distance from Al Qaeda: This is one of the central arguments made in Linschoten, An Enemy We Created.
four dollars a disc: Matthias Gebauer, “The Star of Afghanistan’s Jihad,” Der Spiegel Online, March 1, 2007.
ridgelines and beheading “spies”: Rubin, “In the Land of the Taliban.”
relief when he was disposed of: This is explained in Clark, “The Layha,” 4.
eulogies from Al Qaeda: “I announce to you today the passing of a hero among the heroes of Jihad in this era and a knight among its knights,” mourned Ayman al-Zawahiri (Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Elegizing the Commander of the Martrydom-Seekers Mulla Dadullah [May Allah Have Mercy on Him].” World Analysis, May 22, 2007.) Abu Yahya al-Libi also had praise for Dadullah. “Today,” he said, “we take leave of one of these noble commanders, Mullah Dadullah, who has joined the ranks of the martyrs . . . after having spent his life on the battlefronts fighting the infidels.” Abu Yahya al-Libi quoted in “Islamist Websites Monitor No. 110,” Middle East Media Research Institute, June 8, 2007.
target a Special Groups leader: Multi-National Force—Iraq, “Coalition Forces Target Special Groups Leader, 49 Criminals Killed” (press release), October 21, 2007.
kidnapping and death squads: Paul von Zielbauer, “Iraqi Journalist Reported Missing After Driver’s Body Found,” New York Times, October 23, 2007.
an IED as they withdrew: That the teams were under fire while clearing buildings and were hit by an IED on departure comes from my own recollection as well as interviews. These details are confirmed in Multi-National Force–Iraq, “Coalition Forces Target Special Groups.”
killed teenagers and children: “U.S. Raid of Baghdad’s Sadr City Kills 49,” USA Today, October 21, 2007.
fewer Americans were dying: The specific metrics I cite are from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, “Iraq Coalition Casualties: Fatalities by Year and Month,” iCasualties website, 2009.
helicopter was flying near Baghdad: UK Ministry of Defense, “Two UK Military Personnel Killed in Puma Helicopter Crash” (press release), November 21, 2007.
same thing eight weeks earlier: The previous attempt occurred at roughly 3:30 A.M. on Monday, March 3, 2008. Jeffrey Gettleman and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Forces Fire Missiles into Somalia at a Kenyan,” New York Times, March 4, 2008.
shot in the back: Ben Dowell, “Journalist Shot Dead in Somalia Was in High-Risk Area, Says BBC Safety Head,” Guardian, November 25, 2008.
split from the Islamic Courts union : Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror (John Wiley and Sons, 2011), 149–50.
striking beyond its borders: “After Somalia we will proceed to Djibouti, Kenya, and Ethiopia,” Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a now-dead Al Shabab intelligence chief declared in November 2009. Gartenstein-Ross, Bin Laden’s Legacy, 150.
CHAPTER 16: THE TICKING CLOCK
vacationing in Europe: Rodric Braithwaite, Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979–89 (Oxford University Press, 2011), 31.
wash away the excesses: As Afghanistan scholar David Edwards notes, while the violence and eccentricities of the warlords gave them a degree of celebrity, the Taliban adeptly portrayed themselves very differently: “An additional point in the Taliban’s favor was the relative invisibility of their leadership. . . . One can only speculate on the motivation behind this strategy, but it seems reasonable to conclude that it might be related to the people’s disillusionment with the all-too-visible leaders of the established religious parties who did so much to divide the country. In this sense, the Taliban in their first period seemed to represent something like an anticharismatic movement; the emphasis was . . . the movement itself.” David B. Edwards, Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad (University of California Press, 2002), 294.