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Sa’id Abd Al Rahman al-Mawla (Twitter)
The current leader of Isis betrayed his fellow jihadists and the secrets of his organisation to his American interrogators while in captivity, enabling western forces to carry out successful operations to arrest and kill “high value” targets.
Such was his eagerness to inform on other Islamists that Sa’id Abd Al Rahman al-Mawla became known as the “canary caliph” while behind bars, “singing like a bird” according to one analyst who said the revelations were bound to sow deep discord within Isis.
Newly released intelligence files show that the questioning of al-Mawla at an American prison, Camp Bucca, in British-administered southern Iraq in 2008, revealed his hostility towards foreign fighters who had begun to arrive in the Middle East in large numbers at the time.
Acting on the information, US forces tracked Abu Qaswarah to a command and control building in Mosul and during the ensuing gunfight killed the second-in-command, as well as four other fighters, in October 2008.
While Al Mawla described other terrorists to US military interviewers as “power hungry”, the Combatting Terrorism Centre at West Point report said that having betrayed Abu Qaswarah, “he himself was able to ascend to prominence”.
The ISIS commander, who took over the group when its former leader was killed in 2019, gave US interrogators extensive information on ISIS’s Al Furqan media arm.
He said that its headquarters masqueraded as a fake wedding business. “There is a sign above the office that says ‘Wedding Videos’ but the office never produces any wedding videos,” he told American intelligence.