 | |
| Author | Matthew Alexander (pseudonym) |
|---|---|
| Publisher | St. Martin's Griffin |
| Pages | 304 |
| ISBN | 9780312675110 |
How to Break a Terrorist: The US Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq is a 2008 book written by an American airman who played a key role in tracking down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The interrogator who wrote the book published it under the pen name Matthew Alexander, for security reasons. [2] [5] [6] The author wrote the book as a pseudonymous officer in the US Air Force who had served for fourteen years. Alexander's real name has been sealed by court order by the District of Columbia District Court. [7] Alexander makes television appearances under his pseudonym. According to Jeff Stein, writing in The Washington Post , the author's real name was Anthony Camerino, a Major in the United States Air Force Reserve. [8] In an op-ed published in The Washington Post , Alexander wrote that after his arrival in Iraq in 2006 he found: [2]
The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model: Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators' bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules – and often break them. [2]
The author has stated that when the Pentagon vetted the book they initially made 93 redactions. [4]
I sued the Department of Defense first to review the book and then to argue the redactions, because they had redacted obvious unclassified material, things that I had taken straight out of the unclassified field manual and also some items that were directly off the Army's own website. So, eventually they acquiesced on eighty of the ninety-three redactions.
Alexander is an outspoken opponent of torture. [9] He refutes the effectiveness of torture for interrogation, citing its negative long-term effects such as recruiting for Al-Qaeda. He also argues that torture is contrary to the American principles of freedom, liberty, and justice, and that should they resort to torture, American interrogators become the enemy they serve to defeat. Similar arguments have been made by other former interrogators from the U.S. military, FBI, and the CIA, including Colonel Steven Kleinman. [10] In an interview with human rights lawyer Scott Horton for Harper's Magazine, Alexander said
The American public has a right to know that they do not have to choose between torture and terror. There is a better way to conduct interrogations that works more efficiently, keeps Americans safe, and doesn't sacrifice our integrity. Our greatest victory to date in this war, the death of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi (which saved thousands of lives and helped pave the way to the Sunni Awakening), was achieved using interrogation methods that had nothing to do with torture. The American people deserve to know that. [11]
Alexander described Marc Thiessen's 2010 book Courting Disaster, which defended the use of torture (referred to euphemistically as enhanced interrogation techniques), as "a literary defense of war criminals". [12]
Abu Zubaydah is a Palestinian citizen and alleged terrorist born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was a Libyan national captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 after the fall of the Taliban; he was interrogated by American and Egyptian forces. The information he gave under torture to Egyptian authorities was cited by the George W. Bush administration in the months preceding its 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush administration, although reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.
Muntada al-Ansar was an Islamist forum page associated with Al-Qaeda. The forum's domain was in Malaysia.
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An Iraqi insurgency began shortly after the 2003 American invasion deposed longtime leader Saddam Hussein. It is considered to have lasted until the end of the Iraq War and U.S. withdrawal in 2011. It was followed by a renewed insurgency.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi is a Mauritanian engineer who was detained at Guantánamo Bay detention camp without charge from 2002 until his release on October 17, 2016.
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Task Force 6–26 is a United States Joint military/Government Agency, originally set-up to find "High-Value Targets" (HVT's) in Iraq in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This Special Operations unit is very similar to JSOC Task Force 121 which was created to capture Saddam Hussein and high-ranking Al-Qaeda members. The various name changes seen by the group are to ensure Operational Security, although their makeup and goals largely remain the same. The main objective of Task Force 6–26 was the capture or liquidation of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The unit is made up of U.S. Special Operations Forces members including Delta Force, DEVGRU, 24th Special Tactics Squadron and the 75th Ranger Regiment along with the CIA's Special Activities Center. Other military and DIA personnel are believed to have been involved as 'limited' members of the unit, along with FBI agents.
This article is a chronological listing of allegations of meetings between members of al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's government, as well as other information relevant to conspiracy theories involving Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, born Hamid Dawud Mohamed Khalil al-Zawi was an Iraqi militant who was the Emir of the Islamic militant umbrella organization Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), and its successor, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), which fought against the U.S.-led Coalition forces during the Iraqi insurgency.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh, was a Jordanian militant jihadist who ran a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War, reportedly "turning an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia–Sunni civil war". He was sometimes known by his supporters as the "Sheikh of the slaughterers".
Hassan Ghul, born Mustafa Hajji Muhammad Khan, was a Saudi-born Pakistani member of al-Qaeda who revealed the kunya of Osama bin Laden's messenger, which eventually led to Operation Neptune Spear and the death of Osama Bin Laden. Ghul was an ethnic Pashtun whose family was from Waziristan. He was designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee of the Security Council in 2012.
Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, more commonly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was a Salafi jihadist organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda. It was founded on 17 October 2004, and was led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri until its disbandment on 15 October 2006.
It is believed that members of Al-Qaeda are hiding along the border of Afghanistan and northwest sections of Pakistan. In Iraq, elements loosely associated with al-Qaeda, in the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad organization commanded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have played a key role in the War in Iraq.
Abu Ghadiya was an al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) militant and smuggler. The United States Treasury Department claimed his real name was Badran Turki Hishan al-Mazidi and that he was born sometime between 1977–1979 in Mosul. However, other reports claimed that Abu Ghadiya was born in Damascus in 1976 and his real name was Sulayman Khalid Darwish. He graduated from the Damascus University Dentistry School sometime during the 1990s, until he later went to Afghanistan and joined al-Qaeda. He was primarily involved in the logistics of AQI's effort in Iraq and assisted in smuggling weapons, money and fighters across the Iraq–Syria border. The US claimed he was targeted and killed, in a cross-border raid conducted by the U.S. military and possibly the Syrian government as well on October 26, 2008. However, an al-Qaeda in Iraq obituary released in August 2006 says that Abu Ghadiya was killed by the Saudi-Iraqi border sometime in November 2004. The Syrian government protested the raid claiming, that it killed eight civilians. Journalists who reached the attack site reported claims by local people who said that the victims of the raid were all innocent civilians.
Marc Alexander Thiessen is an American conservative author, political appointee, and weekly columnist for The Washington Post. Thiessen served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush from 2007 to 2009 and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from 2001 to 2006.
The Pankisi Gorge crisis was a spillover of the Second Chechen War, with military dimension in Georgia early in the 2000s. Georgia was pressured by Russia and the United States to repress the threats of Al-Qaeda in the Pankisi Gorge.
Kill or Capture: How a Special Operations Task Force Took Down a Notorious al Qaeda Terrorist is a book published by Macmillan Publishing in early 2011. The author, a former interrogator, criticizes the use of "extended interrogation techniques". The author, who wrote under the pseudonym Matthew Alexander, was interviewed on National Public Radio on February 14, 2011.
The Islamic State of Iraq was a Salafi jihadist militant organization that fought the forces of the U.S.-led coalition during the Iraqi insurgency. The organization aimed to overthrow the Iraqi federal government and establish an Islamic state governed by Sharia law in Iraq.
Nada Glass Bakos is an American former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst and targeting officer who was involved in a number of notable counterterrorism operations during her career. She was part of a group of CIA analysts studying Al Qaeda and its leader, as portrayed in the 2013 HBO documentary, Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden. She also served as the Chief Targeting Officer in the search for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and predecessor of ISIS. After 10 years, she left the CIA.
Matthew Alexander, the pen name for Air Force Reserve Maj. Anthony Camerino, describes his struggle to provide compensation for the victims of the raids in a new book, "Kill or Capture: How a Special Operations Task Force Took Down a Notorious Al Qaeda Terrorist," to be published today.
