How the hunt for Isis leader Baghdadi matched the hunt for Osama bin Laden

MY TIMES ONINE PIECE YESTERDAY: The hunt for the leader of Islamic State relied on old-fashioned, on-the-ground spycraft that succeeded in finding Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by identifying couriers who were trusted to pass on messages to the jihadi’s followers. Tracking Baghdadi to his compound in Idlib province, northwest Syria, followed exactly the same covert routine used in the search for Osama bin Laden. In both cases it was CIA human intelligence (known as “humint”) that eventually paid dividends. The reliance by terror leaders on couriers proved their downfall. Bin Laden, killed by the US Navy Seal Team 6 in May 2011, and Baghdadi, who died from a suicide vest explosion when cornered by the US Army’s Delta Force, learnt early on that using satellite or mobile phones was potentially fatal. America’s National Security Agency (NSA) with its global signals intelligence satellites, linked to Britain’s GCHQ eavesdropping centres in Cheltenham and Cyprus, was on 24-hour alert to snatch electronic communications from Bin Laden and Baghdadi. The US also had a massed array of surveillance aircraft to try to pinpoint them. Each of these terror leaders made mistakes. Bin Laden used his satellite phone once when on the run in Afghanistan in 2001 and his location was pinpointed by a US satellite. But he escaped because it took too long for the US military to receive orders to target him. Likewise the Isis leader once risked revealing his identity by using his mobile phone when hiding in Mosul, northern Iraq. He made a brief call outside the city in November 2016, urging his followers to keep fighting. The call was picked up by a US electronic surveillance aircraft and the caller was swiftly identified but he, too, escaped before the strike aircraft arrived. The CIA in both cases was forced to turn to the intelligence game of recruiting agents close to al-Qaeda and Isis to try to track down the terrorist targets’ whereabouts. In each case the courier link became the key factor. The capture in the summer of one of the couriers used by Baghdadi, and information supplied by one of the Isis leader’s many wives, also seized around the same time, helped the CIA to work out a “pattern of life” that finally led to the discovery of the compound in Idlib province. Baghdadi’s apparent habit of wearing his suicide vest at all times, including at night, was the clearest indication that he was aware the Americans were catching up with him. The disappearance of one of his couriers and wives would have raised alarm bells. The wife of a senior Isis figure captured by Delta Force commandos in Syria in 2015 revealed that Baghdadi was more confident about his security in Iraq where he had hidden for years. But he took the risk of village-hopping across northern Syria before reaching the compound in Barisha in Idlib province close to the Turkish border. A picture of his quick-change routines was gradually built up by the CIA with the help of Kurdish and Iraqi intelligence agencies. As President Trump disclosed, his location was pinpointed on a number of occasions, but each time he had moved on to another village before settling in the compound in Barisha. The scene was set for the Delta Force attack. A similar scenario played out eight years earlier when the founder of al-Qaeda was located and killed. The CIA began its hunt for Bin Laden shortly after the 9/11 hijacked-plane terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The intelligence agency with a dedicated team started collecting information on key individuals linked to or providing help to the al-Qaeda leader. A courier with the operational pseudonym of Kunya was uncovered although it took several years before he was identified. The CIA with a network of agents tracked the named courier to a compound in the town of Abbottabad, about 35 miles north of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. It was 2010. The compound had extensive security features with high walls topped with barbed wire. There were no phone or internet connections and all rubbish was burnt, not collected, all adding to the conviction that the tall man spotted taking walks every day inside the compound without ever looking upwards was Bin Laden. It took ten years to hunt down and kill Bin Laden. It took five years to locate Baghdadi. In each case the courier loophole was the greatest weakness in their personal security arrangements.