstyles. One Ramadi man defiantly lit a cigarette in front of such an Islamist patrol and was shot dead on the spot.