ZARQAWI: THE FATHER OF ISIS [CNN DECLASSIFIED: UNTOLD STORIES OF AMERICAN SPIES]

Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies is a documentary series that details important cases, missions and operations of the American intelligence community, told firsthand by the men and women who worked them.

Producers collaborate with prominent intelligence, military and government agencies such as CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, DOD, Homeland Security, The State Department, et al., to tell their stories in a non-political, objective way that spotlights the perspective of people that do the work.

Zarqawi: The father of ISIS - July 3, 2016

The unlikely godfather of the Islamic State

By Thom Patterson
Updated 8:26 PM EDT, Sun July 3, 2016

Hunting the terrorist who spawned ISIS

Program note: Learn how America’s intelligence network tracked and killed the godfather of ISIS, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, on CNN’s “Declassified,” Sunday, July 3, at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

CNN
—
ISIS, perhaps the most feared terrorist group in the world, traces its short history to a man who was a prison gang leader, a high school dropout and an alleged teenage pimp.

His name: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Zarqawi was “Hitler-like” and “incredibly brutal,” said Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, a retired former director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.

“He was a dictator with a plan,” Flynn said on CNN’s TV series “Declassified.” “His plan was to kill as many people that did not see life the way he saw it, and to change the face and the nature of the Middle East — and frankly the Islamic world.”

Read the rest of the article: https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/29/middleeast/declassified-zarqawi-father-of-isis/index.html