In the sixth month of Syria’s uprising, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was ready to make a move. He tapped one of his most trusted deputies, a native Syrian and a veteran from the Zarqawi days, to lead an expedition into the Syrian heartland. Outside the capital and other regime strongholds, the institutions that maintained security within Syria were failing, one by one. Here was a chance for Zarqawi’s followers to leap to another badly weakened host.
