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Politico: The State Department has told Senate investigators it cannot find backup copies of emails sent by Bryan Pagliano, the top Hillary Clinton IT staffer who maintained her email server but has asserted his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer questions on the matter.
State officials told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a recent closed-door meeting that they could not locate what’s known as a “.pst file” for Pagliano’s work during Clinton’s tenure, which would have included copies of the tech expert’s emails, according to a letter Chairman Chuck Grassley sent to Secretary of State John Kerry that was obtained by POLITICO.
The department also told the committee the FBI has taken possession of Pagliano’s government computer system, where traces of the messages are most likely to be found, according to the letter.
Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has been considering whether to grant Pagliano immunity in exchange for testimony on who approved Clinton’s private email setup and whether anyone raised any objections to the system. The controversy over her decision to bypass a government email address, which would have made her messages easier for reporters and the public to obtain, has dogged the presidential hopeful for much of the year, though it has subsided in recent weeks.
Pagliano — who worked for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, then followed her to the State Department — has refused to discuss Clinton’s email arrangement or his role in it, invoking his right against self-incrimination before the House Benghazi Committee earlier this fall.
Clinton had personally paid Pagliano to maintain her home-made server, which is also currently in the FBI’s possession. The agency has been investigating whether classified material was ever put at risk because she used her own server instead of the standard State email system. The State Department has designated about 1,000 of her emails as classified documents, which would never have been allowed on such a private system. Clinton’s representatives maintain that the emails were not classified at the time they were sent.
Pagliano’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Grassley had requested Pagliano’s emails to help inform his decision whether to grant Pagliano immunity.
“Given that the committee is unable to obtain [Pagliano’s] testimony at this time, I am seeking copies of his official State Department emails relevant to the Committee’s inquiry before proceeding to consider whether it might be appropriate to grant him immunity and compel his testimony,” Grassley’s letter states. It notes that such emails are a “top priority” in a list of several outstanding Clinton-related inquiries the panel has sent to the department.
The State Department said that while it has located a backup for emails Pagliano sent after Clinton left State, officials cannot find the file for the backup covering work he did while she was still there.
“The Department has located a .pst from Mr. Pagliano’s recent work at the Department as a contractor, but the files are from after Secretary Clinton left the State Department. We have not yet located a .pst that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton’s tenure,” said Alec Gerlach, a State Department spokesman. “We are continuing to search for Mr. Pagliano’s emails which the Department may have otherwise retained. We will, of course, share emails responsive to Senator Grassley’s requests if we locate them.”
State, like many federal agencies, did not have a systematic email archiving system for years. When the server issue first arose in the spring, State acknowledged that it did not automatically archive the email traffic of senior employees — relying on them to make their own backups, or “.pst,” if needed. Under current rules, federal employees are responsible for ensuring their official emails are saved.
State has not asked Pagliano whether he has any official emails in his possession, as it has with other top Clinton staffers who used personal email for work. It is unclear if Pagliano’s Fifth Amendment rights would protect him from turning over such messages.
Grassley encouraged State to continue searching for Pagliano’s emails by looking at the back-up email files of other State employees he may have emailed about the Clinton server. He letter seeks “a full and detailed written explanation of why it failed to maintain an archive, copy, or backup of Mr. Pagliano’s email file,” among other requests related to the IT staffer’s emails.
While State hasn’t been able to meet Grassley’s requests so far, his letter did offer some rare praise for the department, commending Kerry and State for what Grassley called a “recent increase in cooperation and focus on the committee’s request.” The letter says Judiciary has prioritized 22 requests for information and received seven “fully complete responses” and nine “partially complete responses.”
And State, which has been bombarded by inquiries about Clinton’s email setup, seems to appreciate the recognition: “As Senator Grassley noted, the State Department has been working very closely with his staff to get him the requested information and documents, and we are making progress,” Gerlach added.
Grassley had been blocking the confirmation of about 20 of State’s Foreign Service nominees because the department hadn’t fulfilled various document requests, including those for another probe he’s conducting on the dual-employment status of top Clinton adviser Huma Abedin. Abedin advised Clinton while she was also working for a consulting company; Grassley has been asking for information about the arrangement since 2013.
Given State’s recent responsiveness, however, he recently dropped the 20 holds but maintained a block on two more high-level nominees: Brian James Egan to be a State legal adviser and David Malcolm Robinson to be assistant secretary for conflict and stabilization operations and coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization. In November, Grassley also added a third hold on another top-level Obama State Department nominee, Thomas Shannon Jr., to be undersecretary of state for political affairs.
Grassley in his recent letter, however, hinted that if State continues working with his committee at the current pace, he could be amenable to releasing his holds.
“Assuming the committee receives the additional items promised by your staff in yesterday’s meeting, I intend to take action to recognize this progress before Senators leave town for the holiday break,” he said, nodding specifically to any copies of Pagliano emails they could discover by searching other employee’s emails.
In part from FNC: Intelligence agencies have already flagged some 3,800 counterfeit Syrian passports, and will add data on another 10,000 fake Syrian passports recently intercepted in Bulgaria on the way to Germany. The sheer volume of fake passports flooding the market as refugees – or terrorists posing as refugees – pour into Europe has investigators on edge. The fake Syrian passports will add to an already challenging problem of vetting Syrian refugees, said Claude Arnold, a former DHS Investigations special agent in charge for Minneapolis and Los Angeles.
“In absence of specific intelligence that identifies the refugee as a member ISIS, we are not going to know they are a member of ISIS,” Arnold said. “We don’t have those boots on the ground in Syria, no one is really gathering that information, it’s a no mans land. So their application is based solely on story that person tells. It is dangerous, it is idiotic.”
Refugees undergo more rigorous screening than anyone else we allow into the United States. Here’s what the screening process looks like for them:
The Full Text of the Graphic:
The Screening Process for Refugee Entry Into the United States
Recurrent vetting: Throughout this process, pending applications continue to be checked against terrorist databases, to ensure new, relevant terrorism information has not come to light. If a match is found, that case is paused for further review. Applicants who continue to have no flags continue the process. If there is doubt about whether an applicant poses a security risk, they will not be admitted.
Many refugee applicants identify themselves to the U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR. UNHCR, then:
Collects identifying documents
Performs initial assessment
Collects biodata: name, address, birthday, place of birth, etc.
Collects biometrics: iris scans (for Syrians, and other refugee populations in the Middle East)
Interviews applicants to confirm refugee status and the need for resettlement
Initial information checked again
Only applicants who are strong candidates for resettlement move forward (less than 1% of global refugee population).
Applicants are received by a federally-funded Resettlement Support Center (RSC):
Collects identifying documents
Creates an applicant file
Compiles information to conduct biographic security checks
Biographic security checks start with enhanced interagency security checks
Refugees are subject to the highest level of security checks of any category of traveler to the United States.
U.S. security agencies screen the candidate, including:
National Counterterrorism Center/Intelligence Community
FBI
Department of Homeland Security
State Department
The screening looks for indicators, like:
Information that the individual is a security risk
Connections to known bad actors
Outstanding warrants/immigration or criminal violations
DHS conducts an enhanced review of Syrian cases, which may be referred to USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate for review. Research that is used by the interviewing officer informs lines of question related to the applicant’s eligibility and credibility.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/USCIS interview:
Interviews are conducted by USCIS Officers specially trained for interviews
Fingerprints are collected and submitted (biometric check)
Re-interviews can be conducted if fingerprint results or new information raises questions. If new biographic information is identified by USCIS at an interview, additional security checks on the information are conducted. USCIS may place a case on hold to do additional research or investigation. Otherwise, the process continues.
Biometric security checks:
Applicant’s fingerprints are taken by U.S. government employees
Fingerprints are screened against the FBI’s biometric database.
Fingerprints are screened against the DHS biometric database, containing watch-list information and previous immigration encounters in the U.S. and overseas.
Fingerprints are screened against the U.S. Department of Defense biometric database, which includes fingerprint records captured in Iraq and other locations.
If not already halted, this is the end point for cases with security concerns. Otherwise, the process continues.
Medical check:
The need for medical screening is determined
This is the end point for cases denied due to medical reasons. Refugees may be provided medical treatment for communicable diseases such as tuberculosis.
Cultural orientation and assignment to domestic resettlement locations:
Applicants complete cultural orientation classes.
An assessment is made by a U.S.-based non-governmental organization to determine the best resettlement location for the candidate(s). Considerations include:
Family; candidates with family in a certain area may be placed in that area.
Health; a candidate with asthma may be matched to certain regions.
A location is chosen.
Travel:
International Organization for Migration books travel
Prior to entry in the United States, applicants are subject to:
Screening from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center-Passenger
The Transportation Security Administration’s Secure Flight Program
This is the end point for some applicants. Applicants who have no flags continue the process.
U.S. Arrival:
All refugees are required to apply for a green card within a year of their arrival to the United States, which triggers:
Another set of security procedures with the U.S. government.
Refugees are woven into the rich fabric of American society!
Amy Pope is Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security
DHS: We Have No Idea How Many Syrian Refugees Are In The US
A senior official at the Department of Homeland Security admitted the agency has no clue how many Syrian refugees have entered the United States in the past year, while under fire in an intense congressional hearing Thursday.
Kelli Ann Burriesci, deputy assistant secretary at DHS, told the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee DHS doesn’t know how many Syrians entered the United States or how many Americans left the United States for Syria in the past year, reported The Washington Free Beacon.
That answer did not please members of the National Security subcommittee, who had asked DHS to send Secretary Jeh Johnson to testify, but were sent Burriesci instead. Many of their questions went unanswered, to their apparent frustration.
“You can’t give us the number of people on expired visas?” Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis, the subcommittee chairman, asked Burriesci. “You have staff? can they just call DHS so we get it before the hearing is over? This should not be that difficult.”
Republican Rep. Mark Meadows noted the last time DHS provided Congress with accurate numbers of visa overstays was more than two decades ago, in 1994.
“Islamic jihadists are on the march and 13 people were massacred in San Bernardino, yet DHS seems clueless about what is going on with potential threats to our security,” DeSantis said after the hearing, according to the Free Beacon. “Congress needs to plug holes in immigration programs ranging from the visa waiver program to the refugee program. The testimony by DHS today gave Americans serious cause for concern about whether our government has a handle on the threats we face.”
Forced imposition of Syrian refugees on states throughout the U.S., coupled by the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, have prompted renewed scrutiny on immigration from countries with high levels of terror activity. Members of Congress have struggled to find answers and come up with quick solutions to prevent another terror attack from occurring.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has proposed temporarily banning all Muslim immigration to the U.S. About 20 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of Republicans expressed support for the proposal in a recent poll, although it has been widely denounced by the administration and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.
Many seem disillusioned with what appears to be an administration ready to blame terror activity on anything but Islam. The San Bernardino attacks did not improve that perceived track record.
The Obama administration attempted to label the attacks as workplace violence, and a recent report indicated that the only reason the FBI held off classifying the acts as terrorism immediately is because of undue pressure from the White House.
It appears this reported dated 2007, has not been updated, amended or reviewed by Congress which is in large part, the debate today given the San Bernardino massacre by a pair of militant Islamists.
The federal government maintains several databases of people suspected of links to terrorism, including a no-fly list barring certain individuals from boarding airplanes in the U.S.
Those databases, especially the no-fly list, long have been challenged by civil libertarians regarding the lack of transparency about how and why people are included. Most individuals in the databases have never been charged with a crime and are only suspected of being involved with terrorism.
The no-fly list itself is the smallest of all the government terrorism watchlists with about 16,000 names at last count, though it has attracted the most public criticism and legal challenges. A federal court this year declared the government’s system for dealing with appeals and challenges to inclusion on the no-fly list are unconstitutional.
Passengers on the no-fly list are denied the ability to board flights, but previously weren’t given an explanation why. In response to a lawsuit, the government said this year it would tell passengers if they were on the list and offer them an opportunity to provide additional information as part of an administrative appeals process to potentially be removed from the list.
In the wake of the California attack that killed 14 people and that investigators say may have been inspired by Islamic State, Democrats want people who are banned from air travel to also be prevented from buying weapons. Republicans say such a ban would be overly broad and may deprive some Americans of their constitutional right to bear arms.
The text of a Senate bill didn’t explicitly mention either the no-fly list or any other terrorism list, but Democratic sponsors said it would in practice ban those on the government lists from buying guns. The proposal, which would gave the attorney general the power to block gun sales, was defeated in the Senate last week.
Still, President Barack Obama continued to make the case for the proposal in a speech from the Oval Office Sunday night. “Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?” he said.
Some Republicans and other gun rights supporters have pointed to the high error rates and false positives in the government’s terrorism databases. In one notable incident, the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Democratic Party icon, was singled out for special scrutiny at airports because his name matched an alias used by a terrorist suspect.
“These are everyday Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism, they wind up on the no-fly list, there’s no due process or any way to get your name removed from it in a timely fashion, and now they’re having their Second Amendment rights being impeded upon,” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, told CNN this week.
Various government agencies maintain databases on suspected terrorists, each with a different function. Most of those lists were either created or vastly expanded after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks under President George W. Bush’s administration.
The National Counterterrorism Center runs a central repository of more than 1 million people called Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE. The TIDE database, which includes about 25,000 Americans as of 2013, is drawn from intelligence community sources and is classified.
An unclassified subset of the TIDE database is made available to law enforcement as part of the Terrorist Screening Database. That database contains biographical and biometric information about potential terrorists and can be accessed by local, state and federal law enforcement officials who don’t have security clearances. As of 2011, that database was said to contain about 420,000 names, according to the FBI.
The Transportation Security Administration receives an even smaller list of people subject to travel restrictions drawn from the Terrorist Screening Database. In addition to the 16,000 names on the no-fly list in 2011, another 16,000 were on the selectee list. The selectee list doesn’t prevent individuals from flying but subjects them to extra scrutiny.
Critics say that banning suspected terrorists from buying guns poses the same problems as banning them from traveling: namely, the lack of transparency around the process used and concern of depriving individuals of their rights over the mere suspicion of terrorism.
“There is no constitutional bar to reasonable regulation of guns and the no-fly list could serve as a tool for it—but only with major reform,” said Hina Shamsi, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.
Ms. Shamsi litigated the ACLU’s ongoing challenge to the no-fly list in federal court, winning a victory for several of her clients who were denied the right to travel. Several plaintiffs in the lawsuit were removed from the no-fly list and the government has made some modifications
“These lists are compiled on the basis of mere suspicions,” said Bruce Ackerman, a constitutional law scholar and professor at Yale University. “What we need is a system in which defense lawyers who have received security clearances can effectively challenge the government’s evidence.”
Per the U.S. State Department, there are several other lists.
Red Flags and Watch Lists
Red Flags
These links, and subsequent links found on these web pages, describe the efforts of the U.S. federal government in the area of export control through Project Shield America. The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement office takes a proactive stance on the prevention of illegal export of sensitive U.S. munitions and strategic technology. Through the inspection of outbound shipments at high-threat ports and border crossings, educational outreach to industry leaders, and international cooperation with foreign governments, Project Shield America endeavors to protect American technological accomplishment from adversaries. These links also inform the public about the effective role that it can play in deterring illegal export activity. “Red Flag Indicators,” from the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, encourage citizens to play an active role in the fight against proliferation and highlights specific activity indicative of potential export violations.
The following links provide information on countries, companies, and individuals that the U.S. Departments of State, Commerce, and Treasury have determined constitute a potential threat to domestic export control initiatives. Additionally, summary information about embargoes and sanctions imposed by the United States, United Kingdom, and the United Nations can be found below.
AECA Debarred List – Entities and individuals prohibited from participating directly or indirectly in the export of defense articles, including technical data and defense services. Pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the AECA Debarred List includes persons convicted in court of violating or conspiring to violate the AECA and subject to “statutory debarment” or persons established to have violated the AECA in an administrative proceeding and subject to “administrative debarment.”
U.S. Denied Persons List – Individuals and entities that have been denied export privileges. Any dealings with a party on this list that would violate the terms of its denial order are prohibited.
U.S. Unverified List – The Unverified List includes names and countries of foreign persons who in the past were parties to a transaction with respect to which the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) could not conduct a pre-license check (PLC) or a post-shipment verification (PSV) for reasons outside of the U.S. Government’s control. Any transaction to which a listed person is a party will be deemed by BIS to raise a Red Flag.
U.S. Specially Designated Nationals Lists – OFAC publishes a list of individuals and companies owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, targeted countries. It also lists individuals, groups, and entities, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers designated under programs that are not country-specific. Collectively, such individuals and companies are called “Specially Designated Nationals” or “SDNs.” Their assets are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.
Entity List– Parties whose presence in a transaction can trigger a license requirement supplemental to those elsewhere in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The list specifies the license requirements and policy that apply to each listed party.
U.S. Embargo Reference Chart – Foreign countries against which the United States federal government has imposed controls for the export of defense articles and services.
Consolidated Screening List– Link to a downloadable file that consolidates export screening lists of the Departments of Commerce, State and the Treasury into one spreadsheet as an aide to industry in conducting electronic screens of potential parties to regulated transactions. UK Embargoes – A reference point for lists of UN, EU, OSCE, and UK sanctions.
“Yes, there is a strategy,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said in his December 5th address at the Brookings Institution. The US strategy, he explained, has three components: “Mobilising a coalition to defeat Daesh” — the Islamic State; to “work diplomatically” with Iran, among other countries, “to bring an end to the war in Syria”; and “ensure that the instability created by the war in Syria does not spread”.
But are Washington and Tehran pursuing the same goals in Syria?
At first glance, there are reasons to suggest they are: the emergence of Iranian President Hassan Rohani, his promise of engaging in bilateral talks with the United States, the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 and the menacing rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) have led some in the West to hope for a new alignment of strategic interests between Washington and Tehran.
Rohani, however, commands little influence over the Islamic Republic’s regional policies. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) owns this portfolio.
The public statements of IRGC commanders and the activities of the corps in Syria make it clear that, beyond a fleeting tactical convergence of interests, Tehran is pursuing goals that are the exact opposite of those of the Obama administration.
IRGC commander Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari and Major- General Qassem Soleimani, head of the expeditionary Quds Force, have repeatedly expressed their support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and his regime, with Soleimani promising to stick with Assad “to the very end”.
Brigadier-General Hossein Hamadani, the field commander of the Iranian forces in Syria who was killed October 7th in the suburbs of Aleppo, not only praised Assad as “more obedient to the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, than some of our statesmen”, he also recalled the supreme leader stressing the importance of the “strategic depth” Syria provides for Iran.
With the aim of securing the survival of the Assad regime, the IRGC is deploying troops and non-Iranian Shia militias in Syria. According to open source data, 210 Iranians, 179 Afghans and 33 Pakistanis — all Shias, with the exception of two Iranian Sunnis — were killed in combat in Syria between January 2012 and December 5, 2015.
While there is no reliable information about the scale of Iraqi Shia combat fatalities in Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah is believed to have lost 1,000-1,500 fighters in Syria in the same period.
As surviving militiamen return to their home countries, there is a very real risk of the spread or rekindling of sectarian conflicts in those nations, which is the opposite of Kerry’s expressed aim of preventing further spread of the war.
Sharing ISIS as an enemy is not likely to bring Washington and Tehran closer to each other. As a means of keeping Assad in power, Tehran is concentrating its military resources against Syrian rebel forces threatening the Damascus regime, including the secular opposition, which might offer an acceptable alternative to Assad.
In the meantime, Tehran makes little military effort against ISIS, which the Islamic Republic considers an alternative worse than Assad. In this regard, too, Kerry looks in vain for support from Tehran.
Not even Kerry’s desire to bring an end to the war in Syria is likely to resonate with the IRGC leadership because continued war in Syria, the Middle East refugee crisis and the increased threat of terrorism from Beirut to Paris only increase Tehran’s leverage.
Once the Assad regime’s survival is secure, the IRGC benefits from a permanent low-intensity crisis in Syria, which not only legitimises its military presence there but also makes Tehran a desirable negotiating partner for the United States and European powers desperate to end the slaughter in Syria.
In his Brookings address, Kerry emphasised the difficulties of achieving US goals in Syria but, by looking to Tehran for support, he may end up making those aims even less achievable.
MALA QARA, Iraq (Reuters) – Mohannad is a spy for Islamic State. He eavesdrops on chatter in the street markets of Mosul and reports back to his handlers when someone breaks the militant group’s rules. One man he informed on this year – a street trader defying a ban on selling cigarettes – was fined and tortured by Islamic State fighters, according to a friend of Mohannad’s family. If the trader did not stop, his torturers told the man, they would kill him.
Mohannad is paid $20 for every offender he helps to catch.
He is 14.
The teenager is one cog in the intelligence network Islamic State has put in place since it seized vast stretches of Iraq and neighboring Syria. Informers range from children to battle-hardened fighters. Overseeing the network are former army and intelligence officers, many of whom helped keep former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party in power for years.
Saddam-era officers have been a powerful factor in the rise of Islamic State, in particular in the Sunni militant group’s victories in Iraq last year. Islamic State then out-muscled the Sunni-dominated Baath Party and absorbed thousands of its followers. The new recruits joined Saddam-era officers who already held key posts in Islamic State.
The Baathists have strengthened the group’s spy networks and battlefield tactics and are instrumental in the survival of its self-proclaimed Caliphate, according to interviews with dozens of people, including Baath leaders, former intelligence and military officers, Western diplomats and 35 Iraqis who recently fled Islamic State territory for Kurdistan.
Of Islamic State’s 23 portfolios – equivalent to ministries – former Saddam regime officers run three of the most crucial: security, military and finance, according to Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi analyst who has worked with the Iraqi government.
Iraq’s Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd who spent years opposing Saddam’s regime, said the ex-Baathists working with Islamic State provide the group with highly effective guidance on explosives, strategy and planning. “They know who is who, family by family, name by name,” he said.
“The fingerprints of the old Iraqi state are clear on their work. You can feel it,” one former senior security official in the Baath Party said.
In many ways, it is a union of convenience. Most former Baathist officers have little in common with Islamic State. Saddam promoted Arab nationalism and secularism for most of his rule.
But many of the ex-Baathists working with Islamic State are driven by self preservation and a shared hatred of the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad. Others are true believers who became radicalized in the early years after Saddam’s ouster, converted on the battlefield or in U.S. military and Iraqi prisons.
One former intelligence commander who served in Iraq’s national intelligence service from 2003 to 2009 said some ex-Baathists pushed out of state agencies by Iraq’s government were only too happy to find new masters. “ISIS pays them,” he said.
A few Sunni lawmakers hope that former Saddam-era officers might be persuaded to abandon their Islamic State allies. But a senior official close to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said dealing with them was difficult because the Baathists are so deeply split, with some supporting Islamic State and some opposed. “Who are they?” he asked. “Some wave olive branches. Others still wave a gun.”
A spokesman for Abadi, Saad al-Hadithi, said the Iraqi government opposes negotiations with the Baath Party. “There is no space for them in the political process,” he said. “They are banned under the constitution.”
TURNING POINT IN TIKRIT
Baathists began collaborating with al Qaeda in Iraq – the early incarnation of what would become Islamic State – soon after Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003. Saddam had run a brutal police state. The U.S. occupation dissolved the Baath Party and barred senior and even middling party officials from joining the new security services. Some left the country, others joined the anti-American insurgency.
But then the Baathists and jihadists disagreed over who should be in charge. Many ex-Baathists struck an alliance with the U.S. military and turned on the jihadists.
By 2014, the Baathists and the jihadists were back to being allies. As Islamic State fighters swept through central Iraq, they were joined by the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, a group of Baathist fighters.
The Naqshbandi and smaller groups of Saddam-era officers made up the majority of fighters in the initial stages of last year’s military onslaught, according to Sunni tribal leaders, Baathists and an Iraqi security commander. It was the Naqshbandi who rallied locals in Mosul to rise up against Baghdad, and who planned and commanded many of last year’s military advances, according to Iraqi officials and Abdul al-Samad al-Ghrairy, a senior official in what’s left of the Baath Party.
Within days, though, Islamic State “took the revolution from us,” said Ghrairy. “We couldn’t sustain the battle.”
In Tikrit, Islamic State fighters opened a jail and released up to 200 followers. More Islamic State fighters poured into the city, many of them with heavy machine guns. These men “took all the army’s weapons and didn’t give the Naqshabandi any. They kicked them aside,” a senior security official in Salahuddin said.
Soon after the fall of Tikrit in June 2014, leaders from the main factions of the Sunni rebellion met in the house of a Baath Party member. According to the senior security official, Tikrit tribal leaders and Baath officials, Islamic State told Baathists they had a choice: Join us or stand down. Some Baathists abandoned the revolt. Others stayed, swelling the ranks of Islamic State with mid-level security veterans.
That has boosted Islamic State’s firepower and tactical prowess. “This is not the al Qaeda we fought before,” said a prominent Sunni from Mosul who battled Islamic State’s forerunners. “Their tactics are different. These are men educated in military staff college. They are ex-army leaders. They are not simple minds, but men with real experience.”
Both Ghrairy and Khudair Murshidy, the Baath Party’s official spokesman, told Reuters that the party’s armed wing is frozen in the aftermath of its defeat. Islamic State, they added, had killed some 600 Baath supporters and Naqshbandi fighters. “Their policy is to kill everyone, destroy everyone,” Murshidy said. “They create fear and death everywhere and control areas. Many people have joined them now. At first they were a few hundred, now they are maybe more than 50,000.”
“THE WALLS HAVE EARS”
Emma Sky, a former adviser to the U.S. military, believes Islamic State has effectively subsumed the Baathists. “The mustached officers have grown religious beards. I think many have genuinely become religious,” she said.
Among the most high profile Baathists to join Islamic State are Ayman Sabawi, the son of Saddam Hussein’s half brother, and Raad Hassan, Saddam’s cousin, said the senior Salahuddin security official and several tribal leaders. Both were children during Saddam’s time, but the family connection is powerfully symbolic.
More senior officers now in Islamic State include Walid Jasim (aka Abu Ahmed al-Alwani) who was a captain of intelligence in Saddam’s time, and Fadhil al-Hiyala (aka Abu Muslim al-Turkmani) whom some believe was a deputy to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi until he was killed in an airstrike earlier this year.
A boy walks past a picture of Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussein on a street in Tikrit, Iraq …
The group’s multi-layered security and intelligence agencies in Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq, are overseen by an agency called Amniya – literally ‘Security’. The agency has six branches, each responsible for maintaining a different aspect of security.
The overall head of Amniya in Iraq and Syria is a former Saddam-era intelligence officer from Fallujah called Ayad Hamid al-Jumaili, who joined the Sunni insurgency after the U.S.-led invasion and now answers directly to Baghdadi, according to Hashimi, the analyst.
A vice squad known as Hisba enforces order on the streets. Hisba officers punish everyone from cigarette traders to women not fully covered. They also run a network of informants, placing children such as 14-year-old Mohannad in mosques and markets, and women at funerals and family gatherings, according to residents of Mosul.
“The work of these children is rewarded with gifts or small cash prizes,” said the former intelligence officer. “Women, on the other hand, are recruited mostly from (Islamic State) families and they gather information for no reward.” The repression has become so intense in Mosul, residents said, people have revived a phrase used in Saddam’s era: “The walls have ears.”
Interviews with 35 men who recently escaped from Islamic State-held villages around Mosul offer rare details of what is happening inside Islamic State territory. Reuters sat in on debriefings of the men by Staff Lieutenant Colonel Surood Abdel Salal, a Kurdish intelligence official at a base behind the frontline south of Erbil. Most of those questioned were former members of the Iraqi security forces defeated by Islamic State in Mosul.
The 35 men described a life of increasing deprivation under Islamic State and a climate of paranoia in which they could trust no-one, even their own relatives.
One man in Mosul told Reuters his brother had been executed in early October after he cursed Islamic State and the Caliphate while arguing with his son, who wanted to join the group. “My brother’s shouting was heard by the neighbors. During that time there was a group of children who were playing in front of the house,” said the man. “Not a week had passed and my brother was arrested on charges of cursing God and the Islamic State.”
Islamic State execution squads often arrive in a large bus with tinted windows, another resident said. Police seal off streets surrounding the place where a killing is to be carried out. Men dressed in black with balaclavas either shoot people, or behead them with swords.
The bodies of those deemed to have committed the worst offences – cursing God or the group – are thrown in an area called al-Khafsa, a deep natural crater in the desert just south of Mosul, residents in the city said. Those killed for lesser crimes are returned to their families wrapped in a blanket.
A WEB OF INFORMANTS
In September, according to several of the men who fled, Islamic State’s Amniya agency rounded up around 400 former members of Iraq’s security forces and executed them. Families of those dumped in al-Khafsa were then sent a kind of receipt to notify them of the execution. Among those who described the massacre was a 21-year-old from a village east of Mosul whose cousin’s corpse was returned on the second day of the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice. “They brought it wrapped in a blanket with three bullet wounds,” he said.
Some of the 35 escapees said people are banned from leaving Islamic State territory; those caught leaving are routinely killed. Two escapees recounted the fate of a group of men who tried to leave recently. Islamic State caught them and executioners dropped a concrete blast wall on top of them. The killing was filmed and replayed on large screens the militants have erected in public spaces.
According to the fugitives’ testimony, Islamic State has embedded itself in almost every village, converting the homes of former Iraqi military officers into bases and creating a web of informants. Mobile phones are banned as is access to the Internet.
“They had an informant in each area who said so-and-so didn’t go to prayers,” said Fathi, a 30-year-old former policeman from a village east of Mosul. Many of the escapees had been on the run for months, carefully avoiding Islamic State checkpoints, especially those equipped with laptops the militants use to look up names on a database. Some hid in woodland along the Tigris River.
Ahmed, 32, said he was wanted by Islamic State for belonging to a tribal militia that fought the insurgents before the fall of Mosul. He said he had not been home for months because he feared one of his young daughters would betray his presence. “Maybe someone will come and ask my children (where I am) and they don’t know any better,” he said.
Local Islamic State leaders send their own children out as scouts, some of the escapees said. One man said the militants paid cigarette sellers to inform on their customers. So pervasive is Islamic State’s surveillance network that even at home people cannot let their guard down, according to 31-year-old policeman Saad Khalaf Ali. He was arrested and accused of speaking against the militants. He denied it, but the militants produced footage of him in his own home saying he wished for government forces to retake the area. The video had been secretly filmed by a boy from the village, the policeman said. “They take advantage of small children most of all because people don’t suspect them.”
Ali begged the militants for forgiveness and was released. But they detained him again several months later on charges of informing Kurdish and Iraqi forces about Islamic State positions. This time, he said, his own nephew and a cousin informed on him. He would have been executed but for a joint raid by American and Kurdish Special Forces in October which rescued him and 68 others.
UNDER PRESSURE?
It will be difficult for Baghdad to lure away ex-Baathists and Saddam-era officers working with Islamic State. The Iraqi government itself is bogged down by internal divisions, while the parts of the Baath party that have not joined Islamic State cannot agree on whether they want talks, or even who should represent them.
Meantime the war drags on.
In October, Baghdad created a special office to share intelligence between Iraq, Iran, Russia and the Syrian government. That office is providing Iraq’s airforce with information on Islamic State positions. Baghdad has also stepped up efforts to squeeze Islamic State financially by attacking oil facilities, pressuring businessmen who have helped the militants, and stopping salaries to government employees in areas under Islamic State rule.
Iraqi Finance Minister Zebari said Islamic State in Mosul had responded by “extorting more money from the public. They are going more towards criminal actions and kidnapping.” The group’s surveillance network is testament to its resourcefulness and ability to survive.
After his release from prison, Ahmed al-Tai’i, the cigarette salesman reported by 14-year-old Mohannad, confronted the boy’s father. The father admitted that Islamic State militants had paid Mohannad and other youngsters to help them, according to a friend of Tai’i.
The cigarette salesman says his arrest and imprisonment have left him paranoid. “Since I left prison a constant fear has lived with me. If I want to say or do something that contravenes the orders and instructions of Islamic State I look around to check there is nobody, even my friends, and especially small children,” he said. “I have lost trust in everyone around me.”
(Coles reported from Mala Qara and Parker from Erbil; Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Stephen Kalin and Michael Georgy in Baghdad and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Michael Georgy and Simon Robinson)
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