Killing the Killers: The Secret War Against Terrorists

by Bill O'Reilly

Yet ISIS thrives. The caliphate is no longer confined to the Middle East, now numbering nine outposts flourishing in distant locations like Nigeria, Libya, and Pakistan. Revenue from kidnappings and captured oil fields is considerable, paying for the arms necessary to wage jihad. Attacks such as the downing of a Russian airliner the previous October, which killed all 224 passengers, as well as terror events in Paris, Brussels, and Tunisia excite the faithful. New recruits pour in from around the world, easily replacing the more than one thousand fighters killed each month—at least fifty of those dying by suicide vest. The Paris attack proved that ISIS could strike anywhere in the world, just as the downing of the Russian Metrojet was the first coordinated attack in the skies. The Americans could have prevented all this a decade ago, when al-Baghdadi was taken into custody during the Iraq War and held at a US prison known as Camp Bucca. But al-Baghdadi was judged at the time to be a shy man and low-level terrorist. He was released near the end of 2004, then began his slow rise to power.