Original subtitles

>> Multiple attacks have occurred in or around Paris.

>> NARRATOR: ISIS.

They are the world's most feared terrorist group.

>> Condemning today's bombings in Baghdad...

>> NARRATOR: Tonight, the story of where they came from.

>> We created chaos.

We abandoned that chaos.

We created ISIS.

>> NARRATOR: How they waged war for more than a decade.

>> The invasion toppled the government, but Zarqawi ripped

the country in half.

>> These people are really prepared to fight the world

and demonstrate that in an act of horrific violence.

>> NARRATOR: The failures of two American presidents.

>> The United States government made decisions that seemed

to make sense at the time, but without those series of

decisions, there would be no ISIS.

>> NARRATOR: Tonight, "The Secret History of ISIS."

>> Frontline is made possible by contributions to your PBS

station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Major support for Frontline is provided by the John D. and

Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to

building a more just, verdant and peaceful world.

More information is available at macfound.org.

Additional support is provided by the Park Foundation,

dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical

issues.

The John and Helen Glessner Family Trust, supporting

trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires.

The Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front

lines of social change worldwide, at fordfoundation.org.

The Wyncote Foundation.

And by the Frontline Journalism Fund, with major

support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler.

>> The guerrilla army that roared east to take over...

>> NARRATOR: It was early 2014.

>> ISIS has seized many Iraqi cities.

>> NARRATOR: They seemed to come out of nowhere.

>> In northern Iraq, a number of districts have been taken

over by fighters.

>> Militants have swallowed up

territory, and they're pushing toward Baghdad.

>> NARRATOR: The terror group ISIS started capturing key

territory in Iraq.

>> The jolting gong was when they swept into western Iraq

and took control of a third of western Iraq.

The banks that were robbed and

stripped, the assets that were stripped in that entire area

was huge.

And that was, as I said, the jolting gong that said, "Wait a

minute, how could this happen?"

>> Deep concern about ISIS pushing into Baghdad.

>> ISIS has been seizing territory in Iraq.

>> They were able to swiftly take over huge areas of Iraq.

It was shocking how the army didn't even fight, didn't even

put a fight.

>> And taking over Mosul, the second largest city...

>> I think Washington was stunned when the second largest

city in Iraq, a city of two million people, fell in a day.

To a terrorist organization that we had not imagined was

in the first order of terrorist organizations.

>> NARRATOR: But these fighters were not new.

They had been at war for more than a decade, ever since the

American invasion of Iraq.

They have used beheadings, suicide bombings, and mass

killings to implement a violent plan.

A plan designed and carried out by this man:

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of ISIS.

>> NARRATOR: The secret history

of ISIS began at the CIA in the aftermath of 9/11.

There was an urgent question about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

>> I was an analyst working on

the team that was charged with evaluating whether or not

al-Qaeda and Iraq had conspired together to conduct 9/11

attacks.

>> NARRATOR: At the agency's Counterterrorism Center,

analyst Nada Bakos was tasked with learning everything she

could about Zarqawi.

>> On the team, as an analyst,

the big question was whether or

not Zarqawi was part of al-Qaeda at the time.

>> NARRATOR: Bakos began by piecing together Zarqawi's life.

>> Zarqawi grew up in Zarqa, Jordan, which was also near

a Palestinian refugee camp.

He was a tough kid in a tough neighborhood.

>> NARRATOR: Poor and angry, it didn't take long for Zarqawi

to get into trouble.

>> He was a thug.

He was in and out of prison.

He was a petty criminal.

It was rumored that he had worked as a pimp.

>> He was into drugs.

He was into tattoos.

You know, his friends in Zarqa

used to call him the "green man"

because of all the tattoos that he had on his body.

>> NARRATOR: Behind bars, Zarqawi would undergo

a transformation.

>> In this prison, al-Jafr Prison, they allowed him to

share cell block with other radical fighters or people

who wanted to launch Jihad.

>> In prison, he really came

into his own, because he managed

to dominate the other prisoners.

He managed to establish himself as a leader.

He took his religion more and more seriously.

>> Zarqawi at the time was the

muscle of the movement in jail,

and he roughed a lot of people up during his time in jail.

>> NARRATOR: As the "green man"

became more religious, he knew

his tattoos would be viewed as sinful.

A razor blade was smuggled into the prison.

>> It was brutal.

He had them actually... the skin taken off.

>> It's like he's shedding his old life, and this tattoo

was a reminder of who he was, and he had to get rid of that

to almost purify himself.

>> NARRATOR: After five years, Zarqawi was released.

>> Zarqawi became a leader among the jihadists in prison,

and came out of prison in Jordan a jihadist firebrand.

Had reimagined himself as a mujahid, or holy warrior,

dedicated to the establishment of the Islamic empire.

>> NARRATOR: In his quest to become a holy warrior,

Zarqawi left Jordan.

The CIA tracked him to Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Zarqawi hoped to meet Osama bin Laden.

>> When he does go to Kandahar

to try to meet with bin Laden, he's rejected.

At his point, Zarqawi is so low

on the totem pole, and it's just something that was just

beneath him.

>> Neither Osama bin Laden nor his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri

were terribly impressed with him.

He seemed and acted like a thug.

He was not very sophisticated.

In fact, they considered him a

rather poor recruit to al-Qaeda.

>> NARRATOR: Zarqawi would leave

Kandahar determined to continue

jihad, and to prove bin Laden wrong.

In 2002, he saw his chance.

As President Bush signaled Saddam Hussein had to go,

Zarqawi moved to a terrorist camp in northern Iraq.

It set off alarm bells at the CIA.

CIA operations officer Sam Faddis, who ran a kill/capture

team, was assigned the case.

>> Headquarters is extremely, extremely interested.

I mean, the number one time-sensitive priority,

as of June '02, when I left headquarters, was go collect on

this Islamic extremist enclave along the Iran/Iraq border.

>> NARRATOR: It didn't take long for Faddis to find Zarqawi

and learn what was going on in the camp.

>> We literally had guys that were working for us that were

inside the camp.

They're working on chemical and biological weapons.

They were doing a lot of work with cyanide-based things.

>> NARRATOR: At CIA headquarters, it was a threat

they could not ignore if American troops were to invade

Iraq.

>> If we took Saddam out, Zarqawi was going to cause

a lot of problems.

He was someone who we would have wanted dead if we had the

opportunity and the wherewithal to do it.

>> NARRATOR: And Sam Faddis had a plan to do just that.

>> I mean, a handful of aircraft

tomorrow, with the specificity

that we have in their locations, will end this threat.

And we will finish these guys.

>> This seemed like the perfect

moment-- we know where they are, we know what they're up to.

This seemed like the right time

to target them and to go after them.

>> NARRATOR: The attack plan was fast-tracked from the CIA

to the White House.

But as America prepared to take out Saddam Hussein, the

president was told that hitting

Zarqawi could cause a problem.

>> I remember there were discussions about attacking

various camps that we thought bad guys were hanging out in,

and I think the one you're referring to, we made a judgment

that, "Let's not start the war before we're ready."

>> NARRATOR: When news of the decision reached CIA

headquarters, there was frustration.

>> (laughs): Oh!

I couldn't believe it.

We have a prime opportunity to

take out a jihadist that we know

poses a threat to our allies,

in addition to American forces, once they invade.

>> There was nobody on that team

who felt like Washington had made the right decision.

There's another country getting up, ready to go up in

flames.

We're giving them time and space.

This will turn out very badly.

We need to get them, get rid of them right now.

>> NARRATOR: But as Vice- President Dick Cheney headed to

the CIA, he was preparing to do something else with Zarqawi:

use him to connect bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to make

the case for war.

>> Vice-President Cheney came to the CIA asking lots

of questions.

He wanted to know not only, "Is there a connection between

Saddam Hussein and bin Laden?", but, "We want there to be

a connection between the two."

>> NARRATOR: The CIA officers believed there was no evidence

of a connection.

>> No, never.

We never found any indication that Zarqawi was in Baghdad

working for Saddam or linked up with Saddam.

>> NARRATOR: The vice-president

and his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, pushed back.

>> It was pretty intense.

We were lined up on one side of the table, Vice-President

Cheney and Scooter Libby were on the other side.

And they walked in with a lot of questions and being very

skeptical as to the intelligence that we had been gathering

up to that point.

>> NARRATOR: Cheney seemed to want Zarqawi to be the link

between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

>> The vice-president's frustrated.

His questions are all about Zarqawi, his connection to

Saddam, and whether or not they had discussed 9/11,

and if Saddam had participated.

>> NARRATOR: Bakos says the vice-president didn't like

the answer.

>> We tried to explain over and over again that it would be

impossible for him logically to be working with Saddam.

>> There was no connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam

Hussein and Iraq that we could find.

Zarqawi's the kind of guy Saddam

would kill without a moment's thought.

>> And the response to that was met with skepticism, lots of

questions, and a lot more frustration.

>> NARRATOR: But at the White

House, the allegations would not go away.

They would appear again as Colin

Powell prepared for a speech at

the United Nations designed to

convince the public to support the war.

>> The speech supposedly had

been prepared in the White House in the NSC.

But when we were given what had

been prepared, it was totally inadequate, and we couldn't

track anything in it.

And when I asked Condi Rice, the

National Security Advisor, where

did this come from, it turns out

the vice-president's office had written it.

>> NARRATOR: Powell would turn to the CIA to vet the speech.

>> We had a copy of the speech that was sent over from the

White House that Powell was preparing, and one of our senior

analysts was working on it, editing, working on the language

to ensure that it reflected our analysis.

>> The speech that will be heard

round the world at the Security Council.

>> Powell will try to make the

link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

>> NARRATOR: Just days later, Powell arrived at the United

Nations.

>> We have come to another critical moment on the way

to a new war with Iraq.

>> Walking into that room is always a daunting experience,

but I had been there before.

And we had projectors and all sorts of technology to help us

make the case.

>> In this chamber of the United

Nations today, the Secretary of State...

>> There in the center of attention, Secretary of State

Colin Powell and George Tenet, the director of the CIA...

>> I think he was very nervous.

Powell doesn't like to read speeches; he likes to have

a few note cards and then do his Powell thing.

But this one he read from the text, every word.

>> My purpose today is to provide you with additional

information.

>> NARRATOR: At the Counterterrorism Center,

Bakos was watching carefully to see what Powell would say

about Zarqawi, bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein.

>> We're sitting in our room at CTC watching the television

with a copy of the speech in our hand.

>> What I want to bring to your attention today is the

potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the

al-Qaeda terrorist network.

>> When he got to our portion, it went off our script fairly

quickly.

And we were looking around at each other saying,

"Where's he at, where's he at?"

We're flipping through pages.

And so, you know, right away, we could tell that this wasn't

reflecting the language that we had used.

>> NARRATOR: Powell used Zarqawi

to make the connection between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

>> Iraq today harbors a deadly

terrorist network headed by Abu

Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate

collaborator of Osama bin Laden

and his al-Qaeda lieutenants.

>> It drew conclusions in language we would not use.

So we were very, very, very careful about describing the

relationship as we saw it, and it seemed to overinflate

and not reflect our analysis.

>> How did that happen, Nada?

>> Within the process of how it

went, you know, where it went back to the White House

and who worked on it after that,

I don't know how it was changed, or by who.

>> NARRATOR: Powell now says the

speech was approved by CIA chief

George Tenet, but he doesn't remember the details about

Zarqawi.

>> Why did he make it into the speech?

>> I don't remember.

Zarqawi was not anything uppermost in my mind.

It was not a significant part of the speech for me.

It was almost a passing reference.

>> NARRATOR: But it was more than a passing reference.

Seven minutes of Powell's speech were devoted to Zarqawi.

His name is mentioned 21 times.

Powell transformed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the eyes of the

world.

>> From his terrorist network in Iraq, Zarqawi can direct

his network in the Middle East and beyond.

>> I can't even imagine what that did for Zarqawi's ego,

to be, you know, here he is, his name is spoken at the U.N.

Now he's showing bin Laden and al-Qaeda who he really is,

right?

He's become this iconic person without ever really doing

anything.

>> NARRATOR: In the days that followed the speech, Zarqawi

disappeared.

>> Rapid series of 40 explosions

lit up Baghdad in the early morning hours.

>> Military officials have been

using the term "shock and awe"

to describe the assault on Iraq.

>> NARRATOR: Zarqawi watched the American "Shock and Awe"

campaign, and as the occupation began, Zarqawi waited for an

opportunity.

Before long, the man George W.

Bush picked to run Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, gave him one.

>> And those who were on high before, in particular the

Baathists... >> NARRATOR: He promised

to purge the Iraqi government.

>> ...will be removed from office.

>> NARRATOR: He also issued an

order that disbanded the entire Iraqi military.

>> You had something on the order of 250,000 Iraqi men,

military age, all trained in using weapons.

Suddenly, they were all out of a job.

>> NARRATOR: The powerful message: Saddam and his

Sunni-controlled army were no longer in charge.

>> Army was the central instrument of Saddam's

repression of the Kurds and the Shia.

I think the decision not to recall Saddam's Army, from a

political point of view, is the

single most important correct decision that we made in the

14 months we were there.

>> NARRATOR: But on the ground,

the American military commanders could feel the effects.

>> The effect, frankly, was devastating.

I think that's where the seeds of what became the Sunni

insurgency were largely planted.

>> We had, you know, long lines of soldiers demanding money,

demanding to be rehired.

There was that whole sense of, you know, militaries,

defeated militaries should be treated with respect,

and that's not what happened.

>> Week after week after week, the big demonstrations got

larger and larger.

There was enormous concern because the demonstrations

were out of hand.

There were actually killings.

>> They feel like they're going to go by the wayside, that

they're going to be not only the minority population,

but treated as if they don't ma.

So they were easy targets for Zarqawi to recruit.

>> NARRATOR: Now Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had his opportunity.

(explosion)

In the weeks that followed, the insurgency began.

(explosions)

>> When these sorts of attacks

began, nobody was quite clear,

I think, where they were coming from, who was behind them,

and how sustainable they were.

>> There has been another spasm of violence in Iraq.

>> A car bomb killed at least five Iraqis...

>> NARRATOR: In Washington, they insisted everything

was under control.

>> There's an absence of authority, a vacuum of

authority for most people.

>> I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn't believe it.

I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence,

unrest, and it just was Henny Penny, "The sky is falling!"

I've never seen anything like it.

It's just unbelievable how people can take that away

from what is happening in that country.

>> Willful denial is one way of putting it.

I mean, I remember, you know, thinking at the beginning,

this is really, really strange.

It's one thing to analyze the situation and then spin it;

it's another thing to then start to believe your spin.

(explosion)

>> NARRATOR: In August, the biggest bombing yet.

>> A massive explosion to the Jordanian Embassy...

>> Morning mayhem in Baghdad...

>> Terrorists exploded a truck outside the compound...

>> This Iraqi runs in, and I said, "What happened?"

And he said, "It was hit by a suicide bomber."

I think that was the first one.

To think that after that, there

would be hundreds and hundreds

and hundreds of suicide bombers,

thousands, even, it's amazing.

>> The bloodshed in Iraq... >> NARRATOR: It was Zarqawi's

first major attack.

>> The capital's worst day since

Saddam Hussein was toppled.

>> NARRATOR: Then, less than two weeks later, a bomb at the

United Nations headquarters.

>> Zarqawi had a strategy.

He's just trying to leave it so

that it's only the United States

military left, and it's a black and white conflict.

And this will enable him then to

rally considerably more support to himself and to his cause.

>> 40 people have died today in a series...

>> The immediate effect of that

was the U.N. left and all the NGOs were gone within a few

weeks, all of them.

And so it essentially left the Americans alone.

That was it.

It's just you.

It turned Baghdad into a kind of

eerie militarized ghost town.

>> A U.S. vehicle was on patrol when it came under attack.

>> Violence has returned with a vengeance.

Last night, two more soldiers killed...

>> The most deadly was a car bombing that killed at least

11 people.

>> NARRATOR: In Washington, Bakos and other analysts sifted

the evidence from the bombings.

Soon, President George W. Bush received a briefing document

written by Bakos, but without her name attached.

It outlined Zarqawi's role in the bombings.

>> I wrote a Presidential Daily

Brief based on intelligence that

we had received that Zarqawi was responsible for some of the

major initial attacks in 2003, that he was still there, and

that he was looking to foment civil war.

>> NARRATOR: The information made its way to Scooter Libby

in the vice-president's office.

(phone dialing)

Bakos says she was at her desk at the CIA.

Her private phone rang.

>> I received a phone call at my desk, to my own line,

from Scooter Libby's office.

To call an individual analyst

is only about pressuring them-- intimidation.

We write these anonymously when they go to the White House;

our names are not attached to the brief.

And I immediately told him I couldn't discuss any of this

and hung up.

>> NARRATOR: At the vice- president's office, they weren't

done with Bakos.

She and her supervisor were summoned for a face-to-face

meeting.

>> We were there because they wanted to figure out how they

could poke holes in the analysis.

>> NARRATOR: The questions centered around Bakos's

conclusion that there was an organized insurgency

led by Zarqawi.

>> There was a lot of consternation in the

administration using the term "insurgents" because it would

look as if the Iraqis weren't embracing what we were doing.

Insurgency implies that they're fighting against us.

>> Certainly in the fall of 2003, the United States

was in denial that an insurgency was brewing.

In fact, that terminology was almost outlawed.

No one could use it.

>> NARRATOR: We wanted to ask

the vice-president and his chief

of staff about these matters, but neither would agree to be

interviewed.

>> Four car bombs went off almost simultaneously.

>> The attacks came during the busy Baghdad commute.

>> At least 35 people have been killed in a huge car bomb

attack in Baghdad.

>> NARRATOR: In Iraq, with America's top leaders in denial,

Zarqawi was free to raise the stakes.

>> I think the senior leadership

of the Bush Administration was slow to realize: A, that

there was an insurgency.

And B, that there was an evil genius behind it.

And C, that that evil genius was Zarqawi.

>> NARRATOR: Zarqawi would now

send a message to the American people.

>> Zarqawi already had captured people's attention from the

succession of suicide bombings.

Now he cultivated a different

means to do so, and with someone

like Nicholas Berg, I think very

tragically, he found exactly the kind of person he wanted:

an American, a do-gooder, who was also Jewish.

>> NARRATOR: That's Zarqawi in the middle.

>> If you watch it really closely, it's a Zarqawi show.

He's standing there, he's reading in his guttural voice,

he's reading this document.

>> Then he's finished reading, and I'll never forget this.

He finishes reading, and he just

hands the script to an aide, who kind of takes it.

It was just like a CEO handing his briefcase to his aide.

And then he pulls out the machete.

>> Allahu Akbar!

>> (screaming)

>> It's the only beheading video

I've ever watched, the first and last, because it was so

horrifying.

You can hear all the noises of

the poor man's death and Zarqawi

standing over the mutilated body

delivering his message to the world.

>> The fact that Zarqawi was killing people personally made

him far more appealing to the 20-something Sunni in Saudi

Arabia or Iraq or even in Europe, the foreign fighter

kind of guy that you want to go join if you're one of those

young disaffected Sunnis.

>> NARRATOR: Finally, Zarqawi had the full attention of the

Bush administration.

The American government placed

a $25 million bounty on Zarqawi.

>> But it basically puts the same price on his head that

Osama bin Laden has on his, and

it basically elevates him now to

enemy number one for the United States.

>> NARRATOR: Bin Laden had once rejected Zarqawi.

Now he couldn't ignore him.

>> It's shortly after that the relationship changes.

Zarqawi is the new start-up, and bin Laden wants to invest.

He wants Zarqawi to use the al-Qaeda brand.

So since al-Qaeda hadn't done anything since 9/11, this was

a perfect opportunity for bin Laden to get back in the game.

>> NARRATOR: For Zarqawi, it was the seal of approval.

And in a letter to bin Laden obtained by American

intelligence, he outlined what he planned to do next.

>> "As the decisive moment approaches, we feel that our

body has begun to spread into the security vacuum."

>> What Zarqawi says in the letter is, "We have one choice,

and that is to start a sectarian war and basically to set

all of Iraq on fire, and to draw in the whole world."

>> "If we succeed in dragging

them into the arena of sectarian

war, it will become possible to

awaken the inattentive Sunnis."

>> "We're going to foment a civil war, and this will cause

the Shia to overreact.

They are going to go after the minority Sunni population,

and then the Sunnis are going to have to turn to us,

the jihadists, to defend them."

(explosion)

>> NARRATOR: Now Zarqawi acted.

(explosion)

He initiated unprecedented unrestrained violence against

the Shia.

(explosion)

(siren blaring)

>> 170 people died in that weekend truck bombing...

>> Daily life in Iraq:

the kidnappings and thousands of killings every month.

>> These killings have created a climate of fear.

>> A wave of sectarian killing across Iraq left at least...

>> NARRATOR: Zarqawi was becoming known by a new name:

the sheikh of the slaughterers.

>> A suicide car bombing killed 12.

>> Once he pivoted to Shia, Baghdad was just hammered with

huge car bombs, but also just daily assassinations...

...of families, of neighbors.

Then you started having those torture cells,

the beheading videos...

The invasion toppled the government, but Zarqawi

ripped the country in half.

>> God, the horrible, horrible

years in Iraq, when there were,

you know, hundreds and hundreds of car bombs and suicide

bombings, it was incredible what they did.

I mean, it was murderous, it was

psychopathic, it was horrific,

but it was really extraordinary.

>> NARRATOR: For Osama bin Laden, the violence against

fellow Muslims was too much.

Bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, dispatched

this letter to Zarqawi.

>> "Many of your Muslim admirers

are wondering about your attacks on the Shia.

The sharpness of this questioning increases when the

attacks are on one of their mosques."

>> So the response from al-Qaeda

was, "Stop doing what you're doing.

Killing Shia and other Muslims aren't going to achieve the

objective that we need.

This isn't the path that we want

you to take, and we're telling you to stop."

>> "My opinion is that this matter won't be acceptable to

the Muslim populace however much

you have tried to explain it, and the aversion to this will

continue."

>> 170 people died in that weekend truck bombing...

>> NARRATOR: But Zarqawi disagreed.

His plan for a Sunni resurgence relied on brutal sectarian

violence.

>> Attacks are constant and often grisly.

>> NARRATOR: And he would respond to Zawahiri and bin

Laden with one devastating attack.

He blew up an important Shia shrine: the golden dome

in Samarra.

>> Samarra was the straw that broke the camel's back for the

sectarian war.

He just took down the biggest revered shrine in Iraq.

And immediately, it was within

12 hours that everything in Iraq changed.

It wasn't it went from good to bad; it went from horrible

to unbelievably horrible.

>> NARRATOR: It was all-out civil war.

Tens of thousands would die.

>> And that set off a cycle of

violence between Sunni and Shia that al-Qaeda tried to fuel

as much as they possibly could,

Zarqawi directing it, of course, very capably.

>> Zarqawi achieved what he wanted to achieve.

He had fomented anger and fear and frustration enough that

populations felt pitted against each other.

>> NARRATOR: As the civil war raged, Zarqawi decided to do

something bold: he would reveal his face on camera.

>> He understood the power of the Internet.

It showed him using an American automatic weapon.

(gunshots)

Not necessarily using it correctly, but he did use it in

a way that I think established his flair for publicity.

>> It's propaganda.

It's recruitment.

It shows what their intention is.

He's wanting other people to join him.

He's building his army at this point.

>> NARRATOR: In the video, Zarqawi made a surprising

proclamation.

He would create an "Islamic state," the first step toward a

global caliphate.

>> He was never content just to be the thug from Zarqa, and

he wasn't content just to be the guy who beheaded Nick Berg.

He wanted to rule a caliphate.

>> NARRATOR: It was something

bin Laden hadn't yet pushed for.

>> Al-Qaeda saw that time as a long way off, and Zarqawi was

very, very much more impatient.

He said, "This we can do now."

>> Allahu Akbar!

>> NARRATOR: For Zarqawi, the creation of the caliphate

would be the fulfillment of a prophecy.

>> That religious vision promises the return of God's

kingdom on earth, the reestablishment of the early

Islamic empire, the empowerment of Sunni Muslims around the

world.

That the reestablished caliphate

will eventually take over the entire globe, and then the

entire world will come crashing to an end.

>> The lead aircraft is going to

engage it here momentarily with

a 500-pound bomb on the target.

>> NARRATOR: The next video the world would see of Zarqawi

was very different.

(explosion)

In 2006, the U.S. military received a tip and bombed

Zarqawi's hideout.

>> The terrorist whose forces set off so many...

>> NARRATOR: Zarqawi was dead.

But his call for an Islamic state would live on.

>> Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the notorious leader of

al-Qaeda in Iraq, is dead.

>> Zarqawi's death is a severe blow to al-Qaeda.

It's a victory in the global war on terror.

>> NARRATOR: President Bush seized the initiative.

He ordered a surge of American troops into Iraq to stop the

bloodshed.

>> Troops both Iraqi and American will try to slow down

the killing among Sunni Arabs.

>> The surge began, but the president stands increasingly

alone.

>> The White House is calling its Iraq plan...

>> NARRATOR: General David Petraeus was the commander.

>> The priority had to be on securing the Iraqi population,

and that this could only be done by living with the people.

So we went back into the neighborhoods in Baghdad and

other areas that were threatened by this ever-spiraling

Sunni/Shia cycle of violence.

>> $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000.

>> NARRATOR: Helped by hundreds

of millions of dollars, Petraeus

made an alliance with the Sunni

tribes that had once worked with Zarqawi.

>> The hierarchy in society chopped off too many heads

there, taken too many wives from the local population,

had upset the power structures.

Guys from the tribes started to turn against al-Qaeda

and looked to the U.S. military for support.

>> NARRATOR: One by one, American special forces

and former Sunni militants killed Zarqawi's followers.

>> Al-Qaeda in Iraq had been eviscerated.

There were probably 37 individuals that survived that

onslaught that we created in '07 and '08 that were

really al-Qaeda.

>> The definition of destruction is that you are rendered

incapable of performing your mission without reconstitution.

So they're flat on their face,

and they're down, and we had our boot on their neck.

>> NARRATOR: What was left of Zarqawi's group would go

underground for three years.

("Hail to the Chief" playing)

>> NARRATOR: By 2009, the war in Iraq was the responsibility

of a new president.

>> President Obama was elected

on a promise to get the United

States out of Iraq, and he was determined to do that.

>> NARRATOR: And early in his presidency, he announced his

plan in front of thousands of Marines.

>> I've come to speak to you about how the war in Iraq

will end.

The situation in Iraq has improved.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been dealt a serious blow by our troops

and Iraq security forces.

>> NARRATOR: For Barack Obama, it was time to move on

from Iraq.

>> I intend to remove all U.S.

troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

(applause)

>> The last U.S. troops are now leaving Iraq.

>> They're packing up and ready

to hand over the remaining... >> After almost nine years

of war and thousands of lives lost...

>> We disengaged not only militarily at the end of 2011,

we disengaged politically.

The war was over.

We were out.

Let the chips fall where they may.

Well, I don't think we thought

through exactly how many chips

were going to fall and what the

consequences of that would be.

>> NARRATOR: Once the Americans were gone, what was left of

Zarqawi's group, isolated in northwestern Iraq, began to

rebuild.

They had a new leader: Zarqawi's

successor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

>> I mean, he really is a chip off the old block,

in terms of Zarqawi.

He has the same sort of sensibilities, the same flair

for publicity, the same obsession with widespread violence.

>> They are part of a similar ideology.

They believe in political Islam.

They have a view of the caliphate.

Baghdadi had a Ph.D.

He was a soccer player.

>> NARRATOR: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's journey from

religious scholar to jihadist

leader started back in the early

days of the American occupation.

As the U.S. Army conducted mass

sweeps of the Sunni population, Baghdadi was put into an

American prison.

>> For a number of people who had spent time in these jails,

they spoke about them as jihadi training camps.

So through being in jail together, people created new

networks.

>> NARRATOR: They were known as "jihadi universities."

Baghdadi learned Zarqawi's methods.

>> He is able to network with other committed jihadists,

capable jihadists that were attached to major organizations

like al-Qaeda in Iraq, and he begins to network with these

men, many of whom he would rise with through the ranks of

al-Qaeda in Iraq, later the Islamic State.

>> NARRATOR: After his release, Baghdadi moved up inside

Zarqawi's organization.

>> He very wisely played up the

idea that his tribe had direct

links to the Prophet Mohammed.

And this was very important for establishing his legitimacy

as a leader.

>> NARRATOR: In audio recordings, Baghdadi would use

his religious authority to justify acts of terror.

>> NARRATOR: And after Zarqawi's death, it was Baghdadi who

eventually seized control.

>> Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was much more assertive and much

cleverer and much more ruthless

than anyone had thought, and so

was able to eliminate rivals, was able to get success.

And success of course is a great attracter of support.

>> NARRATOR: As the group's new leader, Baghdadi worked to

rebuild, and in keeping with Zarqawi's strategy, he looked

for a state in chaos to exploit.

>> Protests continue against the rule of President...

>> Across the country, thousands of people took...

>> NARRATOR: He saw one across the border in Syria.

>> And a new wave of protests against Bashar al-Assad...

>> NARRATOR: Civil unrest was breaking out.

>> It was an ideal set of circumstances for Abu Bakr

al-Baghdadi to capitalize on.

>> (chanting)

>> NARRATOR: Protests against

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad had been met with force.

(gunfire)

>> There were peaceful demonstrations.

These were put down violently,

and that then sparked this cycle of violence.

>> NARRATOR: As the unrest grew,

Baghdadi secretly sent agents into Syria to help fuel civil

war.

>> He wanted to establish the caliphate now.

He wanted to take over towns, villages, and then cities.

The border between Iraq and Syria could disappear if his

organization controlled both sides of the border.

>> NARRATOR: In Damascus, Baghdadi's men used the bloody

methods of Zarqawi's insurgency to announce their presence.

>> I was sitting in my ambassador's residence

in the upstairs den, reading, when the two bombs went off.

Immediately, from my time in Iraq, knew those are car bombs.

That's not a normal sound here in Damascus.

>> NARRATOR: Ambassador Ford

dispatched a reconnaissance team to the site.

>> We got a sense of how big the holes were and what

had happened.

The way the car bombs were delivered, crashing through

gates with a follow-on car, was exactly what we had seen

the al-Qaeda organization do in Iraq, and so it had

the fingerprints of al-Qaeda.

>> The wave of car bombings that

convulsed Damascus showed that

tactics that been successfully employed in Iraq had now been

successfully exported to Syria.

>> NARRATOR: Zarqawi's organization had not only

survived, it was growing and starting to capture territory.

>> Two back-to-back explosions hit the capital Damascus

early on Friday.

>> Authorities said at least 40 people were killed...

>> NARRATOR: Back in Washington, at the State Department,

Ambassador Ford was worried.

He wanted to offer military aid

to Syrian rebels who were seen as moderates.

>> My team, working in our little offices and cubicles

downstairs, began to think we would have to help those more

moderate secular elements compete for recruits.

Otherwise, they over time would be overwhelmed.

>> NARRATOR: But first, the White House would have

to sign off.

Ford had three important allies in the administration:

CIA Director David Petraeus, Secretary of State Hillary

Clinton, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

They made the case to the president.

>> You did have people inside the administration who said,

"We need to get involved here.

We need to help this opposition force.

We need to find those who represent values that we can

live with and provide them arms and training."

>> The only way we were going to

get credibility with those that were fighting on the streets

and dying was to be able to provide the weapons they needed

in order to confront Assad, and that's why I supported

Petraeus's recommendations and why we recommended that.

>> NARRATOR: Despite the recommendation of his senior

advisors, the president was reluctant.

>> ...for us to think that somehow there is some simple

solution I think is a mistake.

>> That wasn't something President Obama wanted to do.

He didn't think it would be effective, he didn't want to

necessarily get involved in somebody else's civil war.

He came to office not to get involved in the Middle East,

but to get us out of the Middle East.

>> Breaking news right now... >> NARRATOR: In Syria, the

slaughter of the moderate rebels by the government forces of

Assad continued.

>> It is one of the deadliest

days in the uprising in Syria.

>> NARRATOR: The barrel bombings, neighborhood after

neighborhood.

(explosions)

(gunfire)

>> They wanted our help.

You know, I think it's fair to say we didn't do much.

We did almost nothing to help them.

Therefore, they're gone.

I mean, they're gone, they're finished.

I mean, as a significant force, they're finished.

>> NARRATOR: Nearly a year later, the president changed his

mind.

He authorized light weapons for the moderate rebels.

But it was too late.

Meanwhile, Baghdadi's forces grew even stronger.

>> And the consequences are exactly what the CIA and the

Pentagon and the State Department predicted, which was

that if the United States isn't

shaping the opposition to Assad,

radical Sunni groups that look a lot like al-Qaeda will do

that.

And they did.

>> NARRATOR: By 2013, Baghdadi's

army captured whole sections of Syria.

>> The civil war in Syria gave him an opportunity.

The civil war in Syria gave them a platform.

Now it's not a few dozen hiding in the western desert;

now there's thousands and thousands of foreign fighters

that's coming from everywhere.

5,000 from Western Europe, 6,000 from Tunisia, almost 5,000

from the former Soviet Union, people coming from everywhere.

>> NARRATOR: Baghdadi finally had what Zarqawi promised:

a state.

He called it ISIS and established its headquarters in

Raqqa, provoking a final break with al-Qaeda.

>> Al-Baghdadi's success in carving out this Islamic state

and putting Raqqa as its centerpiece, as its capital,

is a reflection, again, of a strategy that Zarqawi pursues.

>> NARRATOR: And inside its territory, ISIS would rule

through violence and fear.

>> I get a steady diet of these videos that they put out,

so it's, you know, today, they stoned to death a man,

you know, because they suspected him for being gay, or they

stoned to death a woman, or they put a man in a car and

exploded it, or they skinned somebody alive, or they

crucified somebody, or they beheaded somebody, every day.

>> NARRATOR: In Washington, they were struggling to find

a successful strategy to deal with Syria.

The new secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, attended meeting

after meeting, hoping one would emerge.

>> In those meetings, there were too many people there.

I'd go into these meetings and every chair was filled

in the Situation Room.

You'd have 30 people in there sometimes.

What were they doing in there?

And everybody had a chance to talk.

We rarely got to a conclusion or a decision, and too many

people talking, and I think that

always leads to an ineffective process.

>> NARRATOR: The president himself resisted authorizing

military intervention.

>> The notion that the way to solve every one of these

problems is to deploy our military, that hasn't been true

in the past and it won't be true now.

>> NARRATOR: The threat of ISIS seemed distant.

>> President Obama doesn't see this emerging group as an

existential threat.

He doesn't even see it as equivalent to al-Qaeda

in any real way.

"Don't inflate these guys into something that they're not.

Don't make them eight-foot giants."

>> NARRATOR: We asked the White House for an interview;

they declined.

Back in Raqqa, Baghdadi was pursuing a new opportunity:

the expansion of ISIS into Iraq.

>> At this very time that al-Baghdadi is building

his organization in Syria, the Baghdad government, the

Shia government of al-Maliki, starts virtually assaulting

the Sunni homeland.

>> NARRATOR: In the years since

American troops had left, Iraq's

prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, a

Shia, had initiated a crackdown on the Sunni population.

>> The Sunni Arab tribes in Iraq

had become disillusioned with the Shia-dominated government

in Baghdad.

So there was widespread disaffection among the tribes.

They began to engage in a series

of protests against the regime.

(gunfire)

>> And these protests are violently crushed, and in such

an environment, that enabled Islamic State of Iraq to rise

up out of the ashes and sing "We will protect Sunnis"

from Maliki.

>> NARRATOR: It was the moment

Baghdadi had been waiting for.

>> Where have the Sunnis to go?

There's only one place they can go.

It is that residual of the insurgency that is now run by

al-Baghdadi.

>> NARRATOR: In early 2014, Baghdadi's forces began

the campaign to take Iraq.

>> The Iraqi army, which was

built at the incredible expense,

I don't even know what the final

price tag was-- $30 billion?--

largely by the Americans, paid for by the American taxpayer,

you know, all their equipment,

everything, it all came apart.

>> NARRATOR: In no time at all, they rolled over Fallujah,

Ramadi, then the biggest prize yet: Iraq's second largest

city-- Mosul.

>> (man chanting)

>> NARRATOR: On July 4, 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ascended

the steps of Mosul's great mosque.

>> Baghdadi never shows his face, but the one occasion that

he did was after the capture of Mosul.

>> He wasn't somebody hiding in a cave, somebody you never

saw, released secret videos from unknown locations.

He was in a mosque giving a speech and talking about

the Islamic state.

>> NARRATOR: From the pulpit, Baghdadi finally fulfilled

Zarqawi's dream.

He made it official, declaring himself the caliph: the ruler

of the global caliphate.

>> Baghdadi addresses the assembled audience and proclaims

himself the caliph and the ruler of Muslims worldwide.

He proclaims the victory of Zarqawi's political project

nearly a decade earlier.

They now control a swath of territory containing some five

million people, they have a war chest of some two billion

dollars.

It's a remarkable success for an organization that was

soundly defeated in 2009.

>> NARRATOR: Baghdadi had turned Zarqawi's vision into a

terrifying reality.

>> On the eve of 9/11, we have

400 pledged members, you know, people who pledged allegiance

to Osama bin Laden.

But now they have countries.

They have armies.

They have tanks.

They have missiles.

They have stuff that Osama bin

Laden did not dream to have in his wildest dreams.

>> The United States of America

is meeting them with strength and resolve.

I ordered our military to take targeted action against ISIL.

>> NARRATOR: In the nearly two

years since Baghdadi's sermon,

the Islamic State has come under assault from the Americans,

the Iraqis, the Russians, the Iranians, and many others.

They have lost territory, but ISIS has already gone global.

>> Gunfight inside the parliament building.

>> Canada's capital is stunned.

>> Copenhagen, Denmark, a scene of terror...

>> NARRATOR: ISIS conducted or inspired...

>> Horrible scene in northeastern Egypt tonight.

>> NARRATOR: ...more than 90 attacks around the world...

>> Multiple attacks have occurred in or around Paris.

>> NARRATOR: ...and have more

than 40 affiliated terror groups in 16 countries.

>> Massacre in San Bernardino today.

>> The attack left at least 14 people dead...

>> NARRATOR: They have promised

that the worst is yet to come.

>> From what investigators say

was an ISIS suicide bomb attack in Turkey.

>> Now Belgian officials say 34 people were killed and 187

were wounded in two explosions.

>> And after today's horror, the question is, how many more

terrorists are ready to strike?

>> Go to pbs.org/frontline for more on how ISIS has spread

beyond Syria and Iraq.

Read extended interviews with Colin Powell...

>> We made a judgment.

>> ...and Nada Bakos.

>> I can't even imagine what that did for Zarkawi's ego.

>> Explore the Frontline archive

of reporting on the ISIS threat.

And connect to the Frontline community on Facebook and

Twitter.

And if stories like this matter to you, then sign up for our

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Thank you.

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