(Fathom-BICOM) Shirin Lotfi interviews Michael Weiss - Most of the guys running ISIS were former Saddamists. They were Ba'ath Party members, they worked in the Iraqi military under Saddam, or they were Mukhabarat officers. That explains why they are much better than al-Qaeda at lording over a local population, and at conducting themselves at the level of conventional warfare. Also, it explains why their informational warfare is very sophisticated. We are talking about the Iraqi Ba'ath, trained by the Soviets. Putting out tweets showing ISIS barbarism and ISIS atrocities doesn't work. ISIS puts them out anyway! They like to exhibit their own atrocities, because that's a recruitment driver. They've managed to achieve in three years what al-Qaeda never did in 20. Michael Weiss is the co-author with Hassan Hassan of the New York Times bestseller ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.
2015-11-20 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive