Margaret Coker’s Book ‘The Spymaster of Baghdad’ – a short review

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

What is true in the ‘new’ Iraq?

A short review of Margaret Coker’s The Spymaster of Baghdad: A true Story of Bravery, Family and Patriotism in the Battle Against ISIS [1]

In her fictionalised non-fiction book, The Spymaster of Baghdad, Margaret Coker, the former NY Times Baghdad Bureau Chief (2003-2019) makes no effort to feign knowing the ‘old’ Iraq before her country destroyed it.

Indeed, she generously portrays the Shi’a ‘opposition’ as the Ba’ath eras mass victims completely ignoring the fundamentalist Islamist character of many of its leaders that served Ayatollah Khomeini, even fighting against their own country like Nouri al-Maliki, Hadi al-Ameri and Abu Mahdi al-Muhendes. Murder and assassination were nothing to them. [2]

Coker vilifies their rival, Muqtada al-Sadr and his Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) – probably because she was getting her information in interviews with those in power including al-Maliki, al-Kadhimi, al-Abadi and al-Maliki’s personal spy chief, Abu Ali al-Basri (Abdul Karim Abd Fadel).

Abu Ali al-Basri becomes her one-dimensional hero and star of the book, praised for his struggle to ‘make his homeland safe’ and his efforts to infiltrate and destroy ISIS.

She makes no reference to his background in al-Da’wa’ and al-Maliki’s past terrorist acts against Iraq although noting that Abu Basri was at a-Maliki’s side in al-Da’wa ‘s Damascus office. From where it was organising attacks against Iraq.

She also noted the 1981 suicide bombing of the Iraqi Embassy in Baghdad and even quoted a poem by the late Syrian poet, Nizar Qabbani, whose wife was killed in that attack, [3] but not once did she link these events to al-Maliki and the men serving him. She finds fault only with al-Maliki’s Force 54 writing graphically of their detention of an Al-Qaeda suspect named as Manaf al-Rawi.

Force 54 under al-Maliki kept him naked in a filthy fly-blown cell with bloodstains and excrement smeared on the concrete walls. The prisoner had not been given a toilet, a bucket or a bed by al-Maliki’s squad. The Falcon’s chief, Abu Ali al-Basri, is said to have opposed such methods and eventually got al-Rawi out of this deprivation and began psychological manipulation in a soft touch interrogation instead threatening his family. He is then cast as the Number One Man in the battle against ISIS.

The Kurds are omitted from Coker’s narrative entirely even in the fight against ISIS and the name “Kurdistan” is never used; it is always ‘northern Iraq’. There is one exception, a depiction of a Kurdish girl studying at Baghdad University with whom the son of a conservative Shi’a family in Sadr City, Harith al-Sudani, falls in love in an innocent romance.

The girl, however, is condemned by the Shi’a patriarch that is his stern father as a ‘witch’ – for having bewitched their son. Any marriage between them is forbidden. Eventually Harith al-Sudani having been married off in an arranged marriage finds meaning in life through joining the Falcons under al-Basri’s command. He volunteers to infiltrate the ranks of ISIS.

After a good run for some time, after ISIS operatives discover that Harith al-Sudani is in fact a mole in their midst he becomes another Shi’a martyr at their hands– a sad and chilling end to a promising life.

Throughout the book, Coker relies on the conventional American wisdom including calling Iraq a ‘new democracy’, and this in a book published in 2021. She prefaces all references to Saddam Hussein with the classic terms of ‘dictator’ and thug seeks to render him less-than-human claiming he had ‘dead eyes’…

Al-Basri, in contrast, is glorified as a hero for “his country” and the downtrodden Shi’a.

In real life, Al-Basri has been heard to praise the late Iraqi partner of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhendes, as ‘our martyr’. A detailed short video biography showing al-Basri was put together on the MEMRI website with video clips and subtitles. It includes the following about al-Da’wa:

Abu Ali Al-Basri: “After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the cadres of the Islamic Dawa Party moved to Kuwait and began operating there while maintaining ties with Iraq. Abu Mahdi [Al-Muhandis] was one of the most prominent and influential activists within that Iraqi group in Kuwait. The Iraqi group in Kuwait was contacted by the Islamic Dawa Party cadres in Iran, and by other brothers from Iran and Lebanon. Abu Mahdi was one of the most prominent members of the Iraqi group in Kuwait that coordinated the attack against American interests in Kuwait. The plan was to blow up explosive devices near or inside the American embassy in Kuwait.

The attack was indeed carried out, and the mastermind behind the plan was our martyr Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.” [4] (Italics are my emphasis).

Iran’s payroll

According to an opposition Mojaheddin e-Khalq (MeK) source, Iraqi agents on Iran’s payroll also include Adnan Ibrahim al-Mohsen (Farsified into Mohseni Adnan) AKA Abu Ali al-Basri. After the death of al-Muhandis, al-Basri was appointed as the deputy commander of Hashd al-Sha’abi. Al-Basri came under the command of Qassem Soleimani and headed the Hashd’s operations command.

He is also one of the most prominent military commanders of the Badr Corps. Abu Ali al-Basri was the first military commander to reorganize Badr’s forces by order from Iran in 1998 with the assistance of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

The Popular Mobilization Shura Council chose Abu Ali al-Basri to replace Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis as deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces after al-Muhandis was assassinated with Qassem Soleimani by US drones on January 3, 20205.

Al-Basri had become Undersecretary to the Iraqi Minister of Education in 2003, and after that he became Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labour. Following an ISIS attack he left his position to serve in the ranks of the Popular Mobilization Forces in battling ISIS. [6]

He remained prominent on Badr’s Shura council along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhendes, Hadi al-Ameri, Qasim al-Araji (former head of the Interior Ministry and National Security Advisor close to al-Ameri, [7] and twice arrested by US forces [8], commander Abu Muntadher Al-Husseini and Mohammed al-Ghabban. [9]

He was appointed head of al-Maliki’s private intelligence cell named the Falcons (Suquor). This is the hero and the heroic unit praised by Margaret Coker in her book, as in the interview she gave with NPR about it:

Coker: Well, I have been in and out of Iraq working as a journalist since 2003. And there’s always been these people in the shadows of Iraq who have been working to help rebuild their own country and help defend their country against all of these waves of Islamic terrorism. And so I had known about Abu Ali al-Basri because he is in charge of what is probably the least-known elite spy unit in the Middle East…[10]

This same man was dismissed from his job in the Interior Ministry in January 2021 [11] and has been accused of human rights abuses. [12] He was then reinstated by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. [13] His son, Ali, is also named as being on Iran’s payroll as well as being paid for working with Badr. “Due to his utter loyalty to the IRGC al-Basri was appointed to the Badr operations command, and a short while later he was appointed as commander of the Badr Corps.”

The MeK source also references Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, security advisor of the interior minister and one of the PMF commanders who cooperated with al-Muhandis in the founding of Kata’ib Hezbollah. “Al-Sheibani…has been working for the IRGC since 1986. In interrogation files released in 2018, Qais Khazali, had described al-Sheibani as the “leader and supervisor for the groups belonging to Khamenei.” [14] He commands the Sheibani network. He leads the Sayiid al-Shuhada Brigades that split from Iraqi Hezbollah in Syria in April 2013 and was closely related to Badr, financed by the IRGC-QF. [15]

The full list of Iraqis on Iran’s payroll is worthy of scrutiny. [16] The Americans would do well to differentiate between those who are friends of the West and those perpetuating Ayatollah Khomeini’s vision of international expansion through their own version of Islamic jihad.

Related posts:

The Terror Instructor – Nouri al-Maliki Iran’s Grip on Kirkuk Business with ISIS – Updated Iraq in the Shadow of Khomeinism – Part III: Iraq is NOT Iran! Iraq in the Shadow of Khomeinism – Part I: Baghdad And Erbil Under Threat The Resurrection (Ba’ath) Party – Before the Iran-Iraq War Iraq: Revenge and Corruption The Suffocation of Iraq Kurdistan