Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

by Joby Warrick

fresh piece of the Zarqawi puzzle turned up in the daily cables from Baghdad. The surveillance net had snagged a singular piece of correspondence: a letter to Zarqawi from al-Qaeda’s number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Bin Laden’s deputy had authored a six-thousand-word performance appraisal that sought to express the organization’s concern about its newest subsidiary. The CIA’s acquisition of the letter was a closely guarded secret, so Bakos was only allowed to view it from inside a secure chamber that analysts call “the vault.” She read, her fascination growing with every line. The problem, which Zawahiri outlined in restrained prose, was simply this: Zarqawi’s bloodthirstiness was beginning to damage the al-Qaeda brand among Muslims. It was fine to kill Americans and Iraqi soldiers, Zawahiri wrote, but the car bombings, the attacks on Shiite mosques, and the gory execution videos were sending the wrong messages. To ordinary Muslims, images of dead Shiite children and beheaded Bulgarian truck drivers were not inspiring, they were repulsive. “The mujahed movement must avoid any action that the masses do not understand or approve,” Zawahiri warned.