The current head of the world’s most famous terrorist organization is, in fact, a Pentagon informant.
In declassified protocols, excerpts from The Washington Post, Iraqi detainee M060108-01 is described as an exemplary and unusually talkative prisoner willing to cooperate with the US military. He went out of his way to be as helpful as possible, courteously giving out information about his competitors in the Islamic State.
The documents refer to the events of 2008. Then the militant detained by the Americans, now known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Kurashi, surrendered the location of the secret headquarters of the Islamist media wing. He even described the color of the door and the time when the members of the group would come to the headquarters.
He also revealed the whereabouts of Abu Kaswara, a Swede of Moroccan descent who was a highly influential IS militant. A few weeks later, Abu Qaswara was killed in a US military raid in Iraqi Mosul.
The Pentagon has previously published separate documents showing cooperation with the terrorist, but new reports show how close and fruitful it was, and for both sides. The future leader of the Islamic State eliminated competitors, helping to create portraits of the group’s top militants, and named the place where they liked to spend time.
Thanks to al-Kurashi, the United States received enough materials to persecute the IS propaganda unit, as well as non-Iraqi members of the group. The informant disliked foreign volunteers who joined the group during the American occupation of Iraq.
“He did a number of things to save his own skin, and he had a lot of experience of hostility – including during interrogations – against foreigners in ISIS”, – said Christopher Mayer, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflicts.
According to him, thousands of foreign fighters ruined the idea of creating a caliphate.
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