The electrifying true story of the pursuit for the man behind al Qaeda's suicide bombing campaign in Iraq
Kill or Capture is a true-life thriller that tells the story of senior military interrogator Matthew Alexander's adrenaline-filled, "outside the wire" pursuit of a notorious Syrian mass murderer named Zafar—the leader of al Qaeda in northern Iraq—a killer with the blood of thousands of innocents on his hands.
In a breathless thirty-day period, Alexander and a small Special Operations task force brave the hazards of the Iraqi insurgency to conduct dangerous kill-or-capture missions and hunt down a murderer. Kill or Capture immerses readers in the dangerous world of battlefield interrogations as the author and his team climb the ladder of al Qaeda leadership in a series of raids, braving roadside bombs, near death by electrocution and circles within circles of lies.
The electrifying true story of the pursuit for the man behind al Qaeda's suicide bombing campaign in Iraq
Kill or Capture is a true-life thriller that tells the story of senior military interrogator Matthew Alexander's adrenaline-filled, "outside the wire" pursuit of a notorious Syrian mass murderer named Zafar—the leader of al Qaeda in northern Iraq—a killer with the blood of thousands of innocents on his hands.
In a breathless thirty-day period, Alexander and a small Special Operations task force brave the hazards of the Iraqi insurgency to conduct dangerous kill-or-capture missions and hunt down a murderer. Kill or Capture immerses readers in the dangerous world of battlefield interrogations as the author and his team climb the ladder of al Qaeda leadership in a series of raids, braving roadside bombs, near death by electrocution and circles within circles of lies.
Kill or Capture: How a Special Operations Task Force Took Down a Notorious al Qaeda Terrorist
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Overview
The electrifying true story of the pursuit for the man behind al Qaeda's suicide bombing campaign in Iraq
Kill or Capture is a true-life thriller that tells the story of senior military interrogator Matthew Alexander's adrenaline-filled, "outside the wire" pursuit of a notorious Syrian mass murderer named Zafar—the leader of al Qaeda in northern Iraq—a killer with the blood of thousands of innocents on his hands.
In a breathless thirty-day period, Alexander and a small Special Operations task force brave the hazards of the Iraqi insurgency to conduct dangerous kill-or-capture missions and hunt down a murderer. Kill or Capture immerses readers in the dangerous world of battlefield interrogations as the author and his team climb the ladder of al Qaeda leadership in a series of raids, braving roadside bombs, near death by electrocution and circles within circles of lies.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429993173 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Press |
| Publication date: | 07/02/2024 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 305 |
| File size: | 460 KB |
About the Author
MATTHEW ALEXANDER is an eighteen-year veteran of the Air Force and Air Force Reserves. A four-time combat veteran of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his achievements in Iraq. He is the author of How to Break a Terrorist.
Read an Excerpt
Kill or Capture
How a Special Operations Task Force Took Down a Notorious al Qaeda Terrorist
By Matthew Alexander
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2011 Matthew AlexanderAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-9317-3
CHAPTER 1
May 15, 2006
Kirkuk, Iraq
A solitary streetlight casts the black shadows of the soldiers against a stone wall. The soldiers kneel, their rifles in the ready position, and wave green infrared beams, scanning rooftops, windows, and balconies, until the silence is broken by a whisper yelled over the wall.
"Clear!"
A small explosion is followed by the sound of metal falling onto stone. Two of the soldiers kneeling against the wall stand and rush through the metal gate, through the courtyard, and into the house, followed closely by an interrogator, hoping to grab evidence before it can be flushed. Inside the doorway, Zafar's men greet the team with a death chime.
"Allah Akhbar!"
Two human bombs detonate, turning the inside of the house into a maelstrom of fire and shrapnel. The soldiers and suicide bombers die instantly, engulfed in scraps of hot metal and flames, and the interrogator is blown off the porch and lands on his back in the courtyard. Everything goes black as blood pours down his face and hands grab his arms and legs and lift him into the air. He opens his eyes and sees the clear night sky filled with thousands of stars.
Meanwhile, a man escapes out the back door of the house, but before he can take ten steps he is tackled and tied by a soldier. The soldier sits the man in the sand and kneels to face him.
"Hello, Mahmoud. Going somewhere?"
May 22, 2006
Central Iraq
I listen to the wail of the horn as the bugle player at the front of the formation, decked out in full army dress, puffs out the long and solemn notes. We are a formation of camouflage uniforms and civilian clothes, standing at attention in crisp rank and file to honor our fallen comrades. They are not the first that our task force has lost in this hunt.
In the distance, mortars, like soft drums, land and shake the compound, growing closer every second, but not a soul moves in the formation. We will not be deterred from honoring our fallen comrades.
* * *
Mahmoud is a delicate man with tiny features, short brown hair, and a trimmed beard. It's hard to imagine this diminutive Syrian as the number two man behind al Qaeda's northern campaign of violence, but it takes brains, not muscles, to fight an insurgency.
We captured Mahmoud in a raid in Kirkuk a week ago. He was caught in a house/factory used for the production of suicide vests and we knew full well who he was when we captured him — he had been on the Most Wanted list for months. Mahmoud runs the suicide bombing operations for al Qaeda in northern Iraq and the analysts say he reports directly to Zafar, a shadow of a man who exists only in rumors and recently took the lives of two of our brothers-in-arms. There are no pictures of Zafar and no one has admitted to meeting him, but several detainees have confirmed that he is the leader of al Qaeda in the north. He is Iraq's Keyser Söze, and we hope that Mahmoud will lead us to him. This is how we found Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, by slowly and methodically climbing the ladder of al Qaeda leadership.
Mahmoud sits in a white plastic chair in a plywood-walled interrogation room. In front of him sit two interrogators who specialize in foreign fighters. They are both in their midthirties, with long unkempt beards grown over the past three months. As the task force's senior interrogator, I supervise from the Hollywood Room next door, an observation room with rows of monitors. The interrogation takes place in English.
"Tell me about Zafar," the black-bearded interrogator asks.
"I don't know anyone named Zafar," Mahmoud answers.
"Don't lie to us!" the brown-bearded interrogator shouts. "You know who the fuck we're talking about!"
Mahmoud stares at the interrogator with a blank look on his face.
"Wallah mawf," he says flatly.
I don't know.
Brownbeard throws his notebook on the floor, stands, and walks up to the seated Mahmoud. The top of the Syrian's head barely comes to the interrogator's waist.
"Listen to me, you little shit," he says, "you're going to hang for what you've done, and the only way to avoid the noose is to work with us. You understand?"
In the monitor room I shake my head. These interrogators don't belong to me. I monitor their interrogations out of courtesy, but they've never followed the advice I've offered. They are old school.
Mahmoud shrugs his shoulders. Brownbeard turns and slams his fist against the wall.
"Motherf —"
"Listen," Blackbeard interrupts, "we're trying to help you here. We can work together. You help us and we'll help you."
It's a classic Good Cop/Bad Cop approach, but the Bad Cop should be outside the room so that the detainee feels comfortable confiding in the nice guy. Still, I admire Blackbeard's attempt to build rapport.
"I don't want your help," Mahmoud replies. "Unless ..."
"Unless what?!" Brownbeard yells.
"Unless you want to release me to find this man named Zafar."
"I thought you said you didn't know a Zafar!"
"Perhaps my memory will improve once I am out of this prison."
"You little shit! We should —"
"Wait," Blackbeard interrupts again. "Do you mean that if we let you go then you can find Zafar for us?"
"It's possible," Mahmoud says.
"How would you go about doing that?"
Mahmoud casually waves his hand as he speaks.
"I know people. I can ask around. Then I can call you when I find him."
"But al Qaeda knows you've been captured!" Brownbeard says. "Why the hell would they trust you?"
"Do you think that I would be the first fighter that you have accidentally released?" Mahmoud replies.
Mahmoud is correct. Last month I flew to a base in western Iraq to help interrogate five men captured in a house that U.S. forces thought was used to train suicide bombers, but the house was empty of evidence. None of the five men revealed any information and we had no reason to believe they were involved with the insurgency, other than an anonymous tip that was provided to us. The decision was made to release the five men because the tip, it was suspected, was a vindictive false report — a common occurrence. We pushed the men out the front gate of the base and I gave one of them twenty dollars out of my own pocket for a taxi. Two weeks later we recaptured the same man — this time in a house with bombs. The moral of the story: Counterinsurgency is complex.
"How long would it take you to find Zafar?" Blackbeard asks.
"A week," Mahmoud answers.
"What if we release you and you run?" Brownbeard asks.
"You know where my family lives," Mahmoud answers. "You caught me in my house."
The two interrogators look at each other. Blackbeard nods toward the door.
"We'll be back in a moment," he says to Mahmoud and the two men convene outside and close the door.
I leave the Hollywood Room and join them in the hallway.
"Do you think the Colonel will go for it?" Blackbeard asks.
"I don't know," Brownbeard replies. "I don't trust this guy and I don't know how I'm going to convince the Colonel to trust him."
Blackbeard turns to me.
"What do you think?"
I consider it. We've never done this before that I know of, but I'm all for trying new things. Even if Mahmoud doesn't lead us to Zafar, he might kick up some dust in his wake that we can follow.
"In the criminal world we run dirty sources all the time," I say. "It's part of the business."
Blackbeard nods and Brownbeard defers to me.
"Go for it," I say. "See what the Colonel thinks."
Later that day the two interrogators meet with the Colonel. The mission gets approved, with caveats. Mahmoud is to be monitored closely and the entire operation is to be strictly controlled. If he runs, the first order of business will be to shoot him. The entire time he is free, Big Brother will be watching.
CHAPTER 2June 8, 2006
Central Iraq
Zarqawi is one dead son of a bitch. The mastermind behind Iraq's civil war is spread out at my feet, bloated and swaddled, a white sheet wrapped around his groin. The blood that he was so fond of spilling is smeared across his cheek, but even as the news spreads across the globe, the suicide bombings in Iraq continue. There is no time to rejoice as al Qaeda in Iraq has already announced a new leader — Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the Egyptian — and their plan to renew the fight in the north is well underway. They have given up on Baghdad, which is now firmly in Shi'a hands. Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army, wearing their landmark bright green headbands, flowed out of Sadr City and across Baghdad's neighborhoods, ensuring that the capital stayed in the Shi'a win column.
Anbar Province may soon follow. Word on the street is that we are negotiating with the Sunni tribes. The marines have already struck deals with some influential sheikhs in Ramadi. Yusifiya, the farmland southwest of Baghdad and al Qaeda's former safe haven, has been ravaged. Unknown to the leaders of the insurgency, my team of 'gators had a long talk with a twelve-year-old boy with a habit for braggadocio who laid out their suicide bombing network across the province — their base for Baghdad operations.
For more than three years our elite task force chased Zarqawi, losing brave men in the pursuit. At the time of his death he was the most wanted terrorist on the planet, a higher priority than Osama bin Laden. For months the chase consumed every second of my life, yet I feel but half triumphant.
We gained valuable intelligence from raids conducted on the night of Zarqawi's death and the intelligence points to an ominous cloud on the horizon. The Jordanian preacher of hate left a final message to his subordinates in a letter found on a laptop in a Baghdad apartment. Al Qaeda has lost Baghdad and the Sunni sheikhs of Anbar Province are meeting with the Americans. Deals are in the making. Three prominent Sunni insurgent groups (Ansar al-Sunnah, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, and the Islamic Army in Iraq) have already split from al Qaeda to form their own coalition. In essence, the western provinces of Iraq are lost.
In the past, al Qaeda proved to be a Hydra — the snake grew new heads as quickly as we chopped them off — but with the Sunnis abandoning al Qaeda's foreign leadership, there is a brief opportunity for a devastating decapitation before they can regroup. Al Qaeda's brutality, especially toward its own fighters, is returning to haunt it. Some of our best sources are former al Qaeda religious leaders who have rejected their violent methods. Al Qaeda is an injured predator, hobbled and backed into a corner, but vicious. Suicide bombings and beheadings are still daily occurrences.
Zarqawi's final order before his death is clear: Go north, regroup, and live to fight another day. Kirkuk, Mesopotamia's ancient Assyrian capital, will be al Qaeda's last stand. The last of the insurgency's butchers plan to cling to this final stronghold. Rooting them out will be no less than diving into a hornets' nest.
I return to my sand-covered desk in the 'Gator Pit, our end-of-the-world office space, and pick up a report. We still have prisoners to interrogate and I have interrogators to advise and reports to review. As the senior interrogator for the task force, I've run a team of a dozen interrogators for the past two months. We put together a string of successes and convinced a Zarqawi associate to sell him out. Along the way, we abandoned the old-school methods of interrogation (those developed at Guantanamo Bay and early on in Afghanistan) based on fear and control, and instead set a new path using techniques based on relationship building, cultural understanding, negotiation, and intellect. It's been a stunning upset by my group of interrogators, and the evidence of the effectiveness of our new methods lay last night at my feet.
"Matthew!"
I turn around and see Roger, the interrogation unit commander, addressing me from the doorway to his office. I shiver for a second at the thought that perhaps he has somehow discovered the end around I pulled on everyone by striking a secret deal with the detainee who gave us the path to Zarqawi — actions that I felt were necessary to circumvent the micromanagement of my interrogations team.
"Sir?" I answer.
"I need to talk to you in my office," Roger says.
I drop the report in my hand and walk into Roger's office. He closes the door behind me.
"Your request has been granted," Roger says.
"To go north?" I ask.
"Yes," he replies. "You're leaving tomorrow at seventeen hundred to join a raid team. Go home and pack your bags. Good luck, and try not to get blown up."
He means that literally. I say thanks and make my way back to my desk. I clean up some reports, stroll the hallway between the plywood interrogation rooms one last time, checking to make sure they are clean for the incoming shift, and then make for my trailer. My day started at nine in the morning and it is now past midnight. It's been nonstop like this since I arrived in Iraq over three months ago.
As I walk on the orange sand between the concrete Jersey barriers, I reflect upon the past three months. Everything I learned at the interrogation schoolhouse at Fort Huachuca has been turned on its head. Along with my team, I've sharpened my ability to evaluate detainees and polished the doppelganger that I transform into every time I step onto the stage. Now, I'm ready to take these skills north and apply them in a more challenging, and dangerous, environment. I'm going to join a raid team and conduct interrogations at the point-of-capture, attempting to find the next target as quickly as possible before the enemy can react. Interrogating in a prison is challenging and there is significant pressure to elicit information quickly, but the environment is mostly static. The stakes are about to be raised. In my new role, I won't have hours or days to get information — I'll have minutes.
Last month we lost two soldiers to suicide bombers when they rushed into a house during a raid. An interrogator assigned to the team took shrapnel to the face. Replacing that interrogator was my good friend Mike, a former street cop and Cajun, who, like me, is an air force criminal investigator turned interrogator charged with helping this elite task force. Tomorrow I'll head north to join Mike and, together with two Iraqi interpreters, we will be the Mobile Interrogations Team. I'm about to fly right into the heart of the fight. The last butchers of Iraq have regrouped and at their center is a man that, ironically, I was face-to-face with just weeks ago. He was one of our prisoners, before we let him go.
CHAPTER 3June 9, 2009
Kirkuk, Iraq
The prop-job lands with a quick bounce on the runway in Kirkuk. We pull off the runway and stop at the edge of the tarmac. It's darker than three feet up a bull's ass. Next to the parking ramp there's an SUV waiting with the lights off. I sling my rifle over my shoulder, grab my duffel bag, and exit the side door. The loadmaster bids me farewell with a short salute.
Mike exits the SUV's driver seat and greets me with a firm handshake. He is muscular, midthirties, and his black hair is just beginning to pepper with gray. He was a street cop, a SWAT sniper, and an attorney before he turned to the air force to run criminal investigations, ultimately landing in Iraq as an interrogator, helping out the army. The task force interrogators are a hodgepodge of active duty, former military, and ex–law enforcement types.
"Good to see you," he says. "You're just in time."
"Just in time for what?" I ask.
"Just in time to go out on a mission. We leave in an hour. We have enough time to get back to our office, throw your bag down, and get your gear on. The rest I'll explain on the way to the target."
An hour later, the rear ramp door of the Stryker personnel carrier closes next to me and the armored vehicle accelerates. Mike sits across from me and gives me a smile.
"Welcome to Kirkuk," he says, "where every day brings a new raid."
I grin as the vehicle turns a corner. A minute later, as we pass through a heavily guarded gate, a crewmember up front turns and yells.
"Lock and load!"
Mike and the two medics sitting next to us rack the slides on their M-4s and the snapping metal echoes through the cabin over the high-pitched whine of the vehicle's engine. I rack the slide on my rifle. We're outside the wire.
It's hot in the back of the Stryker, even with the fan turned on. Six of us are cramped into a sardine-can worth of space. There are two interrogators, two medics, and two Iraqi interpreters: Biggie and Tiny, Shi'a from the south of Iraq who emigrated years ago to the U.S. They're more than interpreters; they're also walking and talking cultural encyclopedias, but they come with a price tag. Word is that they make a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Probably five times the salary of the Specialist sitting next to me.
As the Stryker hits a bump and turns, our rifles rattle and we bounce off one another.
"When we get to the target, just follow me," Mike says. "Once the team clears the house, then they'll call us in."
It sounds easy enough.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Kill or Capture by Matthew Alexander. Copyright © 2011 Matthew Alexander. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Cover,Title Page,
Dedication,
AUTHOR'S NOTE,
PROLOGUE,
1. The Mole,
2. Go North,
3. Twins,
4. The Assyrian,
5. Chasing Ghosts,
6. Power Lines,
7. Three Brothers,
8. Hamza,
9. Round Two,
10. Father and Son,
11. All Roads Lead to Mecca,
12. Fire in the Oven,
13. The Eagle and the Chickens,
14. The Generator,
EPILOGUE,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
APPENDIX: "What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration",
THE INTERROGATOR'S CODE,
Also by Matthew Alexander,
Copyright,