The 31 pages of lists and schedules and charts drawn up by Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, a former colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam’s air defense forces who went by the pseudonym Haji Bakr, reveal, says the magazine, the espionage effort behind the establishment of ISIS. The documents also demonstrate the crucial role played in its emergence by former members of Saddam’s military and spy agencies.

The papers, which were found in a house Bakr occupied in Tel Rifat before being killed in a firefight with rebels in January 2014, amount to an organizational blueprint. They detail plans for the establishment of the policing of the caliphate, the chains of command for internal security, and the surveillance priorities for laying the groundwork necessary for infiltration to be transformed into takeover. Bakr wanted his men as they fanned out across Syria to study the tribal power structures of each town and uncover the local leaders’ vices and weaknesses in case the information could be used to blackmail them or force them into subjugation…

That includes shaping parallel intelligence structures, so the spooks and enforcers in the totalitarian caliphate spy on each other to ensure loyalty. Across northern and eastern Syria and western Iraq, the militants of ISIS are able to govern thanks partly to Bakr’s groundwork and his drawing on expertise honed in Saddam’s Republic of Fear. Now the militants, with an iron fist and a sharp eye, purge opponents and brook no opposition, intolerant of any expressions of dissent or behavior diverging from their diktats, no matter how trivial or innocuous.

Outside of ISIS’s reliance on spies and assistance in administering cities under its control, there are other signs of Baathist influence in the group.