Recently declassified U.S. military documents suggest that the purported new caliph of the Islamic State, Amir Muhammad Said Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla, betrayed dozens of Islamic State of Iraq members to interrogators while held at the U.S.-run Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq in 2008. The Tactical Interrogation Reports were released by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center in September, although the significance of the documents and their implications for efforts to counter Islamic State influence seem to have been lost amid a competitive U.S. election and a rampant global pandemic.
Mawla’s interrogation reports reveal a great deal about the man who would be caliph as well as the inner workings of the Islamic State at a critical moment in its evolution. More importantly, they provide an opportunity to degrade the Islamic State’s brand at a time when it is strategically vulnerable.
