(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Christoph Reuter, Spiegel Online: The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State

An Iraqi officer planned Islamic State's takeover in Syria and SPIEGEL has been given exclusive access to his papers. They portray an organization that, while seemingly driven by religious fanaticism, is actually coldly calculating.

 Aloof. Polite. Cajoling. Extremely attentive. Restrained. Dishonest. Inscrutable. Malicious. The rebels from northern Syria, remembering encounters with him months later, recall completely different facets of the man. But they agree on one thing: "We never knew exactly who we were sitting across from."

 In fact, not even those who shot and killed him after a brief firefight in the town of Tal Rifaat on a January morning in 2014 knew the true identity of the tall man in his late fifties. They were unaware that they had killed the strategic head of the group calling itself "Islamic State" (IS). The fact that this could have happened at all was the result of a rare but fatal miscalculation by the brilliant planner. The local rebels placed the body into a refrigerator, in which they intended to bury him. Only later, when they realized how important the man was, did they lift his body out again.

WNU Editor: There is a lot that needs to be done to verify if these documents do come from the Islamic State .... but if true it definitely gives a perspective of the organization that we rarely see.

Update #1: Former Saddam Hussein spy masterminded the rise of Isis, says report -- The Guardian
Update #2: Former Saddam Hussein Aide Masterminded ISIS Strategy: Report -- IBTimes