from the New York Times and the team that brought you the daily This is caliphate for you to tell us what Davis work to solve its a little I live. We slept what appears to be an event of villa here on the outskirts of western muzzle, as we re for our in bed with the Counter terrorism division of the iraqi security forces

that's a good idea and we are specific operate or now sitting in the armored car? Did they provided for us, of course, not the armoured cars not turning on, so we have a google of men that are poring over the hood, trying to figure out how to get this car this course. There's a rumour that it may just be ETA gas. I think there is a rule that just periodic ass great credit. Is it just out of diesel? great the briefcase eventually after several hours. Yet we get a working car. And again, so we suit up. We put on our flag check, has been put on elements. I've got several trash bags.

New again up with the elite counterterrorism force of the iraqi Army. We have their permission to go and collect document. What's the plan dangerous and we ve told them that were specifically trying to get to one building airs herself goes but its unclear. If it's going to be safe enough to go there, there's a sniper risking their putting a magistrate in They have warned us that were driving into an active Warsaw

Renault inside most Western was the main road leading from about that is huge chunks missing their order that those airstrikes airstrike certainly that's park. Could you describe what using shaking her head really business as it is it's like cars that, though it was left of three known as cars and debris.

Rob. However, I can tell what am I know. This is much it's. I don't know what I'd never recognise recognize. It now suffer God into the city. We got out of the car. What do you see where were you a narrow street in western Muzzle the house all around us have been destroyed the windows and blasted down coils of rebar, the gates and windows of shops are warped from whatever blast they experienced. We just open the doors to the car and immediately you could smell the stench of dead bodies, we can't see them, but you can smell them

So next we went to my scrub it s kind of like a makeshift base. Basically, the closest military position to where we are trying to go inside there were all of these young men Harry men. There actually are from the city ass, the Counter Terrorism service right and there the people that work and that it will also be invited to send- and you started talking with some of them in his rank Lavoisier generated the commanders all have the same, sort of phone and sort of Ipad that has a map. ISIS shows in great detail is our where the friendly forces are and

This is why we are so. The building we are aiming for was actually a church. This is the place tat I knew had been the headquarters of the has, but that the religious police, the same unit that safer, used to be a member of an author rubbing his right here. It's at that point was running slaughters. Ad hoc, recognise the story and he went on. My guard were actually here this building. This is it's all so the officer who was in charge of this forward basic say that were trembling, he's gonna try to find us an escort to go to the history books. He assigned a couple of iraqi soldiers to escort us, as we were going to go into this. These buildings take for advice, become operators could be like the court. I wonder if it would have been. I think, a couple of minutes walking. If there was road.

Walking in each other's footsteps? Just like we were trained, but we have to Clamber over all this trouble climbing over what looks like he's too be attacks. There. We were walking on toppled doorways poking through windows, curve around the pillars of homes that had buckled, climbing over pieces of wood. Is one sir, if I believe a smoke? You see this so on this work that we took towards the church it became very apparent. Just how closely were in to the front lines I mean it a hearing. Those sound was reaffirmed because it has signalled that we were where we

to be sure you don't get up controls bags we about building. Finally, we got to the church Could you just some real quick before we walk in what what sort of things here you're hoping to find? We know that they have careful, very detailed and that excess records of the people they arrested. Severe punishments, that they meted out against them and obviously that would just be the gold mine afraid with my not the secondly, walked even though it was destroyed. All this is another. I knew right away that this had been and ISIS bases the ICES Weekly newsletter. They had graffiti The pillars and other walls with the word back here What does that mean look here? What the term of that, which means remaining an expanding, and this is their slogan. This is think of it as ices forever,

computers hard drugs that agenda. We found this way just doin you there's a couple of dead ISIS Right: the Red matured in IRAN. We found to bodies that Iraq he militaries Edward then I said fighters gets to give us and we cannot walk over their bodies just seriously. I mean I hate to some clinical about this. To me, it was one more confirmation that were in the right place. This is a place that ices fighters for in that they protected, and that's it I for so searching for documents. What what's the first thing that you're looking for

So I'm looking for the areas that are related to papers, I'm looking for furniture desks, filing cabinets shelves closets and look around the floors. I wanted to ask whether it is possible to pick up that backpack that's over there. We saw a pink backpack, civilization, it's a pink bad that has a kitten on it and its programme c4, which is the explosive the things in their homes. Rockets numbering in that same area, there were showcase things remnants of weaponry. After the side there was a hole in the ground that look like it was a tunnel. We know that ISIS uses tunnels as away You go underneath a building and come out into another ones that they avoid detection from the arab region. At the boy s heart has found an ulcer and was one of the sort that they used for occasions aside,

This ought to be had people. Yes, we are actually able to pick it up and and hold it now. I thought that was a real feeling, yeah replenishing, describe what you're doing enough here drink to have the courage, and then we started to find the remnants of the document. Is the ices and you on the ground you picked up a torn piece of paper. It was from the letter head of the has anything remaining we found. There are several binders that were live with the one of his, but which means them story of the religious beliefs, and you found says the same thing. Is this town there spine the binders had that the logo

the his books when the right path, but the binders were empty. What displacement like was the scene of a crime that had already been searched. I dont know who searched before us that ices come through here and take away all of these records, because they knew that they would reveal the accounting of the various work, times they committed, was it another security force that was here before the one that we are with, but no matter what the record that I was looking for, they were gone still gunfire local and, at a certain point, in a hurry to get back. People are starting to feel nervous about how much time we have spent in this area that we had expose ourselves for too long ago thing I could go. I was definitely

of those people who was getting nervous love. So he began to walk back, and two of our colleagues have already walked off. And you and I and HAWK, are walking in a smaller little group, a little bit further behind and suddenly hall calls out, because he recognized that off to the side of the church. I hadn't even noticed that there was a cluster of buildings and he recognized them because he had worked as a translator for american forces, he was out it by a neighbour and he was hauled off to see one of the cottage, the religious judge in this building, who threw him in jail, Basically, I think I might just as our entered there was a disk other cushion here, and so we managed to make our way through the debris there and we entered the room he was used to this. This is the judges robe he put like a gallon

had and the committee's robes we're still hang the robe He was wearing when he was judging people, like HAWK, HAWK, remember, sitting there, very tat if the latter were still here, I would have you would have said my name of we go through his desk. We see that are the drawers have already been pulled out and hugged took off. Unlike ended up, into kind of the next set of rooms in the next set of rooms, anymore, buildings and suddenly they hold He came walking out of it does with the briefcase He was putting it. To try to get the dust off of it and he unzip the main Sippar and suddenly I saw ideas, financial reports. Receipts and I recognized very quickly. The islamic state local on those papers

Enough to realise that this was something really significant. This month, because it actually was so hot and we had been out in the sun for so long. The cable and my microphone right was melting. The microphone was going in and out- and I was fidgeting with it- you guys over there talking it was at this moment that the New York Times push alert came through their near total. The iraqi government claims muzzles been taken, saying that the Iraq, government was claiming victory.

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Explain what you're doing as you did tell down, because there's gonna be a lot of crap that that is in this in the trash bag of stuff that wiping out this really dirty. So you, and how can I we get back to our hotel in a safe part of Iraq must take up your shoes. We grab one of the garbage bags with some of the stuff, that we ve gotten in Mosul, reading this briefcase drank. Can you just walked me through like what are the steps that you take next, so we put on surgical gloves and we empty out that the contents of a carpet bag of that? How would you describe as well? How was it It's like what you smell. If you were in an airstrike strike, a building was falling around you and we start making piles,

ok, we're gonna make a pile of important an unimportant. Ok, what we're seeing right away is and must be this occurred that this person's paragraph fourteen there are books of receipt suitcase. There are financial report there, so honest, take a receipts, for there are members, it is some notes had sitting. There are letters on ISIS Stationary between different ministries of isolated and dislike attorney general, having did discussions about aspects of the economy? Lisbon? This is very new evidence of a bunch of them. I didn't know existed on their peoples. Ideas case. I have those he has keys. There are cd roms and events. Everything that we have is going to be translated and the best part going to be sent to specialists who are going to help us mine every bit of the information we have come to me. I feel really excited. I feeling like getting here,

I will admit that I've never felt more. Like detective. Finding clues like on ISIS Csi when I'm holding these documents. The thing that's never far from my mind is that if we hadn't retrieved these very papers from the rubble, the very likely would have been destroyed and would have been lost forever. Sorry to say you, never wages describe what the bag looks like. So it's a black laptop blood. That's that I so when it comes to the briefcase specifically yeah, what made it so. The virtual yeah he's pocketed a time, so the documents

out of the briefcase. He he's like some kind of accountants, help conformity and flesh out the reporting. I've already been doing up until this point outrageous describe how it looks, looks pretty organizing this is like actual itself the kind of work it s a pretty, and that is that ices is a self sustaining organism when it comes to its own finances. Much like the United States makes money from a million different sources, so Hu Isis had a diversified portfolio. They were meant making money from the fields that they text from the seeds that they sought to people from the flower that two million from the traders who were being taxed as they were, moving flour from one city to another and from the merchants who stocks are those commodities who had to pay income taxes once a year, and why is that specifically important enough

one of the major ways that America and european governments try to combat terrorism since nine love and was to try to store of these groups, of cash in the early years of Al Qaeda. The way they did this is they would look for their external donors and they would freeze their bank accounts. But there are no major donors in the ecosystem. That is crisis because the group is self financed. There's no bank account and Saudi Arabia that you can freeze that would have any meaningful impact on the letter of the islamic state. There is not even a single source of weapons that you can cut off because, according to one of the other documents we found in the briefcase faculty of military manufacturing and development- all my God, oh my god

Raising they had a division in sight of their military that was dedicated to the manufacturing of weaponry. I'm kissing withdrew the river of giving the piece of paper. The hawk will only touch with gloves you just kissed. We're gonna play a very important part. Gonna put down here. So, basically, this is indicating that, within the islamic state, there's a unit that is dedicated to manufacture, Ring and developing weaponry foot. We assume that this is there, because there, We then them in such a uniform fashion, but this is it. Finally, you know waste as a group that was hell bent on being independent. Being self sufficient on relying on no one, this guy who the owner of this body- and in this brief case some guy some had got some big picture? We found transactions totalling nineteen million dollars. We actually took the time to adapt

receipts and invoices that we found inside and that's what we came up with nineteen million right. So we knew that whoever owns this brief case The important like like a high up like a general or something like that, not a general, a bureaucrat so unlike the United States, which went into Iraq in two thousand three and immediately dissolved the bath s state of Saddam Hussein and essentially through all of these people, these administrators into unemployment and created the conditions that eventually led to to the rise of terror groups, are in Iraq. Isis did the exact opposite, they came to muzzle and they build their state on the back of the one that already existed, and so the civil servants who had worked in the Ministry of Agriculture in the department of

doing the same job that they had done before she brother about this guy. So we know that whoever it was who, on this briefcase, they worked as a bureaucrat that's right and beyond that, what were able to figure out from looking at the papers. It's all the same. There is that the person's name is about Europe were seeing paper out of paper signed with this name, but that doesn't actually help us. I done a fine who this human being is because operator is a good name, is a clear it's another care and the whole purpose of having a clear is to hide the identity of the person whose whose use Skype, maybe, but in the brief case, in one of the faults of the briefcase whip but in the brief case and one of the faults of the briefcase we pulled out a color xerox of ninety belonging to a man named. Yes, Sir Arthur you see his.

Her? It's a man with a receding, our hair line with bulbous, knows bushy, eyebrows and kind of Saddam Hussein or style mustache. And we then pull out the marriage certificate of Yasser assorted. I'm putting this an important, but finally, the document that we pull out that seals the deal is: yes, it s a pledge of allegiance to ices. I'm gonna put that important. We see that in twenty fourteen, not long after almost fell in Mosul, he pledges allegiance to the islamic state. It has his full name and it says that his Kenya or his nordic air is a bitter. So we now know Yasser ISA is a bitter, ok and oblige era. Is the administrator of the trade deficient scenarios job title or now? We know him.

Dog had all you. Ve got his merit you'd, we look at his real name with, namely those wife's name. You know his wife's time, you, u, we know one another hidell hang on. Let's put that labour supply this guy. What do you do next? right. So now that we have all this information, we're looking for somebody who might have interacted with him and in the brief case, we found a whole bunch of documents from local mills in Iraq and especially from the most area, the nicest echoes of each. So how can I ended up driving from Mill Tamil trying to find people who might Amber a man named avatar in essence into you, the meals and the sun. Those and the greenery, and then the very people who had dealt with ice We too should be recognised, and they knew him specifically. As one of ice is money

He was up son who was deputed by ices to common collect cash, Nothing. Keep away from them. They said he was very taciturn, really kind of just business is always and one of the people who enter. The most with him. He said he always had a black laptop briefcase with him

so on his idea. There's a couple of clues that led us to be able to identify his address. It lists the name of his parents, his mother and his father, and crucially, it lists his tribal affiliation he's from the others what he tripe, which is an important tribe from central Iraq using those clothes we were able through our colleague. In the Baghdad Bureau to track down his family in a suburb of tomorrow. So this was after. I had already fallen back to the states when you and HAWK, and I'm your manager of a moloch, you guys actually went to the house of the owner of the briefcase right

so we walk in and for small? It had all of the trappings of this earth house it its enormous high ceilings chandelier in every rum, beautiful, tapestries in this enormous, like Banquet Hall sort of space? Is the letter who's. There is the idea that would increase the older brother. Chernobyl is the family of the owner of the briefcase. It's his uncle, it's his brothers, it several of his cousin, basically a lot of men and they immediately began playing on that day reason.

We're says, they're angry at our suggestion that opportunity I was a member vices and they say to us: how can this even be possible? This is the science of an important family. He had all of his needs taken care of. He had no need for money wisely. You think they would be pointing to their money in this way. There's an accepted hypothesis. I would call it a cliche or even a mean that members of ISIS have joined for material gain. They do it for the money because they were poor. They were before they were set up. They were these kind of hapless people who had no other outlet and the big bad terrorist group comes along and basically buys them off right. I have found that hypothesis is mostly hollow and if you dig even slightly below the surface, you'll find the people that drawing

did so because they had some ideological affinity with another and he was employed by the directorate of the agriculture here. Someone of some other up to this point. They don't know that I have the records in my back showing exactly how arbiter Raw joined the group and, as I mentioned, that they begin to tell us a story that goes. I think, a long way to explaining why this young man would have joined the islamic State the family, described to us that soon, after the, U S, invasion in two thousand three in them, of the night at their door, was beaten down are you asked the soldiers came in with their with their money boots and dragged the elderly, patriarch of the family, of which arouse grandfather out his bedroom and took him away to be questioned because of an idea that had gone off on a nearby road. You say that they they blamed

they will aim to grant mining enter someday blamed the grandfather for having planted a landmine that took the lives of of several. U S, Marines, as it turned out. He must not have been guilty because the family told us that he was released. The next thing. This is a wealthy. Affluent family that is used to people kowtowing to them that is used to people taking their shoes off when they come in. That is used to getting getting flattered. You know getting gifts, getting talk too in a polite way- and this was an incredibly humiliating incident and one of the details that stuck with the family that they taught me about is the grandfather was actually an invalid. He walked with crutches and when the soldiers came end date, they screamed at him to you know to follow them. He didn't understand what was going on and ass. It was, he couldn't walk, and so they grab him by his arms and literally pulled him down the stairs and then up

the driveway. The family remembers his feet bobbing and and hitting the stairs. I was as it was going down and then and then seeing him dragged through the dirt up. There are their inclined driveway, as neighbours came out, to go on It was bad enough that the amount commander in the area came and apologize to the family, and we got that account not just from the family, but also from the police station of the street, At a certain point, we hear a woman's voice from the hall As you know, it's explained to beat that this is the mother of arbitrary she's. Very curious about was happening because we understand that we're talking about her son, but because this is a conservative family. She did not feel that it was appropriate for her to join us, but she has

ear to the door and hear something that upsets her and suddenly she's yelling through the door This isn't a residual. So what we did is Moloch, I did the mother to come with me and with him an ad hoc to a table that was essentially at the other end of the cavernous. Order from all this? Not because I want to take, but because I want to tell you the truth and we start across from her at this beautiful teak table covered and lace, I remember that there was no a crystal ball in the middle and one by one we sort of pulling out of the documents.

And then she started to taste hitting her own face with her palm and then very soon. After that she has done but we think that more work is low level. Dare tell how I go to China, Unixlike Phil, unlocked paper go off into a figure stood up, don't need a lot if we use the one people dream that continue to Olaf items by the US to

also. I was afraid she had concerns about the people he was hanging out with when ISIS took over, show any extremist tendencies, and then the second thing she said is I will look of all of my sons. He is the one who took the humiliation of his grandfather, the worst at the moment only Hobart Business, but long to gas. Tell her. I come I don't know how many mothers I have spoken to her. It's not ok, let's go in here is where you see.

Catch, twenty two of using military power to try to address terrorism. We know that the? U S invasion created operator Ross, create, and people like this young man who were humiliated, who were angry and who turn that anger into affiliation with terror group and its because of that very phenomenon that that you bomb on restoration, put off the eventual intervention that only reached Mosul in the fall of twenty sixteen, because they wanted local forces to lead the fight. They didn't want to have? U S, troops on the ground in fearing that this would just perpetuate the cycle, but if you dont use military might what you have is the rise of Mosul. So both avenues in different ways can lead to that. Though. The further spawning of this group right the world is divided,

you d, interventionist camp and the pacifist cap, and what I have seen through my reporting is. The intervention leads to the other two ROZ, the non intervention leaving the Syrians of a war to drag on for years. These topical savers, so where's a boot raw. Now I dont know purely ass, the family, where he is, and although they were very clear and saying that they knew that he stole up I've, which led me to think that they must be talking to him. They were incredibly vague about his whereabouts now going so far as to say that they have no contact with him, they're, not sure where he's at etc I mean for all. I know he could have been upstairs the whole time that we were talking

I mean, regardless of whether or not he really was upstairs. What we do know is that thousands of members thousands have managed to escape. They shaped after beards, they cut off their hair, they changed her clothes, they slipped into refugee camps, they managed to get back into Europe and they're out there, but we also know is that some of them were captured. Why are the tiniest rests? Don't feel comfortable? Do you think that's necessary hook.

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