ISIS’s strategy of terror

[Valin]

NOW:

Hanin Ghaddar

July 14, 2015

 

Der Spiegel investigative journalist Christoph Reuter is probably known to the English-speaking readership for his recent story on coming into possession of ISIS’s initial planning documents. However, this story is only part of his lengthy investigative work in Syria and Iraq, which has resulted in many reports and a new book, published in April this year.

 

Reuter has been reporting for decades on the Middle East region, and in addition to his award-winning reports, he had already written two books: My Life is a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing (2002), and Baghdad Café (2004), together with Susanne Fischer, about daily life in Iraq.

 

His third and most recent book, The Black Power: The “Islamic State” and the Strategists of Terror, details the strategy of ISIS, or Daesh, as Reuter prefers to call the organization.

 

NOW Managing Editor Hanin Ghaddar recently sat down with Reuter to talk about his new book and the details of Daesh’s strategy.

 

NOW: In the past four years, you’ve been to Syria 19 times and you recently wrote an article about the original documents you found that show the origins of Daesh. Is the book an elaborate analysis of these findings?

 

Christoph: No, we singled out this part, which was in Der Spiegel. We had the perfect chain of evidence. We had authentic, hand-written charts, drafts and plans, and we had to check the implementation of the plans through the contacts that we had in the villages and the towns. Plus, we had reports from the Daesh headquarters in Aleppo. And you rarely get something from inside Daesh, except sometimes when people talk, and when you get papers it’s normally just the reporting, the bureaucracy part from municipality, etc. But to get something from the inner circle — to get something which is their thinking — is super rare. It’s like we got one slice of the brain; nobody has the whole brain, but at least we got one part, which helps us to understand where they come from and how they function.

 

NOW: Why do you put a lot of emphasis in the book on the gap between the propaganda of Daesh and the reality?

 

Christoph: Basically, we see Daesh, we see the Islamic State — especially in the West — we see it from the surface, which is the mix of their propaganda; their version of what they really do. You see the pictures of actual killings, slaughtering, beheadings, blowing up things, mixed with their propaganda, or mixed with the things which are not true. They are controlling whatever comes out of their area. For example, if you take the pictures and the images we have of the Islamic State, 99% are approved by their PR department. They give us pictures of all these lined-up Humvees, guys with guns, perfect afternoon light set in the desert. They have accepted the presence of a few photographers who are in the area, from AFP, Reuters, AP; the big agencies, no matter if they would be considered Zionists, masons, imperialists, infidel agencies — they are in their area and they had to swear allegiance and in most cases the office is directly controlling all the images before they are permitted to submit them or it’s made clear to them. They sort of tell them, ‘if you do something wrong which harms our reputation, you know what will happen to you. We know you; we will find you.’ So the images that are transferred through the agencies, all the big agencies, are images that have been approved by Daesh. And Daesh invites the photographers to their events.

 

NOW: This is Syria you’re talking about — you’re not talking about Iraq...

 

Christoph: Both. No, in Syria it’s slightly different because you had no established photographers, like in Hawija, Tikrit, Mosul, and Fallujah. There are photographers who’ve been working for the agencies for a long time. They could make a deal with Daesh that they could continue to work but according to the new rules. So, you could probably do normal street scenes, they wouldn’t mind, but if you do anything that they would not agree with, you’d be in trouble. They invite photographers to demonstrations and events. Well, they wouldn’t say it’s a beheading; you go there and then you have to take pictures of a beheading, of any kind of punishment.

 

NOW: And you can’t do anything about it? You would have to take the pictures?

 

Christoph: You could say that you don’t want to take the pictures, but anything can get you into trouble. So, you take the picture…

 

(Snip)

 

 

H/T Thomas Hegghammer