The early chapters of this series focus on a man we refer to as Abu Huseyfa al-Khanadi, who claimed to be a member of ISIS and said he had committed multiple murders while in the Islamic State.
In several episodes of the series, we documented his story, as well as our efforts to verify aspects of it.
In September of 2020, two and a half years after this podcast was released, the Canadian police arrested Josefa, whose real name is Shairoz Chowdhury, and charged him with perpetrating a hoax.
That charge led the Times to conduct its own investigation, which found a history of misrepresentations by Chowdhury. and no corroboration that he committed the atrocities he described in the Caliphate podcast.
As a result, the Times has concluded that the episodes of Caliphate that presented Chowdhury's claims did not meet our standards for accuracy.
In this feed, we've published a conversation with the executive editor of The Times, Dean Baquet, where he discusses the original reporting in Caliphate and what The Times has found in its re-examination of the story.
How does ISIS prepare you to kill people?Is there anything?They had dolls.
Yeah, we had dolls to practice on.We also have cutouts of ballistics gels.It would feel a lot like human.And inside the ballistics gels, they'd have sacks where major organs would be.
And then you could slice, practice, behead, stab, and just practice.It kind of felt like what a medical student would do.And you had to know how to use a knife on a human.
Okay.Okay, can I go back to the image?
Of course. So, can you describe what we're looking at?
Yeah. It's a man standing in the desert.He's clad in black.His face is covered.All you see is a slit for his eyes.He has a knife in his hand and he's stabbing it in the direction of the camera.At his feet is another man.
I wish I had more time.This one is wearing an orange jumpsuit.I wish I could have the hope of freedom and seeing my family once again.
His name is James Foley.He's an American freelance journalist, and he's been kidnapped by the Islamic State.
This is James Wright Foley, an American citizen of your country.
And he's about to be executed.
Any aggression towards the Islamic State will result in the bloodshed of your people.
This is basically how the world meets ISIS.Yeah.And now... Breaking news out of London, a deadly terror attack overnight.
Years later, ISIS is... A van plowing into a crowd of people out simply enjoying a Saturday night.
A bunch of guys in a van who are plowing into pedestrians on London Bridge, pulling out kitchen knives, stabbing people on the streets where they live.
Two suspects in San Bernardino's mass shooting identified.
It's a husband and wife.I heard rapid shooting, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.Who head to a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California, and come in guns blazing.
Breaking news, an explosion at the very busy Port Authority bus terminal.
It's an immigrant living in Brooklyn who straps on a suicide vest and tries to detonate it in a subway tunnel in Times Square, just a block away from my office.
He told investigators he detonated an explosive device in the name of ISIS.
And I truly believe this is a defining moment in history.
ISIS is the latest incarnation.
This is clearly a case of good versus evil.
Of a war we have been fighting now for nearly two decades.
And make no mistake about it, good will prevail.We will continue to hunt down terrorists and dismantle their networks, and we reserve the right to act unilaterally.I'm going to bomb the shit out of them.
It's true.I don't care. They've got to be stopped.
Despite the billions of dollars we have spent, despite the thousands of lives that have been lost, both our own soldiers and the civilians that have been caught in the crossfire, there are more terrorists now than there were on the eve of September 11th.
Not less.Just try to get your head around that.There are more terror groups now, not less.There are more ways that they attack.There are more strategies to do so.There are more tools that they use.There are more of them, not less.
It's like, as for you, in the simplest terms, what is it you're trying to find out?
I am trying to answer one question.Who are they?This is something you learned in the training.
Yeah.They said that they did say that, you know, it's going to be hard for you guys killing and everything.Who are they really?
They said first time it's gonna affect you a lot, you're gonna be sad, you're gonna be sick, and you might even faint from the blood.
Who is it that we are really fighting?
But what you have to do is you just have to drink down those emotions, remember you're doing this for God, remember you're carrying out what it says in the Quran and what you have to, what your duty it is as a Muslim.
And you, I mean, you didn't question that?
I didn't, no, I didn't question that.
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