The Daily - The Daily Presents “Caliphate,” Chapter 6

Episode Date: May 26, 2018

The New York Times has introduced a documentary audio series that follows Rukmini Callimachi, who covers terrorism for The Times, on her quest to understand ISIS. Today, as a special episode of “The Daily,” we offer Chapter 6 of “Caliphate,” in which Rukmini’s doubt fuels a quest to uncover the truth. For more information about the series, visit nytimes.com/caliphate.This episode includes disturbing language and scenes of graphic violence.

From the New York Times and the team that brought you The Daily, this is Caliphate. It's voicemail. Did it go straight to voicemail or did it ring first? I think it went straight. It went straight to voicemail when I called him this morning too. Let me try again. Sorry, there's no more room to record news. Oh, man. I left a few.

Oh, did you? Can you just fill me in on microphone what's going on? So about maybe an hour ago, I got a text message from our source. We were supposed to go back to see him this afternoon. He'd been delaying and not responding to our text messages. And out of the blue, he texted me at 11.37 a.m. saying, I'm done with this. Sorry. CSIS just came to my house and interviewed me.

I'm done here. So the morning after we interviewed Uzifa, we were supposed to meet back up with him. Yeah. But we can't get a hold of him. Right. And finally, he sent a text saying that CSIS. This is CSIS. This is the Canadian Intelligence Branch.

Had contacted him. Right. And he's saying that these authorities had questioned him. Right. Talked to his parents. Right. According to him, they went through his computer. Right. And he's saying that these authorities had questioned him, talked to his parents. Right. According to him, they went through his computer. Right. I mean, the timing of that was just really odd. Yeah. So, of course, the first thought was, was my phone being tracked? Or perhaps was he under surveillance and didn't realize that he was being tracked? To this day, I don't know if there's a connection between me seeing

him and authorities coming the next day. I tried to find out. One of the things that Josefa sent me was a picture of the business card of the CSIS agent who had interviewed him that morning. I called that number repeatedly. I left messages. Nobody called me back. So normally, I would hang around. I would call my editors and ask for a couple more days on the ground. I would try to go to his house. I would maybe go to his place of work. I would see if I could re-engage with him. But I didn't have time to do that because at the very moment that we had gone to see Josefa.

Iraqi troops could at any moment enter Mosul, which has been under ISIS control for more than two years. The battle to take back the city of Mosul This continues to be a difficult fight. was ramping up. So it's 9.22 a.m. on November 29th. This is my first morning in Iraq. So I ended up taking five back-to-back trips to Iraq to cover both the military operation

and to look for the files, the internal records that ISIS had left behind. The documents, yeah. The assault was sudden and violent. And in the same period of time... Actually, a lone attacker who drove his vehicle over a curb... ISIS and their sympathizers are attacking all over the world. ...climbed out and began attacking victims with a butcher's knife.

Just a few weeks after we leave Huzeyfa, there's an attack at Ohio State. A few weeks after that. I believe it accelerated before driving straight into a Christmas market. There's an attack in Berlin. The New Year's carnage in Turkey. A week or two after that.

39 were killed when a single gunman opened fire in a packed nightclub. There's yet another ISIS attack, this time in Istanbul. And it just didn't stop. At least 20 people have been killed. There were attacks in Bangladesh, Baghdad and Afghanistan. The Afghan capital, Kabul. The Philippines, Australia, France, Egypt.

It began in what is becoming a familiar, horrifying way. And just in the UK, which up until this point had had no ISIS attack, an ISIS supporter attacks in Westminster in March, another attacks at a rock concert in May, and then finally in June, there's the gruesome attack on London Bridge. This is, as we all know, the third terrorist attack Britain has experienced in the last three months. We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are. Defeating this ideology is one of the great challenges of our time, but it cannot be defeated through military intervention alone.

So, um, it's around, uh... Oh, shoot, my watch is still on American time. So, during this time, we're on our way right now to a town that... I was going all over. I went to Jordan. I traveled to Turkey. I'm standing outside on King's Road in London. Over to London to cover the London Bridge attacks. Outside the home of one of the suspects.

And so it wasn't until months later that I was finally sitting on a flight, coming back from London, that I had a chance to pull up my notes and methodically go over what Josefa had told me. And it was at that point that I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. Something was off with his passport. All right. Oh, boy. Chapter six, paper trail. Okay, where's the picture of his passport?

So when I got back to our office here in New York... When does he enter... That entry stamp is when? September 17th, 2014. I sat down with Asta and other members of our team. What does it say at the bottom? Something. Karachi Airport.

To go back over... Karachi? Oh yeah, Jinnah International Airport, Karachi. You can read it? Every detail of what he had told us. You see that there's one at the bottom? Right. I mean, keep in mind, I've interviewed two to three dozen of these guys.

And with this project, I'll have put three of them on the record. Three. And the reason for that is that we can't take people at face value. We take what they say, and then you have to try to see if you can find corroboration. So this is Pakistan. So with Josefa... So that makes this Pakistan, because it's the same shape. What he told us is that he goes from Pakistan to Turkey, from Turkey to Syria,

and then in reverse when he comes out, from Syria to Turkey, Turkey to Pakistan. Exit from Pakistan, 9th February. Now, of course... When? February 2nd? There's no stamp going into Syria. You're being smuggled into a rebel-controlled area. Right. Wait, there's not an exit stamp between these two, right?

Yep. And curiously... And there's nothing from Turkey. Right. Wait, there's not an exit stamp between these two, right? Yep. And curiously... And there's nothing from Turkey. Right. We don't find any sort of entry stamp into Turkey. What the hell? Initially, what we see... So this matches...

We see the brackets of that trip. We see him leaving Pakistan, and we see him re-entering Pakistan in the dates that he roughly told us he was there. This matches the story. That matches the story. But then I noticed another stamp. There's a stamp that says, exit from Pakistan, 1st July 2014.

So we have him exiting Pakistan on July 1st. This is three days before Baghdadi walked into the Al-Nuri Mosque and declared himself caliph. And I specifically asked Huzaifa, where was he on that day? And he said, I was in Syria. So how does that make sense? Right?

It doesn't make sense. So I guess he goes home. That's presumably his first time home. This stuff is really annoying me. Does everybody hear that? Yeah. Yeah. We then reached out to...

Hello. Salman, hi. It's Rukmini calling from the New York office. Hi. To my colleague Salman Masood, who's been our correspondent in Islamabad for years now. Okay, basically I got the number for the Canadian passport. Right.

So I contacted my sources in the... Salman was able, through his sources in Pakistan, to pull up the travel log of this Canadian passport. My contacts got back and they gave me a whole log of his travel. And it's everything down to... There were records of the flights that he had taken. Where he went to, on what ticket numbers. His destination, the airlines he used, arrival details.

The exact, not just hour, but the minute that Huzaifa left Pakistan. I mean, the only thing that's missing is his seat number, right? And this is where things really go haywire. The exit stamp. So he arrives in Pakistan. Leaving Pakistan in early February 2014, which Huzaifa had basically led us to believe, was the moment when he leaves Pakistan, gets on a plane and goes to Istanbul and is picked up by ISIS to enter Syria.

He gets on flight PK797 departing Lahore. That's him going back to Canada. So the travel shows that he's going to Canada. Then on the 28th of February, he returns from Canada to Pakistan, smack in the middle of the time he's supposed to be in Syria. So we now see back and forth travel multiple times in the very period when he says that he is in Syria. If this is actually him traveling, this completely blows a hole into his entire story. So what is going on? I don't know. Well, let's keep looking. Let's keep looking.

So we're going to do multiple timelines. I'll draw like one timeline of the Canadian passport. Yeah. So at this point, our entire team. Let's put it all up. Let's see where his inconsistencies are. We're all inside one of these walled-in glass conference rooms in the New York Times. What he says.

So this will be that. We decided to make a timeline on, what do you call that? A squeegee board? A whiteboard. On a whiteboard, right? Let's plot. 15 entries. 15 entries between 2014 and today.

We decided let's plot every single entry stamp, every single exit stamp, the country, the airline, every single thing that we know. Okay, so we have, let's start with his Canadian passport, okay? Okay. I'm going to do it in this color. Enters Lahore, is that right, Asta? So this is, I would say, if I can have red, this is the first thing that doesn't line up. This is the next thing that doesn't line up.

Yeah. Right? And as we're doing this, Hello, this is Ron. I called on my colleagues at The New York Times. Hey, it's Rick Minney. How are you? Hey, I'm good. How are you? On my colleague, Ron Nixon.

On my colleague, Adam, it's Rick Minney. Hey, Adam Goldman. My colleague, Eric Schmidt. Hello, Eric Schmidt. These are The New York Times' top national security correspondents. They have, between them, spent decades making sources in the intelligence community. Like the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security, stuff like that. Exactly. So what happened yesterday is we were looking at his passport again.

Right. I told him about Josefa. I shared details of his story and I explained. You see, so his timeline is falling apart, this hole in his timeline. And I wanted to know, does anyone in your world know about this guy? I can try and run that down. Thank you so much. Okay. Cheers. Okay. All right. Bye.

Next, right here in our office. Okay. Maliki is meeting us at my desk. So let's go there now. We also reach out to... I'm Andy. Andy, Maliki. Maliki, nice to meet you. My colleague, Maliki Brown. Is this your podcast? Yeah. I pretty much just follow Rukmini around recording her every move.

So we shared with Maliki a video that Huzefa had given us, which he says shows him shooting a Glock into the Euphrates River. So could you describe what this is and where you're at in the process right now? We're looking at a photograph of a man shooting a weapon into the Euphrates River. And Maliki... We're trying to do two things, is establish where this was and also when this may have happened. He's an expert on geolocation.

So we're using Google Earth Pro, which you can download onto your laptop and you can go back and see through all the old satellite imagery that Google Earth has. He's able to basically take a picture that shows a hooded figure. You do not see his face. And what to you and I might look like very run-of-the-mill scenery. Yeah, so you can see these structures, the small little houses, this one facing in his direction and this one on the side of the bank. To find the exact GPS pen of where that location is.

What your eye goes to in the video is, of course, the shooter. But if you look really carefully in the distance... You can see a bridge in the distance. There's a bridge. But you can also see this road kind of stretching under the bridge. And we see that just here in the photograph. Beyond the bridge, there's a small white-looking dwelling. It could be a house.

It could be some sort of maintenance structure. Right on the waterfront, then a break. You see a couple of shrubs. Then more bushes. And you see an embankment. Right below this building here, and that corresponds with what we see in the satellite imagery. Oh, that's brilliant. Okay. We've determined that this bridge is

leading into Raqqa. That's incredible. That is incredible. So you've just been looking at satellite images of bodies of water around Syria all day? Yeah, we've been going up and down the Euphrates all day looking at old satellite images. So, yeah. So what Maliki is doing is he's looking at footage over time.

He's looking at it in this month, in the next month, in the next month, in the next month. And what he shows us is that everything lines up except... And you can see that he's standing on an island in the middle of the river. The island of sand or gravel that the shooter is standing on. By using old satellite imagery, we can tell within a three-month period

of when that island appeared. That doesn't appear in the satellite imagery until... After November 2014, this island appears. After November 2014. So if you go back to 2014, it just disappears. It disappears. On 10-5. Yeah, exactly. So if you go back to 2014, it just disappears. It disappears. On 10-5. Yeah, exactly.

So it's not there now. So if that picture is of Josefa like he claims it is. Yeah, he's there far later than he told us that he was. I hate to be the one who says this, but what if this turned out to be the weirdest case of catfishing? What is catfishing? That's like when somebody is online pretending to be someone else and then begins to rope people in real life into intense situations usually romantic with that person's invented persona but if this turns out to be some sort of fantasy that he's living out like this is the most strange and profound

fantasy i've ever heard of look it makes sense to me that somebody that has been in the caliphate, that if he's trying to exaggerate a little, you know, that if he's trying to, oh, yo, yo, yo, was there when Baghdadi, you know, announced it? Oh, my God, whatever. That makes sense to me. But not going there at all and making up all of those details about the Abu Nimr tribesmen, about this execution,

about what it's like to hold the gun, about what it's like to actually whip somebody, about the fact that the blood splashes back up on you, that's a level of invention. It's too much. He's providing details that nobody knows. You know? Yeah.

It goes three months, 21 days. Two months, skip this, 15 days. But there's eight months right here. So we go back to the whiteboard where we have plotted out everything he's told us. Look at all the whole, like this is five months in Canada. And then up here, it's three months in Canada, 15 days in Canada. And we start looking for patterns. Do you see that eight-month period, Larissa?

Yes. And we start looking for patterns. Do you see that eight-month period, Larissa? Yes. And our editor, Wendy Doerr, starts to develop a theory. I think he was there then. Right here, here's where he starts posting online. He told you February. It was the same year. It just was much later. There's one big gap of time.

From September of 2014 until April of 2015, his Canadian passport has him as being in Pakistan, right? It's a stretch of seven, almost eight months. Would this work? When is the video of them at the Euphrates, supposedly? That's November

2014 to February 2016. So that puts it there right here. That lines up. That actually lines up right here. I think he learned of the caliphate. He saw the shit was happening, and he was like, shit, I'm going to go. So I wonder if he was telling us a curated story.

That theory would answer a lot of questions. He misrepresented when he went. He went in September. What if that's it? It's like Occam's razor, right? It's like the simplest solution is the most likely. A lot, yeah, right. Interesting theory, Wendy Dorr.

And right as we're starting to think that things are starting to make sense again, we get a phone call from Pakistan. Test, can you hear us now? Are we getting any better? Can you give a test for me? I can hear you, yes. You can hear me? Okay, great. All along in this process, we've been talking to Josefa over a series of encrypted apps. And one of these encrypted apps listed the phone number

that Huzaifa used to register for that app. And it was a plus 92 number. Yeah. Can you give us an update of just what's the latest from Pakistan? The latest is the... Plus 92 is Pakistan's country code. It was Asta, our colleague,

who picked this up. Because we just had his Pakistani cell phone number. So we sent that number to Salman. So I went to my sources. And he was able to take that number to his sources. So using these sources, I got details of his Pakistani national ID card number. And with that national identity card, there was an address.

Yeah, I thought it was a grandparent. But when I went there, there was a guy who was standing outside in the street. I asked him if he knew and he said that he's from that house and he's the cousin of Huzaifa. So then I had a brief chat with him and I asked if I could speak with the father and if he could give me his contact number. And two days later, I managed to talk to him for like 20-25 minutes. He just portrayed his son as a curious kind of a young mind who spent a lot of time over the internet. What did the father say to you specifically about Huzaifa's claim that he went to Syria, joined ISIS? Yeah, I asked the father about Huzaifa's

alleged travels to Syria. And he said his son was never involved with any militant or terror outfit. And he had just cooked up a story about his involvement and his travels to Turkey or Syria. I see. I mean, he did try to sound very earnest. And he said Huzaifa was a very studious, a very keen kind of person by nature. And he mostly spent his time either at the university or at his grandparents' house. But, you know, now after I've spoken with the teachers, his story doesn't really add up. So Salman told us that he went over to the university in Pakistan that Huzaifa had told us he attended.

There was one teacher who said that she found him very mysterious. And right away, he finds two professors who remembered him. Didn't really mingle with the rest of the class fellows. They describe him as introverted, somewhat antisocial. One of them even said that he seemed to have sort of these blurry, bloodshot eyes. She thought that he was on drugs and he was mostly absent from the classes. Interesting. And the teacher said she had a word with him about his low attendance also. Then Salman found a student who remembered Huzaifa from one of the classes they had shared.

He also described him as somebody who was very reserved, didn't really have a lot of friends on the campus, and also that he was not very regular in attendance. And then he managed to find a school administrator. And he also said the same thing, that didn't have a lot of friends, was not very regular in his attendance. Like 50% of the times he was absent from the classes. I see. And let me just tell you these. From there, if you look at his transcript,

he's able to get his hands on Josefa's transcripts. And crucially, in that case file, we see he misses one whole semester. In this window that Wendy had identified as the possible time when he went to Syria, there's a period of time inside of that when he doesn't appear in the records at all. So the source is an official with the Department of Homeland Security.

And it's right around this time that we start hearing back from our colleagues in Washington. You know, according to individuals I've been talking to in law enforcement, there are three known facts about this guy. They come back with basically three facts about Josefa. Number one. He's on the no-fly list.. He's on the no-fly list. This person is on the no-fly list. Right.

And that the person is included on the no-fly list because of terrorism-related activities. That means that he can't get on flights into or out of the U.S. And in addition to that, he can't even enter American airspace. Right. Okay. That's the first part. And... Second thing. He. That's the first part. And second thing? He's under investigation by Canadian authorities.

Officials believe... He is a suspected member or was a suspected member of the Islamic State. Gotcha. That he was a member of the Islamic State? What two different officials in the U.S. government, different agencies have told me is that this individual, this Canadian, was a member of ISIS. Number three? In Syria.

They believe that he joined ISIS in Syria. Two different sources in the American government have confirmed that he was active in some type of ISIS activities in Syria. Got it. And one of Eric Schmidt's sources came back with a possible timeline. He conducted certain activities inside of Syria sometime in 2014, possibly early 2015. Right. Got it. That timeline also fits with Wendy Doerr's theory.

The officials would not disclose what those activities were, but they were clearly aware who he was. To be on the no-fly list is serious. It's not only are you a threat, but you're somebody who's operationally capable of doing so. Got it. Which means, you know, you have the means and wherewithal to carry out an attack, or at least the government believes that to be the case. So after hearing from colleague after colleague who kept on repeating this information about Josefa, the question that was just at the top of my mind is why are the Canadians not arresting him?

Why? Why haven't they acted? And what is it that they know about him that maybe we're missing? So at this point, I started making phone calls to officials in different parts of the Canadian government. I called the Ministry of Public Affairs. I tried to reach out to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I reached out again to CSIS. To the CSIS agent who Josefa had told me had come to his house. Yes, hi, sir. I'm trying to reach ******, please, at CSIS in the ****** area. I can't confirm or deny whether there's a ****** working here, but I can take some details. Could I just be transferred to his voicemail, please?

That's what I'm trying to say. That's not our process. I got nowhere. We take the information and we pass it on and he may or may not contact you. So, do you have your name? Sure. My first name is Rukmini. Are you...

Eventually, I got a hold of people in the ministry that is in charge of dealing with people like Huzaifa, and they said that their official position is not to comment on ongoing investigations. And that's when I reached out to an old source of mine. Hello? Hey, Mubin, it's Rukmini. How are you? Hey, how are you? A man named Mubin Sheikh. Joining me now, Mubin Sheikh. Mubin is...

A former Islamic extremist turned undercover operative. A Canadian citizen. He was born and raised in Canada, and yet in his teenage years, he became fully immersed in the teachings of militant jihadism. He's a former extremist himself. He later renounced his jihadist beliefs and became a CSIS and RCMP operative. When he was an undercover operative for Canadian intelligence, he helped dismantle one of the most famous terror cases in Canada

called the Toronto 18. Now... I am like a triage counselor. He works to de-radicalize other former extremists. My job is to make sure that the public is safe and that he is not a threat to the public. And the reason I was calling him specifically is I had actually introduced him to Josefa after we left Canada.

Right. My intention and my mindset was to help him. Can you just tell me a little bit like why you did that? Look, it's hard to know what as a reporter you're supposed to do in this situation. We are journalists. We're not an extension of law enforcement. And so going to the police is something that is not an option in our field. At the same time, I was concerned as we were leaving this hotel room. And at a minimum, it seemed to me that this is a person that needed help. So I'm recording this call.

Okay. So Mubin was able to confirm a couple of key things, some of which I'd already heard from Huzaifa in the conversations I had with him since we left that hotel room. I actually just met with

investigators yesterday. The most crucial they've come and talked to him is that he confessed to Canadian authorities they talked to his father, they talked to his mother about the broad arc of what he did

in Syria, minus the murders. Yeah. Then why haven't they arrested him? It's not enough. It's not enough. It's not what you know, it's what you can prove in court. I see. You need to show beyond a reasonable doubt, not just by implication. Meher Arar, an engineer, husband and father. Mubin tells us about a Canadian Syrian. Accused by U.S. officials of being affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The Canadians had intelligence that he had some sort of connection to Al-Qaeda. Charge Arar vehemently denied. He was sent for 10 months of hell in a Syrian prison.

He was eventually brought back to Canada. There is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense. The charges were dropped against him, and Canadian law enforcement actually issued an apology to him. And then the government had to pay him, like, I mean, big bucks. Interesting. I mean, like, multi-million dollar lawsuits. This isn't even the only case like this.

I mean, there was a couple. Sabrina Germain, 21 years old, and El-Mahdi Jamali, 20. This isn't even the only case like this. The two were accused of planning to leave Canada to fight with ISIS. They're posting on social media. Email exchanges, Facebook messages. There was also evidence the two bought materials to build a bomb. There was a recipe for creating that bomb found on their bedside table. This is a famous bomb-making recipe that was first published by Al-Qaeda. It's been used in countless attacks.

Probably the most famous is the Boston Marathon attack. And yet... They got off. A jury of their peers found them to be not guilty. And it's been yet another embarrassment for Canadian authorities. This is the dilemma that we're facing. Everyone is facing all over. They want to bring cases to trial that lead to convictions. Because there is that doubt, they need more information.

I see. I'm not in the room, so I don't know what they're looking for specifically, but I'm imagining that they're looking for forensic evidence. Right. Something concrete, something that places're looking for forensic evidence, something concrete, something that places Huzaifa in Syria, whether it's his DNA, whether it's a witness statement from somebody who saw him there, documents that he appears in, that kind of thing. Mm-hmm.

And this is where I think we find ourselves now in the same spot as Canadian authorities. So what do we know? So here's what we know. We know that his story fits the pattern both of how people are radicalized by ISIS and how people end up joining this terrorist group. We know that U.S. officials believe that he is an ISIS member and that he joined ISIS in Syria. We know that the Canadian officials have him under surveillance. We know that he has this deep insider knowledge. Right.

Deep insider, in-the-weeds knowledge that I can say has taken me more than five years to gain. And even then, there were things he taught me, that there were things that he said that I didn't initially know and that later upon reflection and upon research, I realized were true about the group. Let me just end on the things we know. We also know he lied to us.

We know he lied to us about the timeline and about how he got into Syria. Okay, Huzeyfa, are you there? Yeah. So I had to go back to Huzeyfa and see if he had any explanation for this. Your dad actually called my colleague this morning, Pakistani time, when you and I were both most likely asleep. Yeah, I know both most likely asleep. Yeah, I know about that.

Okay. I know about that conversation. So your dad is saying that you made up the whole thing. He said that, right? Yeah. Okay, good. I actually told my parents to say the opposite because, yeah, it is what it is for me. I'm not going to incriminate myself any further.

I just, I guess I'm just asking you, if you made this up, if this whole thing was an invention i guess just tell me you know so i've been hoping that i've been hoping i can say that this whole thing is bullshit just so i can say that when i get once they come around to a prosecution that you cannot prove anything because they cannot prove anything all right i'm actually i wish people would say i'm lying you know that's i actually wish that ceases thinks i'm lying. I actually wish that CESA thinks I'm lying, that FBI thinks that Bolsa lies, and whatever the rest of the agencies are. I actually wish that. I really wish that, Makwini. There's a moment on tape when I ask you,

were you there when Baghdadi declared the caliphate on July 4th? And you said, yes, I remember them handing out candy. Yeah. Yeah. You said, yes, I remember them handing out candy. Yeah. Yeah. I said that. I was there during that time.

Josefa, I understand that you're trying to protect certain details, but when you do that and you start contradicting yourself, everybody immediately goes, oh my God, he's a liar, right? And then it takes away from every other thing that you say that is true. Do you understand? Yeah. Can you please tell me? Are you...

me? I entered late after the entire timeline, after September 2014. After September 2014? Yes. Why were you telling us this earlier timeline? Pre-Caliphate. Pre-Caliphate? Yeah. They say it's the people who went before can at least be saying they went for humanitarian reasons. Right.

Who went after the Caliphate say they went purely for the caliphate. That's one thing I was hoping would make a bit of a difference. So what he's saying is essentially that he told us a different timeline because he didn't want to be associated with some of the worst elements of what we know about ISIS. It made it look more innocent. You know, he was joining this group that then still had this aspirational, you know,

rebels fighting Assad soldiers, standing up for the Muslim people at the same time that they had this dream of a caliphate before ISIS became this infamous group that we know it to be. That is now wrong, right? That last part is now wrong. He joins them when the infamy of ISIS is well known. Yeah. Okay. But I did leave because I don't want to die. I wanted to apologize to all you guys that I lied that first time. I understand,

Josefa. About the date, but the stress that I am in, and then Ceasar did show up the very next day. Yeah. I understand. So that's how we left things on the phone. But at the same time, I continued getting these panicked messages from Josefa saying things like, Rukmini, I can't breathe. He was expressing to me how stressed he was by the idea of us publishing the confessions he had made. To the point that he finally just one day flat out said, whatever is published, I'm just going to deny it.

I mean, I can only imagine that from his point of view, when we emailed him and then called him and then went to see him, we happened to show up in this window of time when he thought that he had slipped through the cracks. Yeah. And as the investigation has unfolded and as he realizes that he is in trouble, I think he's become more and more anxious about his future. So what about what we don't know? Right. So here's what we don't know. Beyond the general window of time, we don't know the exact day that he entered Syria, nor the exact day that he left. In fact, we don't actually know how he got into Syria. Did he go through Turkey? Did he go through Istanbul, as he said he did? Or did he maybe go through another city, like say Ankara? And what passport did he use? We know it's not his Canadian one. We've

ruled that one out. He had a Pakistani passport, but that was long expired. Did he use a forged document, a fake passport? And once inside Syria, we know what he said occurred, but we don't have secondary confirmation of almost any of that. And so we don't know if the atrocities that he has described are the sum total of what he did. To basically fact check what happened to him when he was inside the caliphate, we need somebody who had eyes on him, somebody in Syria who was there alongside him and who saw what happened. Now, here's the problem with that. We know that according to him, he was a member of the Hizb ut-Tahir. Civilians told us that when the Hizb ut-Tahir was patrolling the streets, they were looking at the ground. They would try to not make eye contact with them.

The second thing is we know that the Hizb ut-Tahrir, when they carry out atrocities, executions, they mask their faces. Right. Even Huzeyfa said that he would wear a mask. Even Huzeyfa said that. So the chances of us being able to find someone who happened to be on the sidelines of one of these executions from the civilian side and who would remember him is close to null. So the only other group that could have had eyes on him is the Islamic State itself. And on that front, I haven't given up yet. Hello. Hello, Qasem.

And on that front, I haven't given up yet. Hello. Hello, Qasem. I've made contact through intermediaries with two different ISIS officials. Is Abu Abu al-Rukawi with you? Yes. We're working with Qasem Hamadeh. He's a foreign correspondent for a Swedish publication called Expressen.

Okay, continue. Awesome. These are his sources. He's the one who put us in touch with them and when i say put us in touch with them i don't mean that he just picked up the phone it took weeks of coordination uh and travel to make this happen if we showed him some pictures uh could he take a look and see if he recognizes the person that we're looking at one of them was an emir of the hizbah in raka emir is like a boss a in Raqqa. An emir is like a boss, a manager kind of thing. It's more like a general, like a commander.

Yeah, I will show him the picture. Thank you very much, Qasim. No problem. Over WhatsApp, we sent him the pictures that we have of Huzaifa, both recent ones and then ones that date back to the time when he would have been in Syria. Look at the picture. that date back to the time when he would have been in Syria.

Look at the picture. He said that Huzaifa was definitely not in his own unit, but... He's saying that he doesn't know who this guy is, but this guy, he has seen him before. I see. He had seen him inside the caliphate before. Can he try to see if other people recognize him? Yeah.

You can send people to ask your group if they want to know them. They can get more information. Yeah, he can do that. That would be wonderful. Thank you very much for your help. Take care now. Good luck. Thank you. Bye-bye. for your help. Take care now. Good luck.

Thank you. Bye-bye. Through that emir, Are you recording, Aston? Yeah. We were able to then get in contact with another ISIS official. I asked our colleague, Abdul Jabbar, to translate for us. Testing, testing.

One, two, three. This ISIS official was an administrator in one of ISIS's offices in Raqqa that was in charge of handing out IDs to new ISIS recruits. He saw the pictures of Huzaifa. What is he saying? And he said... He's saying I know, I remember this guy

I am 100% sure. 100% he remembers him? He is the guy who we gave him the ID. He remembers handing him his ID when he came into the caliphate? I remember 100% that he took the ID card from us. He's saying Huzaifa? Yes.

90 to 95% he's Canadian. He said, I'm pretty sure he's Canadian. And this is before our team had explained to him that he is Canadian. He added that he was there for not very long and that he then disappeared. And the reason he remembers him, because this is a person that must have processed probably dozens of ISIS recruits. Why would he remember this guy? And he said that the reason he remembers him is...

You know, the investigative unit, they published his photo. Interesting. That's what he said. Yeah. He said that when Huzaifa escaped, there was an internal notice, basically like an internal wanted poster

with his picture that was circulated among ISIS members so that at checkpoints, they would look for him and try to arrest him. Now, here's the difficult thing. We've just spent month after month after month trying to confirm the account of just one ISIS member, Huzaifa. These are two other ISIS members who I haven't even met.

Their stories have not been vetted. And what I'm trying to do right now is I'm trying to see if this second man, the one who remembers seeing this wanted poster, if he is able to help us find this paperwork. So that's where we're at. And where exactly is that that we're at? Like, where is it that we're leaving Huzaifa for the time being? I suspect that if it's true, that he really did go to Syria, as U.S. officials seem to be quite certain of. As he told us he was.

As he told us he was. Yeah. And if he did the things there that he told us he did. Right. At some point, something will emerge. A picture, a piece of paper. This wanted poster, maybe? Yeah. And until then...

Yeah. Until then, my notebook remains open. So now what? Right. Now? Mosul. You ready? It's going to be the last Tivit meeting. Thank you. For the next few weeks, you'll be hearing Caliphate unfold on the daily every Saturday,

with Chapter 7 coming next Saturday, June 2nd. We're also releasing Caliphate as a standalone series, and we're publishing new episodes on Thursday afternoons, two days before you'll hear them on the daily. So if you want to listen early, you can subscribe to the series by searching for Caliphate on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen. And for time subscribers,

we're making episodes available a full week early. So if you're a subscriber, Chapter 7 is available right now at nytimes.com slash caliphate. That's nytimes.com slash c-a-l-i-p-h-a-t-e. If you've been looking for a reason to subscribe, now might be a good time.