Black Flags (51 page)

The United Nations Iraq headquarters lies in ruins after a devastating suicide bombing that kills the mission chief and twenty-two others. The August 2003 attack is among the first linked to Zarqawi. (Defense Department photo)

Zarqawi, masked, stands behind seated American hostage Nick Berg, a Pennsylvania businessman captured in Iraq in 2004. The videotaped beheading of Berg becomes Zarqawi’s signature act, and the first of many such executions. (SITE Intelligence Group)

Zarqawi cradles a light machine gun for a publicity video in 2006. Despite widespread revulsion over his brutal tactics, Zarqawi’s reputation for fearlessness draws thousands of Islamist volunteers to Iraq. (SITE Intelligence Group)

Nada Bakos, pictured here in 2014, was the CIA’s chief “targeter” for Zarqawi during the early years of the Iraq war. (Courtesy of Nada Bakos)

Diplomat Robert S. Ford tried to encourage Iraqi Sunni politicians to run for office despite threats from Zarqawi. Later, as U.S. ambassador to Syria, he sounded the alarm about the growing presence of Islamists among the country’s rebel militias. (State Department photo)

General Stanley McChrystal inspects troops during a 2010 ceremony. As commander of U.S. special forces in Iraq, McChrystal helped devise the strategy that led to Zarqawi’s death in 2006 and the near destruction of his organization in the years that followed. (Defense Department photo)

Would-be terrorist Sajida al-Rishawi displays the suicide vest that failed to explode during Zarqawi’s 2005 attack on Western hotels in the Jordanian capital. (
The Jordan Times
)

Soldiers searching through rubble of Zarqawi’s safe house after the building is flattened by a U.S. fighter jet. (Defense Department photo)

Zarqawi was pulled alive from the rubble of his safe house but died minutes later from blast injuries, surrounded by U.S. troops. His body, pictured here, was taken to a U.S. military base so his identity could be confirmed. (Defense Department photo)

Huge crowds protest against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Hama, Syria, in July 2011. Intervention by U.S. diplomats delayed, but did not prevent, a bloody assault by government security forces. (Shaam News Network)

Future ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is photographed at the U.S. military detainee facility Camp Bucca in February 2004. (Defense Department photo)