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The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:13pm On Jun 24, 2017
Three young IS militants lie dead on the banks of the River Tigris.
They left behind personal photos and documents which reveal the extraordinary story of their private lives.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:15pm On Jun 24, 2017
Warning: Disturbing content
Mohammed is giddy with excitement as he films the discovery of three IS fighters on his mobile phone.
“Shoot him,” he shouts, gesturing at one of them.
His nervousness gives him away as the unit’s cook. He’s unarmed, but his fellow soldiers from the Iraqi police special forces - known as the Emergency Response Division - are armed to the teeth and are not taking any chances.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:18pm On Jun 24, 2017
A body and a pile of clothes on the banks of the Tigris
Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:21pm On Jun 24, 2017
Two of the IS fighters are clearly dead. One, most likely a boy, is buried under the rubble of concrete bunker. His small, blackened hand sticks out from mangled remains. Nearby, an older fighter lies in the grass. His eyes are open, but part of his head is missing. He died in the same airstrike that took out the bunker.
But it is the third man, lying in the shadows, further ahead on the path alongside the River Tigris, who has the soldiers worried.
Be careful … Look to his hand, maybe he has a grenade. Go slowly.”
Mohammed
They fire a couple of shots into the prone figure. It does not move.
“He is a son of a bitch, he was hiding. Be careful, be careful,” says one of the soldiers. “I don’t think he has a suicide vest,” says another.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:23pm On Jun 24, 2017
An Iraqi soldier investigates the scen
Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:27pm On Jun 24, 2017
They are at the foot of an olive grove, which is serving as the temporary base of the ERD as they push towards west Mosul, the last major redoubt of IS in Iraq.
Up close I look upon the dead man. His right leg is mangled, sliced through to the bone. He appears to have crawled out of the bunker and found a small hiding place in the rocks by the riverside.
Even in death his face is distinctive - a narrow chin and a puckish nose. His beard is wispy. He is more of a boy than a man. Nearby, soldiers find an M16 rifle which is marked as property of the US Government.
Close up of the M16 machine gun

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:33pm On Jun 24, 2017
It is likely to have been among the thousands of weapons and vehicles IS seized from retreating Iraqi forces when it swept through from Syria more than two years previously.
“Adel, Adel, does anyone have ammunition? I want a full magazine,” says a fighter searching the dead man. The M16 now belongs to the man who found it.
“We have to go, it isn’t safe here,” an officer tells me. The men are jumpy and want to return to the base. There are still other IS fighters in the area, they warn.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:36pm On Jun 24, 2017
It is late February and these men are in the midst of the battle of their lives. In three days they made lightning progress across the territory to the south of Mosul. Ahead of them the village of the Al-Buseif, then the ruined airport and the neighbourhoods of the west of the city.
All would fall in rapid succession, but the closer to Mosul they come, the more IS fighters they encounter, and the more bodies end up strewn across the roads and pathways.
It is already clear from the assault on the city’s east - it took 100 days - that IS prepared well for this fight. Mosul was turned into a giant arsenal, with weapons dumps and hideouts in every neighbourhood.
Before we climb back up the hill to the base, I look again on the dead fighters. In the grass beside one, I find a small piece of paper marked with an IS stamp. It is a leave permission slip. On the back, it is smeared with his blood.
IS leave permission slip

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:42pm On Jun 24, 2017
The soldiers do one final check of the bodies. On the young man in the shadows, they find some cash - a small amount of Syrian pounds, almost worthless. But in his other pocket, there is something small and far more valuable - a memory card from a mobile phone.
The pictures on it will lead us to uncover fragments of the lives of the dead men, the deep camaraderie among them, their brutality, and their journey through the battle for Mosul. And it will cast light on the dead fighter in the shadows. Who was this young man and what secrets of Islamic State did he leave behind?
Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:46pm On Jun 24, 2017
The photographs begin as bright family snapshots but soon darken. The young man, is seated, with the trace of a smile on his face. He is doe-eyed beside a little girl. Perhaps it is his sister. He holds her close, and she has her index finger raised - the Islamic sign for one true god.
His hair is curly, long and parted in the middle, and as the pictures progress they have been edited, his cheeks and lips turned a girlish pink, the whites of his eyes touched-up and bright.
A transformation is taking place.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:48pm On Jun 24, 2017
Soon he is in military gear, a Kalashnikov is slung over his shoulder, a walkie-talkie in his top pocket.
In another he is asleep, it is almost certainly posed, the intention is to show a warrior at rest.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:53pm On Jun 24, 2017
This is no longer a family album, it’s now a record of a martyr-to-be, a baby-faced suicide attacker, cleansed and ready to sacrifice himself for his cause.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 12:59pm On Jun 24, 2017
The memory card found on his body has other pictures, too.
There is a group shot of young men and boys. The fighter is not in the frame. He may be behind the camera, taking the shot. I would later learn that most of the men and boys were from Mosul and were part of the Nineveh Fire Support Group, a rear-line, back-up unit that sowed terror in the city. Their time in IS has forged a deep bond between them.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:05pm On Jun 24, 2017
One of the most striking is a photograph of what appears to be the fighter's brother-in-arms. This man looks older, his hair is long and is also parted. He stares intently at the camera. My eye is drawn to his hands, which are settled on his waist. Curiously, he is wearing black gloves. Underneath those hands, hidden by his shirt, there is a suicide belt. His thumbs rest on its bulge.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:23pm On Jun 24, 2017
The gloves are worn to hide the switch that will detonate the explosives, disguised so that the target does not recognise the threat posed by the smiling young man in khaki, until it is too late.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:28pm On Jun 24, 2017
There are group pictures, too, with older men. Battle-hardened and scarred, their faces are unforgettable. And to some in Mosul, they are familiar.
But the photographs from the phone card have another secret to reveal, one that was right under my nose the entire time.
Secret hideout

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:30pm On Jun 24, 2017
The men fighting in the battle for Mosul alternate between two states - the hyper vigilance of the battlefield and a swallowing exhaustion barely touched by a few hours sleep at night.
As a journalist following the men, I slip into the same routine. Rising before dawn, driving to the front, watching as they dodge mortar and rocket fire, avoid roadside bombs and drones. And ducking when IS snipers and fighters open fire.
At night there is barely time for my crew to edit, recharge our equipment, and get some sleep, before heading out again.
Aerial footage of the farmhouse

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:33pm On Jun 24, 2017
mess everywhere

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:36pm On Jun 24, 2017
So we do not pay very close attention to our sleeping quarters. In short, it is dark, we are tired, and we have other priorities. All we know is they've been checked for booby traps and that we are relatively safe here.
After almost two weeks at the farmhouse, the bodies of the three fighters still lie where they fell. But the dogs and birds are at their corpses. They are increasingly unrecognisable.
As I go through the pictures from the mobile phone card again, the penny drops. These men did not just fight at the farmhouse. It was their home too. I recognise its walls and furnishings in some of the pictures.
Discovering the hideout:
On our last day at the front, with just a few hours to pack and return to the safety of Irbil, I decide to explore. Above my sleeping bag, there is a window. I remove the dusty curtain. Underneath are hidden notices from the caliphate, official IS orders.
They show IS struggling for resources, especially manpower and that the caliphate’s ranks are depleting fast.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:38pm On Jun 24, 2017
On November 11, the Islamic State’s Minister for War calls for more special forces recruits.
By mid-December, new orders are issued to prevent desertion from the front.
Brothers are not allowed to retreat - use of force and commensurate violence allowed”
IS orders
At the back of a room, a blanket covers the wall. I can feel a draught from behind it, so I give it a sharp tug. In a cloud of dust, it falls away and reveals another room, small and bright, with a single window to a vegetable garden, and a bed.
This is the dead men’s sleeping quarters. Their clothes, and much more besides, lie scattered across the floor.
There is a Chelsea Football Club pillowcase lying beside IS wall posters, which list punishments for crimes in the caliphate.
Electrical parts are stripped from sockets and flashlights, presumably for military purposes. In the midst of the mess, something catches my eye. It is an anti-fungal medicine box with a blond-haired baby pictured on the front.
Its eyes are carefully gouged out. This defacement is likely because of an Islamic prohibition of the depiction of the human form.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:46pm On Jun 24, 2017
The room is filthy. Hidden in the piles of material, something important has been left behind. A few pages of detailed handwritten notes and diagrams are carefully folded. They clearly meant a lot to the author, his IS staff number is written in the corner, and in bold English letters, his name: Abu Ali Al Moslaue. Is this the name of the young man depicted in the photos?

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:50pm On Jun 24, 2017
The handwriting is neat and careful in the beginning, and the notes are meticulous. They serve an important purpose, life and death, in fact. Abu Ali was learning how to fire mortars. It appears that he was an excellent and a diligent student. But like all schoolboys, he becomes more careless and erratic as the lessons drag on.
But he takes pride in his work. He notes practice runs in converting coordinates from Google Maps to actual targeting coordinates. He draws compass degrees as well as the curved graph course of mortar rounds.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:57pm On Jun 24, 2017
Importantly, in the munitions section and in his own handwriting, he lists “chemical munitions” as a weapon.
There’s been much debate over whether IS has used chemical weapons in Mosul. Here at least, we know they are trained and prepared to use them.
He personalises his notes, sketching a logo for the unit and a makeshift IS stamp, labelled General Support Units.
And there are mottos: “Islamic State: Along the Prophet’s Methodology” and “Islamic State remains, in spite of the haters”.
He used an Education Department exam paper as his notebook, and clearly finds this amusing.
He records the school year as 2016-17, Subject: Mortar, and scores his own paper: “Final Marks: Congratulations. You passed. Total Marks: 100.”

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 1:59pm On Jun 24, 2017
The hideout has even more secrets to reveal. As I search through the detritus something catches my eye.
It looks irrelevant at first. The notebook is in tatters, hanging by a thread. Someone has scribbled the same Islamic poem and a prayer verse several times over a few pages, as if to etch them into memory. There are mistakes, the handwriting is shabby, the structure unappealing. This definitely doesn't belong to Abu Ali.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 2:03pm On Jun 24, 2017
But then numbers emerge, names, tables, tabulations and permutations. Whoever scribbled those names and numbers had the authority to dispatch patrols, put men on shifts together, see how many rounds they fired and how many they need for their next outing.
It definitely belongs to someone senior at that farmhouse, possibly the commander of those men. I discover his name is Abu Hashem.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 2:05pm On Jun 24, 2017
The notebook reveals its secrets - it is a unit’s logbook from the Al-Buseif Air Defence Brigade, a sub-unit of the Nineveh Fire Support Group. They must have all been sharing the same farmhouse.
All in all, Abu Hashem commanded eight men and two vehicles. They formed the bulk of the Al-Buseif Air Defence mobile patrol. They drove a Hyundai pickup truck with a double-barrel anti-air cannon, and another pickup truck with a smaller calibre, single barrel heavy machine gun. Both vehicles were white, which is reportedly the preferred colour for Islamic State combat vehicles because they’re easier to camouflage with dirt and blend into the terrain.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 2:08pm On Jun 24, 2017
Commander Abu Hashem appears to have been diligent. He meticulously records the sorties, the types of weapons used, the chassis number of his trucks, how many rounds they had, their type, how many rounds fired - even the faulty ones.
Not only was he a good logistician, but he also understood how small units worked. The record shows how he tried to foster and strengthen bonds between his men. Scheduling their lives, Abu Hashem made sure to couple fighters serving on the same vehicle to have meals together.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 2:12pm On Jun 24, 2017
And so, while he’s having lunch with Abu Riad, his driver, Abu Hafs, the driver of the other vehicle is paired with a gunner, Abu Al-Sham.
The commander, his logbook shows, has clearly put some thought into this. He worked on two possible permutations, crossing off names before putting in a clean draft.
The burden of command must have weighed heavily on Abu Hashem’s mind while commanding his troops. This, however, didn’t soften him up.
Like any seasoned commander, he proved ready to show a tough disciplinary side. In one written order, he tasks one of his subordinates to lead a patrol. “Those who are found lacking must be punished,” he orders. “May Allah reward you with goodness,” wishing him well.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 2:20pm On Jun 24, 2017
Taking the photos and the bundles of documents with me, I leave the farmhouse and finally Iraq. But for months, the men remain in my head.
Using what I already know about them, would I be able to find out more? Did they have families? What kind of lives had they led?

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 2:24pm On Jun 24, 2017
My search to find out more about the men begins in Mosul. It is early April and the 1st Brigade of Iraq’s ERD forces are deep inside the west of the city.
The farmhouse seems like a lifetime ago. Their new base, a house near the front lines is in a residential neighbourhood.
The steady thump of mortar fire rattles what is left of the windows. Captured IS suspects are being brought here. One man is pulled from a pick-up truck by the fighters.
He has been badly beaten. His T-shirt is covered in blood. It is not clear who hurt him.
It may have been the troops, or it could have been locals exacting revenge on those who had controlled and oppressed them in the proceeding years.
An intelligence major calls me into a back room. “I have someone for you to meet, someone we haven’t shared with anyone else,” he says.
A young, shifty-looking man, slight and dressed like an off-duty soldier comes into the room. Let's call him Ibrahim.
He fought with IS for two years, but he is not a prisoner. He is a double agent, working for the Iraqi security forces.
I show him the photos that I have brought from the farmhouse.
Quentin speaks to Ibrahim:
“I know them very well,” he says. “Those are fighters. They were with the Khaled Ibn Al-Walid Unit. This one was the section's commander,” he says pointing to one of the older men in the photographs.
“They acted as a support unit for the front-line troops. They would spring into action as soon as they were needed.”
Along with the intelligence major, he confirms the men were mostly from Mosul. Ibrahim reflects on what his membership of IS had done to him, and most likely to the men and boys in the pictures.
I learned how to be tough. How to beat and kill without mercy. Especially with regards to prisoners”
Ibrahim
He notes that men from the Nineveh Fire Support Group lived spartan lives. “You should live like the Prophet, a simple life. A fighter needs very little to survive,” he says.

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 2:27pm On Jun 24, 2017
It is clear from Ibrahim and others that I meet that most of the men and boys in the pictures are dead.
Identifying all the men in the photographs has proved impossible. IS fighters use noms de guerre, but there was another factor at play.
As one member of the Mosul's special forces team explains, "When IS came they were children, we don't recognise them as men."

Re: The Diary Of A Dead Terrorist by thinkmoney(m): 2:44pm On Jun 24, 2017
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