From Islamic State militant to informant
BAGHDAD — The former Islamic State commander walked into the visitors room of his Baghdad prison without the usual yellow jumpsuit and shackles his fellow inmates wear. In slippers and a track suit, he greeted guards with a big smile, kissing them on the cheeks.
The scene testifies to the strange path of Abu Shakr, a 36-year-old who joined al-Qaida out of anger over treatment of Iraq’s Sunnis and rose in the group as it transformed into the extremist juggernaut now called Islamic State. Finally, he became an informant against Islamic State after his capture in 2013.
Security officials say he has given them guidance on the extremists’ tactics and helped them find, capture and interrogate suspected militants. In Salahuddin province he helped the military win back key areas this week, including the town of Beiji, where troops secured Iraq’s largest oil refinery.
He clearly has been willing to act against his former group in return for access to his family — and perhaps, implicitly, to prevent any government action against them.
But his personal sentiment toward the militants is hard to gauge. Speaking to The Associated Press, he didn’t express any remorse for his involvement in the group except to say he never liked its ferocious targeting of Shiites and Christians. “It was not supposed to be this way,” he said.
He spoke to the AP on condition he be identified only by his nom de guerre to protect his family.
Abu Shakr’s drive to wage jihad was twofold: He said he was enraged by the U.S.led occupation in Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003 and bitter toward the new Shiite-led government that Sunnis believe discriminates against them.
A graduate of Baghdad University, he climbed alQaida’s ranks, starting as a foot soldier, moving from his native Diyala province to Baghdad, then to Salahuddin and finally stationed in the western city of Fallujah.
“When you get a new assignment with your company, sometimes you have to move,” he said. “This was no different.”
During that time, al-Qaida in Iraq’s leaders were killed by a 2010 U.S. airstrike. They were replaced by the ambitious Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would transform the group. In 2012, he began sending fighters into Syria, barging into that country’s civil war. There, the group garnered battlefield prowess, resources and more fighters.
Abu Shakr was assigned to Fallujah in 2012. His task was to oversee security for al-Qaida’s operations there.