The man, Laid Saidi: Craig S. Smith and Souad Mekhennet, “Algerian Tells of Dark Term in US Hands,” New York Times, July 7, 2006; “Laid Saidi,” The Rendition Project, https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/prisoners/saidi.html.
“The Director strongly believes that mistakes should be expected”: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program (New York: Melville House, 2014), pp. 118–19.
“This Report concludes that there was an insufficient basis”: CIA Office of Inspector General, “Report of Investigation: The Rendition and Detention of German Citizen Khalid al-Masri,” July 16, 2007, https://www.thetorturedatabase.org/document/report-investigation-rendition-and-detention-german-citizen-khalid-al-masri, p. 5.
The unanswered questions were frustrating: Both “Khalid ‘Abd al Razzaq al-Masri” (#98) and “Laid Ben Dohman Saidi” (#57) are on the list of 119 names of people detained by the CIA in the Senate’s report on torture. Khaled elMasri’s name is still misspelled as Khalid al-Masri in the report. Saidi’s name is bolded as one of those “subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.” ElMasri’s is not. U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, Appendix 2: CIA Detainees from 2002 to 2006, Errata, February 6, 2015, http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/5/8/5871bb22-f4fb-4ec4-b419-99babb2eca3d/2CE49560261479702BE070249CACE775.errata.pdf.
“People in the West are the last ones in the world”: Souad Mekhennet, “A German Man Held Captive in the CIA’s Secret Prisons Gives First Interview in 8 Years,” Washington Post, September 16, 2015.
5: EVEN IF I DIE TODAY OR TOMORROW
the bombings in Madrid: Victoria Burnett, “Conviction and Key Acquittals End Madrid Bomb Trial,” New York Times, November 1, 2007.
bombs exploded on three underground trains and a bus in London: “Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005,” May 11, 2006, p. 13, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-of-the-official-account-of-the-bombings-in-london-on-7th-july-2005.
A Palestinian born in the West Bank: Justin Salhani, “Forgotten but Not Gone: Fatah al-Islam Still a Factor in Lebanon,” Daily Star (Lebanon), December 6, 2014.
he’d given up his medical studies: Andrew Wander, “Fatah al-Islam Says Leader Was Killed or Captured in Syria,” Daily Star (Lebanon), December 11, 2008.
He later staged attacks on Israel: “Abssi denied accusations by Syrian interior minister Bassam Abdel Majid that the Palestinian militant has been jailed in Syria because of links with al-Qaeda and for planning terrorist attacks. ‘I was jailed in Syria, but not over links with al-Qaeda as he has claimed,’ Abssi said. ‘I was jailed because I was accused of having planned to carry out an operation in the [Syrian] Golan [territory occupied by Israel], as well as of having carried and smuggled arms into Palestine [Israel],’ he said.” “Fatah al-Islam Chief Denies Al-Qaeda Link,” Agence France-Presse, March 16, 2007.
From 2002 to 2005, the Syrians imprisoned him: Much of the account of Shaker al-Abssi draws on reporting done by the author in collaboration with Michael Moss for the following articles: Souad Mekhennet and Michael Moss, “In Lebanon Camp, a New Face of Jihad Vows Attacks on U.S.,” New York Times, March 16, 2007; Michael Moss and Souad Mekhennet, “Jihad Leader in Lebanon May Be Alive,” New York Times, September 11, 2007.
inspired by the 1979 siege of Mecca: Trofimov, Siege of Mecca, pp. 248–50.
“Salafism” derives from the Arabic expression: While this definition of Salafism is appealing to many Muslims, especially conservative ones, and does not necessarily oppose a secular state or society, Salafists in the contemporary understanding of the term oppose any new interpretations of holy scripture as well as democracy as a form of government. However, not all contemporary Salafists are political; some try to practice Islam as “purely” as possible only for themselves. Others are political but refuse violence to achieve their aims or only legitimize it under specific circumstances. But there are also the “terrorist Salafists” or Jihadi-Salafists, who call for violence and revolution to fight unbelievers and establish a theocratic Islamic state. See Rashid Dar and Shadi Hamid, “Islamism, Salafism and Jihadism: A Primer,” Brookings, July 15, 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/07/15/islamism-salafism-and-jihadism-a-primer/; Guido Steinberg, “Wer sind die Salafisten?” Deutsches Institut für Internationale Politik und Sicherheit, May 2012, https://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/aktuell/2012A28_sbg.pdf; Quintan Wiktoriowicz, “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29 (2006): 207–39, http://www.clagsborough.uk/anatomy_of_the_salafi_movement.pdf.
imprisoned for plotting attacks in Jordan in 1994: Joby Warrick, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS (New York: Doubleday, 2015), pp. 55–56; “The Islamic State,” Mapping Militant Organizations, Stanford University, May 15, 2015, http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/1?highlight=zarqawi.
Zarqawi also hated the Shia and saw them as rivals: Ibid.
Colin Powell named him in the speech to the United Nations: “U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council,” February 5, 2003, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html.
Al Qaeda in Iraq set off bombs in three Amman hotels: Jonathan Finer and Naseer Mehdawi, “Bombings Kill over 50 at 3 Hotels in Jordan; Coordinated Attack in Amman Linked to Zarqawi’s Network,” Washington Post, November 10, 2005.
Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, wrote that Zarqawi: Warrick, Black Flags, p. 201. See also letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, late 2005, translation provided by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/atiyahs-letter-to-zarqawi-english-translation-2.
the Askari mosque in Samarra: This is where the tenth and eleventh Shia imams are buried and where, according to some Shia, the twelfth imam went into hiding. Imranali Panjwani, “The Compartmentalisation of Holy Figures: A Case Study of the Heritage of the Samarran Shi‘i Imams,” World Journal of Islamic History and Civilization 1, no. 1 (2011): 15–26, http://idosi.org/wjihc/wjihc1(1)11/2.pdf.
Zarqawi celebrated by starring in a video: Warrick, Black Flags, pp. 201–5.
just in time to watch Zarqawi die: Ibid., p. 217.
the 2002 assassination of the American diplomat Laurence Foley: Neil MacFarquhar, “Threats and Responses: Attack on US Diplomat; American Envoy Killed in Jordan,” New York Times, October 29, 2002.