Thread by @rcallimachi

1. One of the enduring mysteries of Baghdadi's death is where it occurred. Idlib was known to be the home of al-Qaeda-linked groups that have been ISIS' rival. We now have data indicating ISIS succeeded in paying off & infiltrating one of these groups: nytimes.com/2019/10/30/wor…

2. @Asaadh84, who recently retired from his job in US intelligence and is now a valued colleague at @gwupoe, used his network in Syria to gather receipts including this one for $7000, showing payments from ISIS' security branch to members of al-Qaede linked Hurras al Din

@Asaadh84 @gwupoe 3. @Asaadh84's team collected eight receipts, showing payments of $65,000 from ISIS to Hurras al Din. The one below says that cash is “to pay for the preparation of bases for the brothers arriving from Al Khair Province,” the name ISIS gave to the region around Deir al-Zour.

@Asaadh84 @gwupoe 3. This receipt was issued in August 2018, when ISIS had been pushed into a corner of eastern Syria. They were losing ground fast & the receipt appears to indicate that they were looking to move their fighters out, with Hurras al Din taking payment to set up new bases for them

@Asaadh84 @gwupoe 4. The receipts do not indicate an organizational pact between ISIS & Hurras al Din, as @ajaltamimi points out. At most it shows a relationship between ISIS &
members of Hurras. @Asaadh84's evidence also indicates payments to the rival group for salaries and media equipment

@Asaadh84 @gwupoe @ajaltamimi 5. As far back as February, we know that ISIS was asking for safe passage to Idlib during negotiations with the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, suggesting they had a base there already. nytimes.com/2019/02/06/wor…

@Asaadh84 @gwupoe @ajaltamimi 6. Intriguingly, the 8 receipts @Asaadh84 recovered date from Jan 2017 to mid-2018. Hurras is announced as a new group in Feb 2017. @Asaadh84 reads this as a sign that ISIS reached out to future members of Hurras before they'd broken from HTS in an effort to infiltrate them

@Asaadh84 @gwupoe @ajaltamimi 7. The receipts are partial. They come from a book of numbered receipts, similar to others I found all over Iraq in the reporting of our ISIS Files story. These books hold dozens. Here we see 8. This is a snapshot. Not the full story. Thank you @Asaadh84 for this valuable data

(Correction - thanks @Charles_Lister and @ajaltamimi) Hurras is publicly announced in Feb 2018, not 2017. Receipts are before & after the announcement. @Asaadh84’s interpretation is that ISIS was trying to get an in with defectors from HTS before the new entity was off the ground