My Share of the Task (79 page)

eighty-five of their comrades:
Casualty figures come from Smith and MacFarland, “Anbar Awakens,” 52.

could not knowingly target:
Throughout the time Task Force 17 was active, it coordinated its target list with MNF-I and the State Department. Any time it posted a slide with “SCIRI” on it—referring to one of the main political parties that used the Badr Brigade as its violent arm—embassy officials would offer fierce objections.

feverishly triaging the material:
My recollection of this event was aided by interviews with those closely involved.

twenty-two-page document:
My recollection of the contents of this material was confirmed and elaborated upon in interviews with two individuals privy to it.

attack on our outpost in Karbala:
General Petraeus later said in a press conference, “[T]he heads of the Qazali network and some of the key members of that network that have been in detention now for a month or more . . . When we captured these individuals . . . we discovered, for example, a 22-page memorandum on a computer that detailed the planning, preparation, approval process and conduct of the operation that resulted in five of our soldiers being killed in Karbala.” Department of Defense, “DOD News Briefing with Gen. Petraeus from the Pentagon,” April 26, 2007.

as well as postoperation assessments:
Multi-National Force–Iraq (Brigadier General Kevin Bergner), “Situational Update” (briefing), July 2, 2007.

military IDs taken:
Jack Fairweather,
A War of Choice: The British in Iraq 2003–2009
(Jonathan Cape, 2011)
,
297.

life inside the camp:
Then–Brigadier General Kevin Bergner described in detail the capture of the Khazalis and the contents of the twenty-two-page document in his MNF-I press briefing, July 2 cited above: “The document that we captured showed the following. It showed that the group that attacked the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala had conducted extensive preparation and drills prior to the attack. Quds Force had developed detailed information regarding our soldiers' activities, shift changes and fences, and this information was shared with the attackers.”

immediate pressure to release Qais:
Indeed, according to Fairweather, Maliki called Dave Petraeus early that morning to demand the Khazalis' release. Fairweather,
A War of Choice
, 297.

seized an opportunity:
Petraeus later reflected, “We told Maliki now was the time to take action against the Jaish al-Mahdi to demonstrate his authority.” Fairweather,
A War of Choice
, 297.

sought to capture in
Irbil:
“Interview with Mohammed Jafari,”
Frontline
, PBS,
August 2, 2007.

sought to convince its leadership:
Details of arguments presented to Ansar leadership were provided by those closely involved.

twenty-three hundred men patrolling:
Richard A. Oppel, Jr., “Mistrust as Iraqi Troops Encounter New U.S. Allies,”
New York Times
, July 16, 2007.

Daraji was ambushed:
Edward Wong and Damien Cave, “Attack on Sadr City Mayor Hinders Antimilitia Effort,”
New York Times
, March 15, 2007.

leader of its operations
in Iraq:
Multi-National Force–Iraq,
“Capture of Terrorist Emirs Gives al-Qaida in Iraq Nowhere to Turn” (press release), December 6, 2006.

cleansed many of the
neighborhoods:
Some of the best work on this subject was done by Dr. Michael Izady of Columbia University as part of The Gulf/2000 Project. His maps of increasingly homogenous neighborhoods are available on the project's website.

giving Graeme greater latitude:
Interview with Graeme Lamb.

Whitehall had ordered:
Fairweather,
A War of Choice
, 316.

to the airport
in September:
Ibid., 318.

wounded each of these months:
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, “Fatalities by Year and Month,” iCasualties website, 2012; Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, “U.S. Wounded Totals,” iCasualties website, 2012.

blood on their hands:
This exchange is based on my recollection, as well as interviews with participants. A form of this episode is also told in Fairweather,
A War of Choice
,
292. Note: While this book implies this discussion took place at Maude House, I remember it at the Friday meeting.

never to sugarcoat or obscure:
Interviews with members of FSEC.

time for a decision:
My recollection of these meetings is aided by interviews with two task force members present.

Jihad and Reform Front:
The “JR Front Establishing Statement” was posted to an English-language Islamic Army in Iraq website on September 15, 2007, but was signed and dated May 2, 2007.

to avoid killing innocents:
One of the Front's policies covered this issue: “Mujahedeen operations target the occupiers and their agents, and don't target innocents whom one of Jihad goals is [
sic
] to support them and achieve a good life for them, and use kindness as the way that we treat Muslims.” “JR Front Establishing Statement,” Islamic Army in Iraq website, September 15, 2007.

led by
Abu Wail:
“Jihad and Reform Front,”
Jane's Terrorism and Security Monitor
,
March 20, 2009.

a faction came with him:
Ibid. See also Evan F. Kohlmann, “State of the Sunni Insurgency in Iraq: August 2007,” NEFA Foundation,
15, 18–19.

collaborating with the United States:
“Jihad and Reform Front.”
Jane's
.

target the leaders:
Stanford University,
“Islamic Army in Iraq,” Mapping Militant Organizations, project website, 2012.

clashed with AQI, petered out:
Ibid.

dissension
within Ansar's ranks:
“Jihad and Reform Front,”
Jane's
.

Dadullah the Lame:
Dadullah may have led one of the earliest meetings that set the still small Taliban resurgence movement into action in 2002. See Antonio Giustozzi,
Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan
(Columbia University Press, 2008), 11. In 2003, Mullah Omar dispatched Dadullah to lead recruitment in Baluchistan and Karachi, where he was rumored to be accompanied by Pakistani officials. Elizabeth Rubin, “In the Land of the Taliban,”
New York Times Magazine
, October 22, 2006.

anti-Soviet resistance of the
1980s:
According to a Taliban biography, he joined the anti-Soviet resistance in 1983. Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn,
An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970–2010
(Hurst and Co., 2012), 275.

quit school to join:
Ibid., 275–76.

stepped on a mine
:
Omid Marzban, “Mullah Dadullah: The Military Mastermind of the Taliban Insurgency,” Jamestown Foundation,
March 21, 2006.

“preceded him to Paradise”:
Abu Yahya al-Libi, quoted in “Islamist Website Monitor No. 110,” Middle East Media Research Institute
,
June 8, 2007.

Mullah Omar
retired him:
Elizabeth Rubin notes, “His fighters slaughtered hundreds of Hazaras . . . in Bamiyan Province, an act so brutal it was even too much for Mullah Omar, who had him disarmed at the time” (“In the Land of the Taliban”).

“I no longer need them”:
Kate Clark, “The
Layha:
Calling the Taliban to Account,”
Afghanistan Analysts Network
, July 4, 2011, 3, note 7.

United Front in
the north:
Linschoten,
An Enemy We Created
, 276.

the atrocities he carried out:
Carlotta Gall, “Northern Alliance Presses for Surrender of Taliban Commander and Troops,”
New York Times
, December 4, 2001.

relied increasingly on suicide bombs:
This point is made in Linschoten,
An Enemy We Created
, 279.

bombs on the roads of Iraq:
Sami Yousafzai, “Suicide Offensive,”
Newsweek
, April 15, 2007.

there were
141:
Ahmed Rashid,
Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia
(Penguin, 2009), 366. Other accounts give slightly different numbers, but the magnitude of increase is the same. Linschoten, for example, reports 3 suicide bombs in 2004 and 123 in 2006. Linschoten,
An Enemy We Created
, 279.

distance from Al Qaeda:
This is one of the central arguments made in Linschoten,
An Enemy We Created
.

four dollars a disc:
Matthias Gebauer, “The Star of Afghanistan's Jihad,”
Der Spiegel Online
, March 1, 2007.

ridgelines and
beheading “spies”:
Rubin, “In the Land of the Taliban.”

relief when he was disposed of:
This is explained in Clark, “The
Layha,
” 4.

eulogies from Al Qaeda:
“I announce to you today the passing of a hero among the heroes of Jihad in this era and a knight among its knights,” mourned Ayman al-Zawahiri (Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Elegizing the Commander of the Martrydom-Seekers Mulla Dadullah [May Allah Have Mercy on Him].” World Analysis, May 22, 2007.) Abu Yahya al-Libi also had praise for Dadullah. “Today,” he said, “we take leave of one of these noble commanders, Mullah Dadullah, who has joined the ranks of the martyrs . . . after having spent his life on the battlefronts fighting the infidels.” Abu Yahya al-Libi quoted in “Islamist Websites Monitor No. 110,” Middle East Media Research Institute, June 8, 2007.

target a Special Groups leader:
Multi-National Force—Iraq,
“Coalition Forces Target Special Groups Leader, 49 Criminals Killed” (press release), October 21, 2007.

kidnapping and death squads:
Paul von Zielbauer, “Iraqi Journalist Reported Missing After Driver's Body Found,”
New York Times
,
October 23, 2007.

an IED as they
withdrew:
That the teams were under fire while clearing buildings and were hit by an IED on departure comes from my own recollection as well as interviews. These details are confirmed in Multi-National Force–Iraq,
“Coalition Forces Target Special Groups.”

killed
teenagers and children:
“U.S. Raid of Baghdad's Sadr City Kills 49,”
USA Today
,
October 21, 2007.

fewer Americans were dying:
The specific metrics I cite are from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, “Iraq Coalition Casualties: Fatalities by Year and Month,” iCasualties website, 2009.

helicopter was flying
near Baghdad:
UK Ministry of Defense, “Two UK Military Personnel Killed in Puma Helicopter Crash” (press release), November 21, 2007.

same thing eight weeks earlier:
The previous attempt occurred at roughly 3:30
A.M.
on Monday, March 3, 2008. Jeffrey Gettleman and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Forces Fire Missiles into Somalia at a Kenyan,”
New York Times
,
March 4, 2008.

shot in the back:
Ben Dowell, “Journalist Shot Dead in Somalia Was in High-Risk Area, Says BBC Safety Head,”
Guardian
,
November 25, 2008.

split from the Islamic Courts
Union:
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross,
Bin Laden's Legacy: Why We're Still Losing the War on Terror
(John Wiley and Sons, 2011), 149–50.

striking beyond its borders:
“After Somalia we will proceed to Djibouti, Kenya, and Ethiopia,” Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a now-dead Al Shabab intelligence chief declared in November 2009. Gartenstein-Ross,
Bin Laden's Legacy
, 150.

CHAPTER 16: THE TICKING CLOCK

vacationing in Europe:
Rodric Braithwaite,
Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979–89
(Oxford University Press, 2011), 31.

wash away the excesses:
As Afghanistan scholar David Edwards notes, while the violence and eccentricities of the warlords gave them a degree of celebrity, the Taliban adeptly portrayed themselves very differently: “An additional point in the Taliban's favor was the relative invisibility of their leadership. . . . One can only speculate on the motivation behind this strategy, but it seems reasonable to conclude that it might be related to the people's disillusionment with the all-too-visible leaders of the established religious parties who did so much to divide the country. In this sense, the Taliban in their first period seemed to represent something like an anticharismatic movement; the emphasis was . . . the movement itself.” David B. Edwards,
Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad
(University of California Press, 2002), 294.