The creation of ISIS According to Foreign Policy Since its creation, we have learned about the Islamic State from its enemies. Its story has largely been told by those fighting the group in Iraq and Syria, traumatized civilians who have escaped its brutal rule, and the occasional defector. That is about to change. This is the story of Abu Ahmad, a Syrian operative for the Islamic State who witnessed the group’s lightning expansion firsthand and spent months among its most notorious foreign fighters. In this series of three articles, he provides unique insight into how Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s political scheming paved the way for the Islamic State’s expansion into Syria, al Qaeda’s efforts to stem the group’s rise, and the terrifying weapons in the arsenal of the self-proclaimed “caliphate.” Some names and details have been omitted to protect Abu Ahmad.

Abu Ahmad never hesitated in his embrace of the Syrian uprising. Born in a northern Syrian city to a conservative and religious Sunni Arab family, he was a student when the revolt began in March 2011, and joined the protests against President Bashar al-Assad from day one.

“With excitement in our hearts we saw [the uprising in] Egypt happening, followed by the revolution in Libya,” he said. “We hoped the wind of change would not pass our country.”

When the uprising became a full-fledged civil war by mid-2012, Abu Ahmad decided to take up arms and fight. He joined a jihadi-leaning rebel group, whose members were mostly Syrians but also included some foreign fighters from Europe and Central Asia. The composition of the brigades was in flux then — every couple of months, Abu Ahmad’s group would either change its name or unite with other jihadi rebels. But then the groups began to consolidate: In Spring 2013, Abu Ahmad chose to side with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant when it officially expanded into Syria, as tensions escalated between the jihadi group and the Nusra Front. The group would go on to proclaim itself a worldwide caliphate in June 2014, assuming the name “Islamic State” to reflect its global ambitions. To this day, Abu Ahmad is a serving member in the organization, with unique insight into the group’s behavior and its history.

Over the course of our more than 15 meetings with Abu Ahmad, we questioned him intensively about his knowledge of the jihadi group and his bona fides as one of the “soldiers of the caliphate.” Over a period of 10 months, we spent more than 100 hours with him. He patiently answered our questions on everything from how he ended up with the Islamic State, how the organization is organized, and the identity of the European foreign fighters within the group. Our interviews would go on for six hours a day, in week-long stretches.

Abu Ahmad took a great personal risk in talking to us. Because he is still with the Islamic State, we had to deliberately obscure some details about his life to protect his identity.

Abu Ahmad agreed to speak to us, he explained, for several reasons. Although he is still with the Islamic State, he doesn’t agree with everything the outfit does. He is attracted to the organization because he views it as the strongest Sunni group in the region. However, he is disappointed that it “has become too extreme,” blaming it for doing such things as crucifying, burning, and drowning its opponents and those who violate its rules.

For example, Abu Ahmad objected to a punishment that the Islamic State implemented in the northern Syrian city of al-Bab, where it put a cage in the middle of the city center, known as Freedom Square, to punish Syrian civilians guilty of minor crimes, such as selling cigarettes. The group, Abu Ahmad said, imprisoned Syrians in the cage for three days at a time, hanging a sign around their neck stating the crime that they had committed.

“Now the square is known as the Punishment Square,” he said. “I think this kind of harsh punishment is bad for us. It is making ISIS more feared than liked by Sunnis, which is not good at all.”

In the past, Abu Ahmad said, he had hoped the Islamic State would become “jihadi unifiers,” capable of bringing Sunni jihadis together under one banner. He admired the foreign fighters whom he knew, mainly young men from Belgium and the Netherlands who had traveled to Syria to fight jihad. They had all lived in rich and peaceful countries, and while tens of thousands of Syrians had paid large sums of money to be smuggled to Europe to escape the war, these jihadis voluntarily traveled in the exact opposite direction.

“These foreigners left their families, their houses, their lands and traveled all the way to help us here in Syria,” Abu Ahmad said. “So to support us they are truly sacrificing everything they have.”

But Abu Ahmad would soon sour on aspects of the jihadi group. First, the Islamic State has not brought jihadis together; on the contrary, tensions have risen with other groups, and he worried that “the rise of ISIS led to the breakup with the Nusra Front and the weakening of unified jihadi forces in Syria.”

Secondly, while some of the foreign fighters were men who led truly religious lives in Europe, he discovered another group that he took to thinking of as the “crazies.” These were mostly young Belgian and Dutch criminals of Moroccan descent, unemployed and from broken homes, who lived marginal lives in marginal suburbs of marginal cities. Most of these crazies had no idea about religion, and hardly any of them ever read the Quran. To them, fighting in Syria was either an adventure or a way to repent for their “sinful lives” in Europe’s bars and discos.

There was Abu Sayyaf, a jihadi from Belgium, who often talked about beheadings. He once asked his emir, Abu al-Atheer al Absi, if he could slaughter somebody. “I just want to carry a head,” Abu Sayyaf said. Locally he was known as al-thabah, or “the slayer.” In war, the first victim is often the truth. The stories Abu Ahmad told us were so incredible, and so close to the seat of the Islamic State’s power, that we were determined to put his assertions to the test.

In order to do so, we set up a quiz for Abu Ahmad. He said that he knew many of the Dutch and Belgian fighters who had joined the Islamic State, so we prepared a list with roughly 50 photographs of jihadis from those countries who are known to have left for Syria. During a meeting with Abu Ahmad, we asked him to identify the men in the pictures.

Abu Ahmad’s answers confirmed that he had extensive knowledge about the European jihadis fighting for the Islamic State. In front of us — without access to the internet and with no outside help — Abu Ahmad went through the images, and correctly identified roughly 30 of the jihadis by name. In most cases, he would add some anecdotes about the fighter. For the other pictures, he said that he had not seen the people and did not know their names.

A behind-the-scenes photograph supplied by Abu Ahmad showing an Islamic State execution in the city of Palmyra.

Abu Ahmad showed us private photos and videos on his laptop of some Dutch, Belgian, and Central Asian fighters in Syria, which are not posted online. The only way that he could have had these images was through deep, personal experience within the jihadi community.

Abu Ahmad also proved that he had behind-the-scenes access to some of the Islamic State’s most spectacular acts of violence. After the jihadi group captured Palmyra in 2015, Abu Ahmad paid a visit to the desert city to witness a Game of Thrones-like setting for executions of the group’s opponents. One day in July 2015, two Islamic State members from Austria and Germany executed two people who they claimed were Syrian Army soldiers on the ancient city’s great colonnade. This was one of many executions in Palmyra; on July 4, the Islamic State released a video showing the bloody spectacle of teenage fighters executing 25 alleged Syrian soldiers in the city’s amphitheater.

Weeks before the official Islamic State video of the gruesome executions by the German and Austrian fighters went online, Abu Ahmad supplied us with a picture of the execution. The photograph not only shows the two prisoners moments before they are killed, but also shows two members of the Islamic State’s media unit capturing the horror scene. Never has the group published such a “behind-the-scenes” picture of one of its executions; it is not available online. The picture supplied by Abu Ahmad is truly unique — secretly taken by an insider.

Remarkably, one of the two cameramen in the photograph is Harry Sarfo, a German citizen who traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State. He said he subsequently became disillusioned with the group and fled back to Germany, where he is currently imprisoned. The New York Times profile of Sarfo claims that Islamic State members told Sarfo “to hold the group’s black flag and to walk again and again in front of the camera” as they filmed a propaganda video. The photograph supplied by Abu Ahmad, however, contradicts the narrative that Sarfo played a passive role in this production: While the video only shows him holding the black flag, the photograph shows that he was one of the two cameramen filming the killers who are about to execute the two Syrians. Abu Ahmad has not just watched the growing war between Syria’s jihadis from afar — he witnessed its beginning up close. The split between the Nusra Front and the Islamic State was one of the most epochal events of the Syrian war; it resulted in a massive divide within the anti-Assad ranks and signaled the rise of a new jihadi force, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that has come to overshadow al Qaeda.

Abu Ahmad had a front-row seat to how the jihadi world’s biggest divorce unfolded.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivers a sermon during Friday prayer at a mosque in Mosul on July 5, 2014. (Photo by Al-Furqan Media/Anadolu

Agency/Getty Images)

The caravan of the caliphate

In mid-April 2013, Abu Ahmad noticed a dark red-brown car pull up in front of the headquarters of Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen (MSM), a Syrian jihadi group led by Abu al-Atheer, in the northern Syrian town of Kafr Hamra.

One of Abu Ahmad’s friends, a jihadi commander, walked up to him and whispered in his ear: “Look carefully inside the vehicle.”

The car was nothing special: not new enough to attract attention but not a jalopy, either. It wasn’t armored and it did not have a license plate.

Inside the vehicle sat four men. Abu Ahmad recognized none of them. The man sitting behind the driver wore a folded black balaclava like a cap. On top of it was a black shawl, falling over his shoulders. He had a long beard. Except for the driver, all occupants held small machine guns on their laps.

Abu Ahmad could see that there was no extra security at the gate of the headquarters. As usual, just two armed fighters stood guard in front of the entrance. The internet connection at the headquarters was working normally. To him, there didn’t seem to be any sign that today was different from any other day.

But after the four men got out of the car and disappeared into the headquarters, the same jihadi commander walked up to him again and whispered “You have just seen Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.”

Since 2010, Baghdadi had been the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), al Qaeda’s affiliate in that war-torn country. According to Baghdadi’s own account, he sent Abu Muhammad al-Jolani as his representative to Syria in 2011, instructing him to set up the Nusra Front to wage jihad there. Until the beginning of 2013, ISI and Nusra worked together. But Baghdadi wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to combine al Qaeda’s Iraqi and Syrian affiliates to create one outfit that stretched across both countries — with him, of course, as the leader.

Every morning, for five days in a row, the red-brown car dropped off Baghdadi and his deputy, Haji Bakr, at the headquarters of MSM in Kafr Hamra. Before sunset, the same car with the same driver would pick them up from the headquarters and take Baghdadi to a secret location for the night. The next morning, the car would come back to drop off Baghdadi and Bakr.

Over the course of those five days, inside the headquarters of MSM, Baghdadi talked extensively to a group of important jihadi leaders in Syria. These were some of the world’s most wanted men, all gathered in one room, sitting on mattresses and pillows on the ground. They were served breakfast and lunch: roasted or grilled chicken and french fries, tea, and soft drinks to wash it down. Baghdadi, the most wanted man in the world, drank either Pepsi or Mirinda, an orange-flavored soda.

In addition to Baghdadi, the participants included Abu al-Atheer, the emir of MSM; Abu Mesaab al-Masri, an Egyptian jihadi commander; Omar al Shishani, a leading Chechen jihadi who had come to Syria from Georgia; Abu al-Waleed al-Libi, a jihadi leader from Libya who had come to Syria; Abed al-Libi, an emir in the Libyan Katibat al-Battar group; two Nusra intelligence chiefs; and Haji Bakr, Baghdadi’s second in command.

Abu Ahmad was fascinated by the congregation of so many senior commanders. During breaks in the talks, he would walk around the headquarters, speaking to people who attended the meeting. Abu Ahmad was full of questions: Why did Baghdadi come from Iraq to Syria? Why did all these commanders and emirs meet with him? And what was so important that Baghdadi himself discussed for days on end?

The answer to Abu Ahmad’s questions could be found in a speech made by Baghdadi, shortly before the Kafr Hamra meeting. On April 8, 2013, Baghdadi announced that his organization had expanded into Syria. All jihadi factions there — including Nusra — had to submit to his control. “So we declare while relying on Allah: The cancellation of the name Islamic State of Iraq and the cancellation of the name Jabhat al-Nusra, and gathering them under one name, the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham,” he intoned. “The sheikh is here to convince everybody to abandon Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Jolani,” one of the participants in the talks told Abu Ahmad. “Instead, everybody should join him and unite under the banner of ISIS, which soon will become a state.”

The Islamic State's fighters in Syria (from left to right): Abu al-Atheer, Abu Ahmad’s “emir”; Abu Shishan al-Belgiki, a Belgian citizen of Chechen origin; Abu Tamima, a French jihadist; and Omar al-Shishani, an infamous Chechen jihadist who rose to be

one of the top commanders in the organization.

The al Qaeda allegiance lie

Baghdadi, however, faced one big problem in realizing his goal. The assembled emirs explained to the ISI chief that most of them had sworn allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s chosen successor and the leader of al Qaeda. How could they suddenly abandon Zawahiri and al Qaeda and switch to Baghdadi?

According to Abu Ahmad, they asked Baghdadi during the meeting: Have you pledged allegiance to Zawahiri?

Baghdadi told them that he had indeed pledged allegiance, but hadn’t declared it publicly, per Zawahiri’s request. But Baghdadi assured the men that he was acting under the command of the al Qaeda leader.

The jihadi leaders had no way to check if this claim was true. Zawahiri was perhaps the most difficult person in the world to contact — he had not been seen in public in years, and is still in hiding, most probably somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

With Zawahiri unable to mediate the dispute himself, the jihadi leaders had to make up their own minds. If Baghdadi acted on behalf of Zawahiri, there was no doubt they had to follow the order to join ISIS. But if Baghdadi was freelancing, his plan to take over Nusra and other groups was an act of mutiny. It would divide al Qaeda and create fitna, or strife, between all the jihadi armies. So the commanders gave Baghdadi a conditional allegiance. “They said to him: ‘If it is true what you are saying, then we will support you,’” Abu Ahmad told us.

Baghdadi also spoke about the creation of an Islamic state in Syria. It was important, he said, because Muslims needed to have a dawla, or state. Baghdadi wanted Muslims to have their own territory, from where they could work and eventually conquer the world.

The participants differed greatly about the idea of creating a state in Syria. Throughout its existence, al Qaeda had worked in the shadows as a nonstate actor. It did not openly control any territory, instead committing acts of violence from undisclosed locations. Remaining a clandestine organization had a huge advantage: It was very difficult for the enemy to find, attack, or destroy them. But by creating a state, the jihadi leaders argued during the meeting, it would be extremely easy for the enemy to find and attack them. A state with a defined territory and institutions was a sitting duck.

Abu al-Atheer, the MSM emir, had already told his fighters before the arrival of Baghdadi that he was very much against declaring a state. “Some people are talking about this unwise idea,” Atheer told his men. “What kind of madman declares a state during this time of war?!”

Omar al-Shishani, the leader of the Chechen jihadis, was equally hesitant about the idea of creating a state, said Abu Ahmad. There was a reason why Osama bin Laden had been hiding all these years — to avoid getting killed by the Americans. Declaring a state would be an open invitation to the enemy to attack them.

Despite the hesitation of many, Baghdadi persisted. Creating and running a state was of paramount importance to him. Up to this point, jihadis ran around without controlling their own territory. Baghdadi argued for borders, a citizenry, institutions, and a functioning bureaucracy. Abu Ahmad summed up Baghdadi’s pitch: “If such an Islamic state could survive its initial phase, it was there to stay forever.”

Baghdadi had another persuasive argument: A state would offer a home to Muslims from all over the world. Because al Qaeda had always lurked in the shadows, it was difficult for ordinary Muslims to sign up. But an Islamic state, Baghdadi argued, could attract thousands, even millions, of like-minded jihadis. It would be a magnet. “Baghdadi and other jihadi leaders,” said Abu Ahmad, “would compare this to Prophet Muhammad’s migration, or hijrah, from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution.” The assembled jihadi leaders extensively discussed how a state would function, how it would deal with its population, what its aim would be, and its stance toward religious minorities.

After days of talking, every participant — including initial skeptics Atheer, Shishani, and the two Nusra Front intelligence officials — agreed with Baghdadi’s plan. The only condition they wanted from him was this: The newly created state must be declared in full cooperation with Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, another jihadi rebel group. Baghdadi agreed to these terms.

The next step was, on the spot, to pledge allegiance.

One by one they stood in front of Baghdadi, shaking his hand and repeating the following words: “I pledge my allegiance to the Emir of the Faithful, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Qurashi, for compliance and obedience, in vigor and impulsion, abjectness and abundance, and in favoring his preference to mine, and not contending the orders of his trustees, unless I witness manifest disbelief.”

Then Baghdadi asked each commander to bring in some of his fighters. Abu al-Atheer, the MSM commander, invited Belgian, Dutch, and French fighters who were under his command to the occasion. Among the foreigners who personally met Baghdadi and pledged allegiance were Abu Sayyaf, known as “the slayer”; Abu Zubair, a Belgian jihadi; Abu Tameema al-Fransi, a French jihadi killed in July 2014; and Abu Shishan-al-Belgiki, a handsome blond jihadi with a Chechen background wanted in Belgium, his home country, for possible participation in beheadings.

Later that day, the Europeans — who until recently mostly had been small-time criminals in Amsterdam, Brussels, or Paris — enthusiastically told everybody how they pledged bayah to Baghdadi.

Many others followed suit. Our narrator, Abu Ahmad, would offer bayah two days later to Abu al-Atheer.

The switch from ISI to ISIS meant that all groups or factions who had joined ISIS would cease to exist in name. For the Nusra Front and its leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, this development was a potential disaster; it could mean the end of their influence in the world’s most important jihadi battleground. Jolani ordered Nusra fighters not to join ISIS but wait until al-Zawahiri published a ruling on who should lead the jihad in Syria.

A large majority of Nusra commanders and fighters in Syria didn’t listen. When Abu Ahmad visited Aleppo only weeks later, some 90 percent of the Nusra fighters in the city had already joined ISIS.

Baghdadi’s new soldiers ordered the few remaining Nusra Front loyalists out of the al-Oyoun Hospital, which had been until then the main Nusra base in the city. “You must leave; we are from al-dawla [the state] and we hold a clear majority among the fighters,” they told the Nusra men, according to Abu Ahmad. “So this headquarters now belongs to us.” Everywhere in northern Syria, ISIS seized Nusra headquarters, ammunition caches, and weapons stores. Amazingly, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria was suddenly fighting for its existence. A new age had begun — the age of the Islamic State.

How the Islamic State Seized a Chemical Weapons Stockpile

Since its creation, we have learned about the Islamic State from its enemies. Its story has largely been told by those fighting the group in Iraq and Syria, traumatized civilians who have escaped its brutal rule, and the occasional defector. That is about to change. This is the story of Abu Ahmad, a Syrian operative for the Islamic State who witnessed the group’s lightning expansion firsthand and spent months among its most notorious foreign fighters. In this series of three articles, he provides unique insight into how Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s political scheming paved the way for its expansion into Syria, al Qaeda’s efforts to stem the group’s rise, and the terrifying weapons in the arsenal of the self-proclaimed “caliphate.” Some names and details have been omitted to protect Abu Ahmad. Abu Ahmed told us how the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) came to acquire some of the world’s most fearsome weapons, which were claimed as spoils of war from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces months before its creation. Roughly four months before the split between the Nusra Front and ISIS, in December 2012, dozens of Syrian jihadi fighters climbed a hill toward Regiment 111 — a large army base near the town of Darat Izza, in northern Syria. That town had been taken roughly five months earlier by a coalition of rebel groups. But while they had besieged Regiment 111 since the summer of 2012, they still had not succeeded in capturing the base from the troops loyal to President Assad. The weather had turned bad in winter, however, making it more difficult for the Syrian Air Force to hold off the rebels with airstrikes. Moreover, the base was huge, sprawling over almost 500 acres, and difficult to protect from all approaches. Syrian Army soldiers inside Regiment 111 successfully defended their base during the first rebel attack in early November 2012, killing 18 Nusra fighters in the process. But the cold December wind only fortified the rebels’ resolve. The base was a goldmine: home to guns, artillery, ammunition, and vehicles. And deep inside Regiment 111’s bunkers lay something even more valuable — a cache of chemical weapons.

Jihadists looting the weapons stockpiles in the Syrian army base known as Regiment

111, shown here in a still shot taken from a video posted online.

The attack was led by the Nusra Front and supported mainly by Kataib Muhajiri al-Sham, a unit within Liwa al-Islam; Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen; and Katibat al-Battar, which consisted largely of Libyan jihadis. The fighters knew that the base possessed ammunition and other weapons, but did not know in advance it contained chemical weapons.

As the rebels climbed the hills near Regiment 111, intense fighting erupted. “That day, all of us were full of excitement and revenge,” Abu Ahmad told us. “Everybody wanted to avenge the 18 Nusra brothers who were martyred during the first attack. People were screaming: ‘This time we will conquer it!’”

Within a day, the combined jihadi forces had broken through the lines of the Syrian Army. Shortly after, Regiment 111 was fully under jihadi control. They found large stocks of weapons, ammunition and, to their surprise, chemical agents. They were, according to Abu Ahmad, mainly barrels filled with chlorine, sarin, and mustard gas.

What followed was the distribution of the war spoils. Everybody took some ammunition and weapons. But only the Nusra Front seized the chemical weapons. Abu Ahmad watched as the al Qaeda affiliate called in 10 large cargo trucks, loaded 15 containers with chlorine and sarin gas, and drove them away to an unknown destination. He did not see what happened to the mustard gas.

Three months later, both the Syrian government and rebel groups reported an attack in Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo. The international media said that 26 people had been killed, among them 16 regime soldiers and 10 civilians. Both the Syrian regime and opposition claimed that chemical weapons had been used — and both accused the other of having carried out one of the first chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian war.

Abu Ahmad kept his mouth shut in public, but privately he and some of his Syrian jihadi comrades discussed the matter. Although they did not have any evidence, they wondered whether the material used in the Khan al-Assal attack had been taken from Regiment 111. He knew he couldn’t ask Abu al-Atheer for clarification. By now he had learned one of the golden rules of the secretive jihadi movement: When it’s none of your business, keep quiet.

“Among our people, it is not done to ask,” Abu Ahmad told us.

Dutch-Turkish jihadi Salih Yilmaz justifies the use of chemical weapons in response to a question posed to him on his blog and responds to a critique of the Islamic State by saying the jihadist group seized its chemical weapons stockpiles from its opponents.

That would be the end of the issue for the next eight months. Beginning in April 2013, Abu Ahmad and his comrades would be preoccupied with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s expansion into Syria, and the escalating tensions between the newly-created ISIS and the Nusra Front. It was a confused time in the Syrian jihadi world: Many factions within the Nusra Front were breaking off to join ISIS, while the al Qaeda affiliate worked feverishly to maintain loyalty within its ranks. Territory, bases, and weapons were up for grabs like never before.

But in mid-August 2013, Abu Ahmed received news that made him think that ISIS had emerged from the split with the Nusra Front in possession of the chemical weapons seized at Regiment 111 — and that it was now using them against its enemies.

Out of the blue, Abu al-Atheer, the man to whom Abu Ahmed had pledged loyalty — and who had in turn pledged loyalty directly to Baghdadi — told his own commanders that ISIS had twice used chemicals during attacks against the Syrian Army. The announcement came during a normal conversation between Abu al-Atheer and his men; the ISIS commander told the story happily and proudly.

“The brothers sent a car bomb with chemicals to a [Syrian Army] checkpoint near al-Hamra village in Hama,” Abu al-Atheer claimed, as they sat in their headquarters.

Al-Hamra is located roughly 20 miles northeast of the city of Hama. It is still controlled by forces loyal to the Syrian government.

Abu al-Atheer spoke of another ISIS chemical attack. “We also used one car bomb filled with chemicals against regime forces near to Menagh Airbase,” he said. Menagh Airbase is located roughly 20 miles north of Aleppo. After a year-long siege, on Aug. 5, 2013, Menagh Airbase was eventually overrun by jihadis led by ISIS.

Again, Abu Ahmed thought back to that cold December day when jihadi fighters overran Regiment 111. Were these the same chemical weapons that he and his comrades had found stockpiled in the base back then?

Whether they are or not, the Islamic State appears to still have these weapons in their arsenal. More than two years later, on Oct. 6, 2015, the New York Times published an article describing how the Islamic State used chemical weapons against moderate rebel fighters in the northern town of Marea. According to the Times, the group fired projectiles that delivered “sulfur mustard.” This substance is more commonly known as mustard gas. The Dutch-Turkish jihadi Salih Yilmaz, a former soldier in the Dutch Army who has joined IS, admitted on Aug. 31, 2015, on his now defunct blog that Islamic State indeed used chemical weapons there. Yilmaz was asked by a reader of his blog “why did they accuse [the Islamic State] of recently using chemical weapons in Aleppo province?” Yilmaz responded by writing: “Where do you think IS got their chemical weapons from? From our enemies — and thus we use their own weapons against them.”

Since its creation, we have learned about the Islamic State from its enemies. Its story has largely been told by those fighting the group in Iraq and Syria, traumatized civilians who have escaped its brutal rule, and the occasional defector. That is about to change. This is the story of Abu Ahmad, a Syrian operative for the Islamic State who witnessed the group’s lightning expansion firsthand and spent months among its most notorious foreign fighters. In this series of three articles, he provides unique insight into how Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s political scheming paved the way for its expansion into Syria, al Qaeda’s efforts to stem the group’s rise, and the terrifying weapons in the arsenal of the self-proclaimed “caliphate.” Some names and details have been omitted to protect Abu Ahmad.

It was May 2013, and the newly formed Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant was intent on cementing its status as the world’s most fearsome jihadi force. But before it could do so — or use the new cache of chemical weapons it had obtained — it would have to contend with a new challenge from senior al Qaeda figures.

Al Qaeda’s senior leadership was not about to accept Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s claim to authority — particularly in light of his brazen lie that he had been instructed to do so by al Qaeda leader Ayman-al Zawahiri. One month after the historic meeting between the ISIS chief and other jihadi leaders in Kafr Hamra, a small group of men, including a few armed guards, secretly traveled in a couple of vehicles through Syria. Fearing that they might be discovered by Baghdadi’s loyalists or targeted by the Syrian regime, they moved quietly and carefully.

This group was called Lajnat Khorasan, or the “Khorasan Committee.” Its members had emerged from their underground lairs in Afghanistan and Pakistan and come to Syria on behalf of Zawahiri, who remained in hiding.

One of the Khorasan Committee members, a Syrian by the name of Abu Osama al-Shahabi, told his associates to be extremely cautious during their travels. “I have information [Baghdadi] was planning to assassinate [Nusra] emir Abu Mariya al-Qahtani,” Shahabi said to the others, according to Abu Ahmad. “So we too should be careful.”

The mission of the Khorasan Committee was to investigate Baghdadi’s expansion into Syria. Their findings were to be given to Zawahiri, who would then decide al Qaeda’s response to the situation in Iraq and Syria, where the rivalry between ISIS and the al Qaeda-affiliate Nusra Front clearly had gotten out of control.

The Khorasan Committee’s existence would only become public knowledge in September 2014, when the U.S.-led coalition targeted its members in the first airstrikes in Syria. By then, the al Qaeda veterans who made up the committee had moved on from investigating Baghdadi’s maneuvering to planning attacks abroad. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said about the group, “in terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as the Islamic State.”

But back in summer 2013, the Khorasan Committee was directing its attention not to the United States, but its jihadi rival. The task could not have been more urgent: Each day, it seemed, another jihadi opposition group switched loyalty from al Qaeda to ISIS. If Zawahiri couldn’t regain the loyalty of some groups in Syria, or at least stop this mutiny in its tracks, the al Qaeda leader ran the risk of becoming a general without soldiers.

Six members of the Khorasan Committee visited the headquarters of ISIS in Kafr Hamra, which previously served as the headquarters of the Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen. Abu Ahmad personally met four of them: Abu Osama al-Shahabi; the Kuwaiti Muhsen al-Fadhli, born in Kuwait (killed in a U.S. airstrike on July 8, 2015, in the Syrian town of Sarmada); Sanafi al-Nasr, a Saudi also known as Abu Yasser al-Jazrawi (killed by a U.S. drone in the northern Syrian town of al-Dana on Oct. 15, 2015); and Abu Abdel Malek, another Saudi national (killed in the same October strike in al-Dana).

Muhsen al-Fadhli

Abu Ahmad said that the members of the Khorasan Committee were all friendly and had good knowledge of the Quran. All of them had spent years with bin Laden or Zawahiri in “Khorasan,” an old Islamic historical term for a region covering parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

Abu Ahmad didn’t spend much time with Fadhli. They spoke briefly during a meeting in the northern Syrian town of Sarmada; at the time, Abu Ahmad did not know that he was such a senior figure in al Qaeda. But two years later, after the airstrike killed Fadhli, Abu Ahmad saw a picture online of the man he had met. The photo was part of a Reuters article that quoted a Pentagon spokesman describing him as “among the few trusted al Qaeda leaders that received advanced notification of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.” In 2012, the U.S. State Department had even issued a $7 million reward for information leading to finding Fadhli.

Abu Ahmad knew the two Saudi members of the Khorasan Committee better. He once traveled in a car with both men, and knew Malek rented a house in the northern Syrian town of al-Bab. Jazrawi, meanwhile, was the head of the Nusra Front’s political bureau. He was based in Latakia countryside, in northwestern Syria.

When Abu Ahmad heard the news that the duo was killed by an American strike, he felt sad. “They looked and behaved like normal guys,” said Abu Ahmad. “Although they were leaders, they did not behave in an arrogant fashion.”

Among all the Khorasan Committee members, Abu Ahmad was closest to Shahabi, a Syrian in his forties from al-Bab. Shahabi was in direct contact with Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s commander in chief. It had taken him one and a half months to move unnoticed from Afghanistan to Syria. He traveled with his pregnant wife, which made the trip even harder. He said to Abu Ahmad: “I’m already 20 years in jihad, so hardship is nothing new to me.”

The Khorasan Committee’s goal was fundamentally political. They were tasked with convincing jihadi commanders who had already pledged allegiance to Baghdadi during the five-day meeting in Kafr Hamra to change their minds.

Baghdadi’s claims were nonsense, they told everyone. Zawahiri had never sent Baghdadi from Iraq into Syria. Zawahiri had never said that other commanders could pledge allegiance to ISIS and to Baghdadi himself.

But the Khorasan Committee had a tough sell ahead of them. Shahabi managed to convince an important commander who had recently joined ISIS to meet in a town close to the Turkish border.

“It is very clear,” Shahabi told him, “that Baghdadi only created ISIS because he felt Nusra was becoming very powerful. He knew that [Nusra chief] Julani was becoming too big of a leader.”

“We thought Baghdadi was acting on orders from Zawahiri,” replied the commander. “What you are telling me comes as a shock.”

Shahabi suggested that he should immediately rescind his allegiance to ISIS. But the commander wasn’t ready to do that. “I pledged my allegiance to him [Baghdadi],” the commander said. “Give me time to think and discuss this with others. But I just cannot undo this all of a sudden.”

“Anyhow, we have sent most of the messages and letters [about the investigation] already to al-Zawahiri,” replied Shahabi, according to Abu Ahmad’s recounting of the conversation. “He will rule in favor of Nusra, not ISIS.”

Nusra Front fighters wave their group’s flag in the Yarmouk refugee camp, south of Damascus, in July 2014. (RAMI AL-SAYED/AFP/Getty Images)

The civil war begins

Until this point in May 2013, the rivalry between ISIS and Nusra had been more or less peaceful. Fighters from the rival groups could still travel through the areas the other controlled, and could still visit each other’s headquarters. The jihadi organizations were still trying to resolve their differences peacefully, and Abu Ahmad had known many of the commanders in the Nusra Front for over a year while fighting under the same banner — which is why he was able to meet and speak with members of the Khorasan Committee.

But as the balance of power tilted further toward ISIS, the friendship and camaraderie between both groups’ supporters was replaced by distrust. Nusra members were disgusted by what they perceived as ISIS’s moves to split and weaken the jihadi movement in Syria. ISIS members accused Nusra of becoming soft and mainstream. Many within the group did not even consider their former friends in Nusra to be Muslims any longer.

As the battle lines hardened, the Khorasan Committee finished their field investigation into Baghdadi’s plans. Zawahiri, upon receiving it, ruled in favor of Nusra and against ISIS. He called on Nusra to lead the jihad in Syria, and made clear that Baghdadi’s organization should return to Iraq.

“[Al-Baghdadi] was wrong when he announced the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham without asking permission or receiving advice from us and even without notifying us,” Zawahiri wrote in a letter published on May 23, 2013. The ruling made clear that Baghdadi was never Zawahiri’s man and that the expansion plans were his alone. Some jihadis felt duped by this revelation and reversed course. According to Abu Ahmad, around 30 percent of the Nusra members who had switched sides returned to Nusra after al-Zawahiri’s ruling. Some factions declared themselves “neutral” in this growing conflict. Groups like Ahrar al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa hoped to stay out of this power struggle. They were fighting to kick Assad out of power, not to bicker with fellow jihadis.

Of the roughly 90 Dutch and Belgian Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen (MSM) jihadis — Abu Ahmad’s fellow fighters — who had joined ISIS, around 35 returned to Nusra; the remainder stayed with ISIS. Abu Ahmad also heard that the high-ranking ISIS commander who Khorasan Committee member Shahabi had tried to convince to defect, in a meeting near the Turkish border a month before, had also left ISIS and rejoined Nusra.

People mill around a former ISIS base in the northern town of al-Dana after rebel fighters captured it in January 2014. The al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front regrouped in early 2014 after previously suffering significant defections to ISIS, participating in an offensive against the group that saw it driven from northwest Syria. (ABDALGHNE KAROOF/Reuters)

Gag orders

Abu al-Atheer, the emir of MSM who had joined ISIS, was firmly committed to staying with the group. He glorified Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But Atheer was worried about losing more Dutch and Belgians to Nusra. “You are not allowed anymore to speak to Nusra members over the internet,” Abu al-Atheer commanded. “You must cut all communication with them.”

He even sent a message to the Nusra fighters from Belgium and the Netherlands at their headquarters in Urum al-Sughra, in Aleppo province. “Do not dare to contact my men,” he threatened the Dutch and the Belgians, who were staying with Abu Suleyman al-Australi, an Australian al Qaeda ideologue.

Atheer threatened to confiscate the passports of any foreign ISIS fighters so they could not leave. But this proposal was met with anger from the foreign fighters, who accused their emir of not trusting them. Atheer eventually backed down — his men could keep their passports.

But old friends now were becoming foes. Each side tried to convince the other to defect. Abu Ahmad noticed a sudden increase of the activities of the ISIS secret police, known as al-Amneyeen. A rumor in ISIS territory was circulated that anybody who wanted to defect or quit would be shot on sight.

One of Abu Ahmad’s friends in ISIS made clear he wasn’t happy about the rivalry between the various jihadi groups. He criticized Atheer and Baghdadi for their uncompromising stance and even altered the lyrics in a famous ISIS nasheed — a type of vocal chant that does not violate the jihadis’ rules forbidding the use of musical instruments — from “our emirs are distant from suspicion” to “our emirs are distant from the frontline.”

That same night Abu Ahmad’s friend sang this nasheed, the secret police rolled up in a car and carted him away to jail. He was kept there for a couple of days but wasn’t tortured. Instead, he received a textbook ISIS punishment: He had to torture others.

Baghdadi’s successful coup in April 2013 had brought Nusra almost to the verge of collapse. But now Nusra was regaining strength. They started to reorganize themselves and forged alliances with jihadi Salafi groups like Ahrar al-Sham and even some units of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

As the tensions between the two camps reached a climax, Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, and the FSA started to kick out ISIS from Idlib and parts of Aleppo province. In Daret Izza, where Nusra had stolen the barrels of chlorine and sarin from the Syrian Army base, Regiment 111, Nusra and its allies retook the town. From Daret Izza, ISIS retreated to al-Dana, near to the Turkish border. But after another battle, this town was also lost. From al-Dana, ISIS pulled back to the town of al-Atarib. Here too the same scenario played out: ISIS was defeated by Nusra.

Eventually ISIS decided to give up the whole northwest of Syria. On March 4, 2014, it retreated from the strategically crucial border town of Azaz. ISIS regrouped most of its forces near to Kafar Joum, not far from the old MSM headquarters, where the five-day meeting had taken place between Baghdadi and the various jihadi commanders.

The fractures that emerged during this period still define the battlefield in northern Syria. Two years on, the Islamic State has dropped the “of Iraq and the Levant” from its name, but it and Nusra still very much live separate lives — and are fighting separate wars. The Islamic State lords over its caliphate in Syria’s north and east, and has killed or kicked out moderate rebels from its territory. Nusra, meanwhile, has bolstered its influence in Syria’s northwest, becoming a dominant player in Idlib province. The two groups’ territories barely even border each other any longer — the only front line where they stand against each other is in the northern Aleppo countryside. Yesterday’s allies today live in separate worlds.

On Jan. 20, 2014, the split between Syria’s two jihadi powerhouses became final. In Kafar Joum, ISIS prepared a convoy of over 200 vehicles. The cars and trucks were packed with fighters, family members, weapons, and foreign hostages. In the convoy, Abu Ahmad noticed three of the 15 chemical containers he saw Nusra capture from Regiment 111.

Then, the huge ISIS train of steel and bodies roared off to the east, toward the city of Raqqa.