MAY 27, 2016
MOSUL, IRAQ
DAY
The global search for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is growing cold.
The ISIS chieftain is still receiving treatment from his wounds of a year ago and is now living in a safe house just miles outside this major city in northern Iraq. Doctors sympathetic to ISIS are still treating him for severe spinal injuries. Al-Baghdadi is thought to have grown paranoid in light of his near-death experience and the rising number of his top advisers killed by US coalition air strikes. President Obama has rescinded a previous promise to not allow American troops to put “boots on the ground” in Syria and Iraq, now secretly ordering an estimated 150 Special Forces operatives stationed in the region to hunt for al-Baghdadi.
More than fifteen senior terrorists have been assassinated, including three of al-Baghdadi’s top deputies. Among that number is Abu Alaa al-Afri, who took temporary command after the drone strike. US Army Special Forces cornered al-Afri outside Raqqa in eastern Syria. When asked to surrender, he instead took aim with an assault rifle and was shot dead.*
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.
As the world’s most wanted man, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi rarely sleeps in the same location more than a few nights in a row, frequenting homes in Syria and northern Iraq. The towns of Ba’aj and Tal Afar are personal favorites because the local people not only support him but actively confiscate the cell phones of all residents before his arrival. Coalition intelligence officials are stymied by this cooperation, and reports of al-Baghdadi are scant. What is known is that the ISIS leader travels widely to conceal his location.
However, there is one seat of operations al-Baghdadi favors over all others: Mosul. This large metropolis of 1.6 million was captured by ISIS two years ago. Hundreds of thousands of residents fled in advance of the 1,500 ISIS occupiers who routed a much larger but undisciplined Iraqi government force. Those who remain are now subject to a harsh code of punishment and endure growing poverty. But that is not al-Baghdadi’s concern. The day will come when Iraqi and Iranian forces will return, so ISIS is busy building defensive barricades, planting land mines, and digging hidden escape tunnels.
During those preparations, ISIS religious police roam the streets, forcing their cultural and religious values on the population. Historic Shia mosques are destroyed as a show of religious force, detonated over the screams of local worshippers. Pro-ISIS religious leaders now rule the city. Perversely, the citizens of Mosul must donate a portion of their income to ISIS to rebuild the very mosques the terrorists blew up.
In addition, women are forced to cover themselves from head to toe, wearing the khimar veil to obscure their hair and shoulders. Men who do not enforce this behavior from their wives are flogged. Even gloves are mandatory in the brutal heat, the average summer temperature rising to well over one hundred degrees.
And this is only the beginning: Books are burned. Smoking a cigarette leads to flogging, which is usually inflicted by a power cable, a rope, or even a whip.
Women walking down a street unaccompanied are arrested.
Women entering a taxi alone are arrested.
These female detainees are taken to a police station for torture. Any woman found wearing nail polish has her nails pulled out with pliers. Very often the torture is as simple as a jailer biting into the bare breast of a female prisoner and ripping out a chunk of flesh.
But there is one method of escape—agreeing to marry an ISIS member and going to his bed.
It is not just women who suffer under al-Baghdadi’s sadistic reign. Men are skinned alive, their families forced to watch. Young children are beheaded. Citizens are set on fire. Girls and women are taken prisoner and raped.
Theft is punishable by the amputation of a hand.
Christian believers are murdered.
Any man found guilty of adultery is thrown off a building.
Any woman found guilty of adultery is publicly stoned to death.
Citizens are strung up by their feet, then slaughtered like cattle.
When available, a T-55 tank is used to crush lawbreakers under its treads.
But the harshest penalty is reserved for gay people. The Koran condemns the behavior of men in the ancient city of Tel-Afar who engaged in sodomy. But the Islamic holy book does not prescribe a death penalty for such behavior—that judgment is imposed by ISIS. “They hunt them down, one by one,” a gay Iraqi man who successfully fled told the British Broadcasting Company. “When they capture people, they go through his phone and his contacts and Facebook friends. They are trying to track down every gay man.”
The execution of a gay man is a horrific public spectacle. A hooded executioner reads aloud the charges as two other ISIS fighters, wearing all black, hold the accused on the edge of a roof. Very often the victim will beg to be shot rather than hurled from the precipice. When the charges are read all the way through, the man is thrown to his death. The crowd in the street below often contains small children. The mob cheers. The spectators are encouraged to stone the broken body once it lands, just to ensure that the accused is truly dead. Photos of the corpse are then posted on social media.
“You should see Facebook comments after they post video of the killings,” says the gay Iraqi to the BBC. “It’s devastating. ‘God bless you, ISIS.’ ‘Amazing news. This is the least gays deserve.’ ‘The most horrible crime on earth is homosexuality. Good job, ISIS.’”
The videos go out around the world. Yet as harsh as this persecution might be, countless individuals across the globe not only agree with the executions but also want to join ISIS. Many are planning to travel to the Middle East and join al-Baghdadi’s army. The ISIS ranks are filled with Muslims from North America and Europe.
Others are keen to impress al-Baghdadi from afar. No city on earth is safe from “lone wolf” ISIS attacks, as the media now dubs the random acts of terror perpetrated by men who plan and execute an act of terror all by themselves.
As Orlando, Florida, is about to find out.
It’s Latin Night at Pulse, Orlando’s largest and most popular gay nightclub. Three hundred patrons, men and women alike, pack the dance floor. It is 2:00 a.m. Befitting the theme, throngs of Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Mexican revelers blend into the crowd. Tequila flows, and Ray Rivera—aka DJ Infinite—spins salsa music on the large open-air patio.
Without warning, a gunman suddenly opens fire with a Sig Sauer MCX assault rifle. He wears a handgun in his waistband. The dance floor is instantly strewn with bodies. The music is loud, but the sound of gunfire is even louder. Patrons race for the exits. “All hell broke loose,” DJ Infinite will later recount, “people running for the door.”
The music stops.
But the shooting continues. Panic makes it impossible for many to escape. So some barricade themselves in bathroom stalls, which is perhaps the worst place to hide. “I can just remember you can smell the blood,” Miguel Leiva, who hid in a restroom, will recall. “All my clothes were full of blood. We were sitting down and there were huge pools of blood.”
An off-duty police officer working security at Pulse engages in a gun battle with the shooter. The security guard quickly runs out of bullets and flees. Meanwhile, the killer walks laughing through the pile of bodies, firing his weapons at anything that moves. The assassin is Omar Mateen, twenty-nine, previously investigated by the FBI for an ISIS affiliation. Mateen was born in New York City and has lived in the United States all his life. Mateen is also friends with Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, an American citizen who carried out a suicide attack for ISIS in Syria. Mateen’s ex-wife will later tell authorities that he beat her often, and displayed signs of mental instability.
“In the next few days,” he recently posted on Facebook, “you will see attacks from the Islamic State in the USA.”
Omar Mateen also shares ISIS’s hatred of gay people—and yet he is often found on Grindr, a gay dating app. He sends explicit pictures to men who show interest.
The killer is also a regular at Pulse, where he is often seen trying to pick up gay men.
The shooting at Pulse will be the deadliest mass murder to date in American history. Forty-nine people are killed, fifty-three injured. At 2:35 a.m., Omar Mateen calls 911. “I want to let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings,” he tells the operator.
“What’s your name?” the dispatcher responds.
“My name is ‘I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State.’”
Mateen hangs up. He reloads. As quiet settles over the bloody dance floor, now piled with bodies, the killer checks Facebook to see if there’s a mention of his murders. He phones a friend to brag. As police surround the building, Mateen takes refuge in a bathroom, locking himself inside with several clubgoers whom he now takes hostage.
He texts his wife at 4:00 a.m., asking her if she has heard about the shootings. She responds by saying she loves him.
At 5:00 a.m., three hours into the massacre, Orlando police finally storm the building. The long delay has no explanation. The external wall of the bathroom in which Mateen hides is blasted open with explosives. He emerges from the rubble firing, only to be immediately shot dead.
His hostages, many grievously wounded, survive.
The shocking crime in Orlando gives ISIS new status in the terror community. Its global reach is expanding daily through the use of social media to broadcast ISIS atrocities and propaganda. Even as al-Baghdadi remains in hiding, his fanatical followers are killing people all over the world.
“Allah has enabled brother Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out a raid where he was able to infiltrate a crusaders’ gathering at a gay night club,” the official ISIS announcement reads.
“Allah enabled him to inflict casualties amongst the filthy crusaders. He killed and injured over a hundred of them. This is the biggest raid to be carried out in America after the raid of Manhattan sixteen years ago. All praise to Allah.”
The global ISIS terror attacks continue throughout the summer of 2016.
Turkish suicide bombers kill forty people.
In Bangladesh, twenty people are murdered at a restaurant in Dhaka.
In France, a thirty-one-year-old Tunisian man drives a truck through a crowd in Nice, killing eighty-four.
In Germany, a teenager born in Afghanistan wields an axe on a commuter train, injuring five people before being subdued.
And in Russia, a nine-minute YouTube video warns President Vladimir Putin that his nation is next. “Listen, Putin, we will come to Russia and will kill you at your homes.… Oh, brothers, carry out jihad and kill and fight them.”
Yet unbeknownst to ISIS and al-Baghdadi, the winds are about to change.