Free First Strike by Ben Coes Page B

was founded in 2013 following the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The main architecture of the group is Iraqi Baathist, but its leadership—a cult of personality—is Muslim Brotherhood.
    The group has, in a very short amount of time, aggregated disparate elements of the radical Islamic diaspora across Iraq and Syria into a cohesive, tightly run, disciplined operating entity. All military activities fall under the rubric of Ahmad Garotin, a 31-year-old Egyptian who previously served as military strategist for the Brotherhood in Egypt. It is assumed Garotin and Nazir connected during this tumultuous period in Cairo.
    The history of ISIS is really about its founder, Tristan Nazir.
    By age 26, Nazir was already a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Executive Office, as well as a member of the Brotherhood’s Shura Council, its governing body. Nazir was immensely valuable to the Brotherhood due primarily to his financial training and expertise. Although he did not graduate, Nazir attended the London School of Economics 2009–10 and Oxford 2007–08. Nazir was in charge of the Brotherhood’s finances and fund-raising prior to Morsi’s election. He managed the appropriation of all Brotherhood money and thus negotiated larger contracts with vendors, including arms manufacturers.
    Quiet, taciturn, calm, and confident, even arrogant, Nazir was the brains behind much of the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Beneath his polished demeanor Nazir was a radical with extreme anti-American and anti-West beliefs. He preached a strategy of “accretion and permanence.” If the Brotherhood wanted to be more than just a mouthpiece for Islam and actually govern, Nazir argued, it required structural sources of recurring income. Al Qaeda, Nazir argued, would ultimately be a temporary entity due to the fact that it failed to create an ongoing source of revenue. Taxation was how countries did it. The Muslim Brotherhood couldn’t tax anyone and thus needed “bridge” financing. Oil production—acquired via military action—was the only way. Early on, Nazir was vocal in his calls for the military wing of the Brotherhood to use its strength to take petroleum-related assets that could then be resold. “Political power is meaningless if not accompanied by territory and natural resources. These hard assets will enable the Brotherhood to build permanence,” he said.
    To the extent the Arab Spring was artificially manufactured and stoked, especially in its early days, Nazir was one of the main architects of that effort, knowing it could create opportunities for the Brotherhood. Following the Arab Spring and the ascension of Morsi to the Egyptian presidency, most members of the Shura Council argued that Morsi—and the Brotherhood generally—needed to show that he/it could tolerate opposition and that he/it would govern with moderation and thus show the world that sharia could work. Nazir was the only member of the Shura Council who argued for brutality, calling for the execution of all Egyptian military officers and political leaders and the imposition of martial law until such time as the Brotherhood was firmly ensconced in power. Nazir was ultimately fired from Morsi’s inner circle. He achieved freedom through dubious circumstances SAD/COMSTET have been unable to determine. He resurfaced two years later after ISIS was well on its way to consolidating power in Syrian and Iraqi militant [non-AQ] circles. It is believed he engineered a partnership with Yasim Hussein, one of the Iraqi Baathists …
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    The jet arced left and Dewey put the folder down. He glanced out the porthole. It was nighttime. Clouds obscured any lights that might have been visible on the ground.
    Dewey had been to the Middle East on several occasions. Some memories were better than others, though calling one better than another was like saying getting stabbed