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NY Times, Dec. 21 2015
Behind the Black Flag: The Recruitment of an ISIS Killer
Since the Syrian rebel leader Hassan Aboud joined ISIS, taking with him
fighters and weapons, he has been behind a sprawling mix of battlefield
action and crime.
By C. J. CHIVERS
Hassan Aboud’s practiced baritone belied the malevolence in his words.
“Oh Darraji!” he sang. “Our state provided us ammunition and sent us to
assassinate you.”
That state is the self-proclaimed Islamic State, also known as ISIS or
ISIL, the terrorist group that controls territory in Syria and Iraq and
has recently projected violence to Ankara, Beirut, Paris and San
Bernardino, Calif. A soft-spoken double-amputee sometimes carried to
meetings by fellow gunmen, Mr. Aboud is an Islamic State commander who
also directs a network of assassins, including those who killed Darraji,
a former subordinate, with bullets and flame.
The recording of his singing circulated among past associates this year.
A taunting dark requiem, it serves as evidence and confession. Mr.
Aboud, who defected from Syria’s rebels to the terrorist group in 2014,
was admitting to previously unsolved killings of former friends.
“We plucked Adeeb Abbas’s head,” he continued, naming another of his
one-time deputies, blasted from a motorcycle by a roadside bomb. “We
spilled his filthy blood.”
He then vowed to kill more, as a male chorus chanted to those marked to
die: “We will liquidate every traitor.”
Since rising to prominence as an international menace, the Islamic State
has tried to glorify its members, describing them as religious warriors
who raised arms to protect fellow Sunni Muslims and serve their
understanding of God. But the journey of Mr. Aboud, and his recruitment
by ISIS, including with cash, departs from scripts emphasizing piety or
civil defense.
It is the chronicle of an underground fighter maimed and darkened by his
long fight, the biography — replete with rivalries and fratricide — of a
proven and once popular Islamist commander whose actions turned more
violent and vengeful as he moved into the Islamic State’s orbit.
Mr. Aboud, his former neighbors and associates say, abandoned the
defense of his hometown for money, power and the license for viciousness
that came with joining the Islamic State. His path resembled not the
airbrushed arcs laid out in jihadist propaganda mills but a Middle
Eastern mafia tale set against the corrupting effects of war.
The journey from jihadist rank-and-file to feared underground figure was
shaped by multiple forces. These include the American invasion of Iraq
in 2003 and the oppression of a border-straddling Sunni Muslim
population by governments in Damascus and Baghdad. It was further stoked
by the indiscriminate killing of civilians by Syrian security forces
since 2011, then channeled by the patient plotting of a jihadist
organization, once shattered, that revived itself to eclipse Al Qaeda.
Ultimately, his courtship by ISIS offers an unusually detailed look at
how the group has selected commanders from a region that has produced
uncountable militants since 2003. These chosen men, seduced by gifts and
the Islamic State’s gloomy prestige, hold the terrain it needs to
support its claim of being a caliphate.
Journalists for The New York Times met Mr. Aboud in Syria in 2013, as he
led sieges around isolated army positions that were shelling the
civilian population nearby; it was a fight he and the several hundred
rebels he led, known as the Dawood Brigade, eventually won.
Sarmin, the town in the lowlands of Idlib Province where he
headquartered his brigade, was itself under frequent shelling, and he
was moving and accepting meetings with much more caution than many rebel
commanders.
The interview was arranged by the son-in-law of his boss, but Mr.
Aboud’s supporters had everyone wait in the basement of a mosque for
part of the afternoon before leading the group to an abandoned building
in the partially evacuated, battle-scarred town.
Mr. Aboud was rushed in from the outside by those who carried him. He
had lost fighters in battle the previous day and seemed weary and
suspicious of guests. His gray pants had been folded to hide his
lower-leg stumps, which he crossed in front of himself as he sat on a
cushion. He opened the conversation in a quiet voice, and threatened to
kill the journalists if he were misquoted.
Abu Ayman, a bomb-maker who helped carry him into the room, spoke more
than Mr. Aboud, who chose his words with care, even when repeating
Islamist boilerplate.
He complained about the activities of many secular rebels, describing
them as opportunists and profiteers. “There are Free Syrian Army
brigades,” Mr. Aboud said, that get weapons and “sell them in trade.” He
asserted, again speaking softly, that Syria was being plunged into
sectarian war by Iran and those it underwrites, including the Syrian
government and Hezbollah. “Iran is seeking to re-establish the Persian
empire, to get control over the whole Middle East,” he said.
Immediately after the conversation, he was picked up, carried swiftly
outside and set on the front passenger seat of a muddy S.U.V., which
sped away.
The Times returned to the Turkish-Syrian border after his defection and
vendetta killings to interview those who worked with him closely.
Today Mr. Aboud, in his mid-30s, is an exile from Sarmin, where he had
lived most of his adult life. Past associates refer to him as either an
ISIS wali or emir, titles conveying authority or military power that the
Islamic State bestows on governors and its middle rank.
They note that he did not simply drift to ISIS; he has had a
relationship with the original underground Sunni insurgents in Iraq’s
Anbar Province, part of the crucible where ISIS formed, reaching back
more than a decade.
Mr. Aboud and one of his brothers fought American forces there in 2004
and 2005, several townspeople said. Some suggested that the pair
returned to Syria as a sleeper cell tied to Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was
founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and after his death in 2006 eventually
became ISIS.
In the nearly year and a half since Mr. Aboud publicly joined the
Islamic State, taking with him most of his fighters and many powerful
weapons, he has been credited with, or blamed for, a sprawling mix of
battlefield action and crime. Those who know him contend he led the
capture of Palmyra, the town and ancient heritage site that ISIS defiled.
For all of Mr. Aboud’s activity, however, his story suggests limits to
advancement within the group, which analysts say to a large degree
remains led by Iraqis, including many connected to the dismantled
Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein.
Hassan al-Dugheim, a rebel cleric who said he had observed Mr. Aboud
since 2011, said his tactical skill and ruthlessness were beyond
question. He bluntly added, however, that he considered Mr. Aboud
stupid, and that the Islamic State had found in him a man who could be
flattered, bought, then used.
“Syrians are for fighting,” he said, and those who had joined ISIS
recently faced a glass ceiling inside. “They are like animals to be
ridden, like a horse or a mule.”
Crucible of Sunni Militancy
Hassan Aboud was among the earliest of his townspeople to experience war
on what would become the Islamic State’s turf.
In 2004, he and a brother, known as Abu Shadi, traveled to Iraq to join
the fight against the American military around Falluja and Ramadi,
according to residents of Sarmin. Mr. Aboud, a stoneworker, was in his
20s, entering freshly colonized turf in a militant underworld.
Accounts of his Iraq time vary. Some confusion, his townspeople say, is
because Mr. Aboud was circumspect about his activities — an unsurprising
behavior considering concerns in Syria’s Alawite-led government that
those aligned with Sunni militants in Iraq could rekindle unrest in the
Sunni population at home.
Mr. Aboud’s associates said he returned in 2005. A relative, who asked
for anonymity so as not to draw his wrath, said that while away Mr.
Aboud swore allegiance, or bayat, to his militant leaders. “It was known
Hassan Aboud was Al Qaeda,” he said.
State of Terror
Articles in this series examine the rise of the Islamic State and life
inside the territory it has conquered.
Another man, an activist from Sarmin who worked with the Dawood Brigade,
said he had seen a video from 2005 of Mr. Aboud with Mr. Zarqawi.
A proponent of terrorism, deliberate savagery and management by fear,
Mr. Zarqawi helped push Iraq into sectarian war, inspired a generation
of jihadists and became one of the world’s most wanted men before
American bombs killed him in 2006. His group later rebuffed top Qaeda
leaders to form ISIS.
Mr. Dugheim, the cleric, said he doubted Mr. Aboud was a Qaeda member,
noting that he concerned himself solely with local battles and was
opposed to the Nusra Front, Syria’s official Qaeda franchise, as it
gathered strength. “I exclude the possibility that he really gave
bayat,” he said.
Others noted, however, that the Nusra Front and the Islamic State were
competitors who became foes, and Mr. Aboud’s connections were not with
the central Qaeda leadership that gave the Nusra Front its jihadist
authority but with the Iraq wing. Opposition to the Nusra Front, by this
view, did not exclude allegiance to the faction that became ISIS.
Whatever the inner loyalties, Mr. Aboud’s life as a fighter once
appeared to end. His return home was noteworthy. The activist who worked
with him said he knew five men from Sarmin who fought in Iraq. Two died
as suicide bombers.
Mr. Aboud dodged that fate, and resumed an unassuming life: He owned a
Kia truck and earned wages delivering cement and rebar.
By 2007 he and his brothers owned a workshop, made cinder blocks, sold
decorative and patio stone and hired out for contracts. “I used to see
him at a lot of houses under construction, and he had laborers working
for him, five or six at a time,” the activist said.
Roughly two years before the uprising, Syrian security forces raided
Sarmin, cracking down on Sunni networks. One of Mr. Aboud’s brothers was
caught.
“Abu Shadi was detained in the street, and taken to Sednaya prison,” the
activist said, referring to the infamous jail near Damascus where the
government warehoused those it considered Sunni extremists.
In the interview with The Times in 2013, Mr. Aboud confirmed the arrest,
but gave a minimal explanation, suggesting his brother had been punished
for his faith. “My brother was sent to jail because of his beard,” he said.
He described Syria’s government as an oppressive weight. “They can fight
you for an idea you carry in your mind, because of your beard, the way
you pray or you dress,” he said. “It is like a siege on your emotions
and your beliefs.”
Mr. Aboud seemed to elude the attention of intelligence services.
Neighbors said he was conservative and religious, but not overtly so. He
wore a beard, but kept it trimmed. Sometimes he smoked, although
descriptions of him tend to center on his clean living.
He and his wife were raising a family. His night life consisted of
staying up late, drinking tea. “He had a good reputation, nothing bad,”
said a doctor in Sarmin who said he often met Mr. Aboud, but asked not
to be named for his safety.
In early 2011, after popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya,
protests erupted in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Aboud
went underground, beginning his long campaign.
“When it started in Tunisia, we were optimistic,” he told The Times. “We
started to arrange and coordinate with people we trusted.”
The government fired on protesters in Dara’a that March, killing at
least three. Mr. Aboud said bloodshed triggered action. “A day later we
joined the revolution, beginning with demonstrations out of the
mosques,” he said.
Syria was on a path to war. Mr. Aboud’s former allies recall his clear
sense of the steps to take at each stage — skills they suspect he
learned in Iraq.
Protest organizers left their homes to sleep in fields and among the
trees, dodging security forces. Sarmin’s quiet stoneworker, they
learned, was more ready than most. “Hassan Aboud would bring us bread
and canned food,” said Ahmed al-Aasi, an activist with Ahrar al-Sham, a
large Islamist fighting group.
He was quick to violence. As Syria deployed its army, Mr. Aboud was
among the first armed rebels in a landscape that would eventually be
awash in them.
In June 2011, while Syrian protesters appealed for international
support, Mr. Aboud participated in the ambush of an army convoy near
Jisr al-Shoughour, four associates said. The little band in which he
fought with a friend, Dawood al-Sheikh, had only seven or eight rifles.
It was a quixotic clash. Mr. Sheikh was killed. The road remained open.
Crackdowns continued apace. It also provided a glimpse of the future:
Mr. Aboud soon formed a fighting group, named it the Dawood Brigade and
left protests behind.
His brigade started small. But it set up a guerrilla base among olive
groves and caves, where it trained, manufactured weapons and extended
its fight. By late 2011, it joined Suqour al-Sham, or Sham Falcons
brigade, an Islamist group founded by Ahmed Abu Issa, a former prisoner
in Sednaya.
Many early rebel groups lacked experience, money, training and cohesion.
The Dawood Brigade was different, Mr. Aboud’s townspeople said. It
tended to details necessary to become a fighting force.
Mr. Aboud’s brother, released from Sednaya, organized logistics,
including medical care and convalescence in Turkey for wounded fighters.
Mr. Aboud established training regimens that even his critics say
produced results.
“Hassan Aboud has a mean heart, and he is fierce, and he tells his
fighters to be hard and fierce in battle,” said the activist who used to
work with him. “No other group in Idlib had this ferocity, and he made
them like this because of his training.”
“They had constant and continuous training,” the doctor said, in
tactics, weapons and sports.
Mr. Aboud gained access to funders from the Persian Gulf, and more
support from Abu Issa. “Sham Falcons gave them a big share of the money
and resources because they had results,” said Abu Ameen, another
activist who worked with rebel commanders.
In 2012, the brigade had drawn in hundreds of local men, amassed weapons
and paid salaries of $140 a month. “This was at a time when other rebel
groups could not offer their fighters lunch,” said another activist,
Mohyeddin Abdulrazzaq, who otherwise spoke harshly of Mr. Aboud.
The brigade also mastered a staple of militant war: the use of
improvised bombs, with which it punished Syrian forces and controlled
roads. “They had sophisticated bombing operations in the beginning, when
no one else did it,” Abu Ameen said.
Other rebel units caught up to this tactic, and together shifted the
nature of the war, forcing the Syrian Army to withdraw to outposts and
bases.
One result was the creation of marginally governed territory into which
foreign fighters flowed, and where ISIS would eventually assert a place.
In the short term, Mr. Aboud achieved a degree of local popularity.
“Hassan Aboud was sacred among his fighters,” Mr. Abdulrazzaq said.
“When you mouthed bad words among his fighters, it was as if you mouthed
bad words against God.”
As Mr. Aboud gained power his activities sometimes turned sinister. Mr.
Aasi said he became involved in the abductions of Alawites, and sought
ransoms for their release. Other rebel leaders once intervened to stop
the Dawood Brigade from executing civilians near Fuoa, a
government-controlled town, Mr. Aasi said; among the detainees were
women and a child. “He had a criminal tendency,” he said. “He became a
dictator even before we had an ISIS.”
His affinity for irregular war almost led to his death.
From its bases, the army increased the shelling of Sunni towns, setting
in motion waves of refugees. The brigade’s arms-makers started producing
rockets, which they fired at the soldiers concentrated at government
positions. “We targeted their camps with lots of rockets,” Mr. Aboud
told The Times in 2013. “It was good, accepted.”
In late 2012, the brigade was filming a video for a Qatari funder, an
activist said, when a rocket exploded prematurely, gravely wounding
several rebels, including Mr. Aboud, whose lower legs were mangled.
Mr. Aboud survived the ride to a clinic, where both his feet were
amputated. The doctor recalled being surprised by his demeanor. “For
someone who had just had his feet removed, he had high morale,” he said.
“He was joking.”
When Mr. Aboud was interviewed months later by The Times, he mentioned
the mishap only when asked. “One time we were launching a rocket and it
exploded and that’s how I lost my legs,” he said, and changed the
subject. “Now we have improved rockets,” he added. “More safe. More
effective. Bigger.”
Frustration and Recruitment
By 2013 the Dawood Brigade had established more bases, expanded
training, participated in prominent battles and captured many more
weapons. By some counts Mr. Aboud possessed nine tanks, four B.M.P.
fighting vehicles and a fleet of trucks carrying 14.5-millimeter machine
guns.
A tactical powerhouse, he was in demand on Arabic-language news
stations. With rebel prestige came rivalries, the office politics of
war. Mr. Aboud, those who know him said, believed his successes had not
been adequately rewarded or gained him autonomy.
“Dawood Brigade is the one who participated in the battles and made the
gains, but all the support and money went to Abu Issa and the Sham
Falcons,” his relative said.
Mr. Dugheim said that in 2013, as Islamist rebel groups discussed
merging into a united front, Mr. Aboud wanted equal billing with the
Falcons. Abu Issa rejected the proposal. Mr. Aboud seethed.
Distance from rebel leadership grew. “His funds went down with the loss
of support, and he was in trouble,” Mr. Dugheim said.
It was then that ISIS made its move. A shadowy presence compared to now,
it sought to lure him into its ranks.
People who know Mr. Aboud describe a series of meetings with Islamic
State leaders from Iraq, including with Abu Ali al-Anbari, a former
Iraqi military officer who moved outside the city of Aleppo with a
security contingent and a mission to recruit local commanders.
Abu Ameen described a “secret operational phase” by ISIS in 2013 that
targeted rebel and activist networks. Its timing aligned with Mr.
Aboud’s disputes, he said, “and Dawood Brigade is one of the groups that
was infiltrated.”
At one point, activists said, Abu Ali called a meeting of rebel leaders
in Idlib Province to discuss relationships with ISIS. He also sent ISIS
agents to Sarmin to woo Mr. Aboud, who had begun to noticeably fall
under the Islamic State’s sway.
Mr. Dugheim said he mediated between Abu Issa and Mr. Aboud at the time.
ISIS, he said, was flattering the brigade with attention and gifts.
“ISIS offered Hassan Aboud a big amount of money — $2 million — when
Hassan Aboud actually had nothing in hand,” Mr. Dugheim said. “They gave
him weapons and money and food.”
This sum could not be independently confirmed.
Abu Ameen said Abu Ali’s calculated strategy won over many fighters.
“Some joined ISIS publicly, but some joined ISIS but remained within the
same group they were part of,” he said. “With money and promises, ISIS
got control of hearts and minds.”
Even before the public defection, hints of extremist influence appeared
in his brigade.
Through 2013, associates said, the brigade had not been linked to
suicide bombings. Mr. Aboud, they said, did not use his fighters, mostly
local men, that way.
But a video of brigade training, posted online in October 2013, shows
recruits being lectured in suicide tactics by a middle-aged man with
closely cropped hair and a long beard. The Dawood logo is superimposed
on the scene.
An American military official who analyzes ISIS said the recruitment and
changes fit a pattern. “It was a successful intelligence operation,” she
said. “They were able to go in, find people who were vulnerable and
could be flipped, flip them, and turn it into what they perceive as a
state.”
Mr. Dugheim said by then Mr. Aboud parroted the Islamic State’s style,
sometimes behaving like a takfiri, one who labels other Muslims as
insufficiently religious, and thus impure.
The change in persona, Mr. Dugheim said, indicated a man out of his
depth. “One of the problems in human nature is when you have a hero who
is stupid,” he said. “And Hassan Aboud is a hero who is stupid.”
“He misread the situation,” he added.
Defection and Fratricide
The killings began before the Dawood Brigade drove out of Sarmin. Mr.
Aboud was turning on his own.
Among the first victims were Darraji and Bassim Abdulrazzaq, brothers
who had joined the brigade in 2012.
The pair had formed a smaller rebel group that occasionally collaborated
with its old boss. In December 2013, they joined the brigade in a battle
against a Syrian checkpoint, according to Mohyeddin Abdulrazzaq, a
second cousin of the men.
The checkpoint fell. But one brother was wounded, several fighters were
killed and a heavy machine gun they relied on was destroyed. Shaken,
they asked Mr. Aboud for a 14.5-millimeter machine gun to cover their
loss. He refused.
In January 2014, Mohyeddin Abdulrazzaq said, the brothers asked again.
They visited Mr. Aboud, were cheered when he consented and drove off
with their new weapon. They did not make it far.
“A few hours later came news to the town of a vehicle burned on the
road,” he said. “It held Darraji and his brother. Aboud gave them the
machine gun, and then had them killed.”
It was not just that Mr. Aboud did not like being asked twice. Darraji
had publicly spoken against ISIS in the fall, when it had kidnapped
workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross near Sarmin.
Mr. Aboud appeared for the funeral and paid respects.
Not long after, Mr. Aboud announced he was joining a new group, Jaish
al-Sham. Throughout early 2014 the group seemed a symbol of infighting
and dysfunction, repeatedly clashing with other rebels. Mr. Aboud’s
associates said that sometimes he expressed allegiance to the Islamic
State, and that other times he renounced it.
Abu Ameen said, in hindsight, that Mr. Aboud was following new masters.
“Getting instructions from ISIS,” he said.
Residents said they suspected Mr. Aboud of organizing hits, including on
a Dawood commander, nicknamed Hyena, and Abu Abbas, the brigade’s
Shariah instructor. But there was no clear proof, and the brigade’s
brooding presence created disincentives to inquiry.
Mr. Aboud’s affiliation finally became explicit in July, when he formed
his brigade into a convoy, ostensibly bound for Aleppo and yet another
fight. “Only those close to him knew the real plan,” his relative said.
Short of Aleppo, Mr. Aboud stopped and announced that he was a servant
of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s leader, and was heading to
Raqqa, its operational hub, to join the caliphate.
“Hassan told them that he had given bayat to Abu Bakr, and those who
wanted to stay with him could stay and those who wanted to go were
free,” the activist who worked with him said.
How many members were present is a matter of dispute. Several former
associates said a few hundred. (News reports claimed as many as 1,000;
an exaggeration, residents of Sarmin say.)
About 100 fighters declined, and returned home with the news.
The brigade’s departure deepened the troubles of an already beleaguered
town. Its defenses were weakened, residents said, because Mr. Aboud took
a large fraction of the area’s weapons, forsaking those he had vowed to
protect.
Behind the Black Banner
Since Mr. Aboud arrived in Raqqa, his associates said, they have had
only occasional insight into his militant life. ISIS, they note, is a
such a closed system that little is known even of Mr. Baghdadi and the
nature of his power. Mr. Aboud and his brigade, once he defected, dialed
back their social media presence and interviews. His activities, they
said, have been assembled piecemeal.
Mr. Dugheim was among the last to speak with him before his defection.
ISIS had just swept across part of Iraq, capturing Mosul and Tikrit. Mr.
Aboud appeared smitten, as if it were 2004 again.
“I said to him, ‘Why do you like ISIS?’” Mr. Dugheim said. The reply had
little to do with Syria’s revolution: “Because ISIS is being fought by
the U.S.A.”
The American military analyst said that today Mr. Aboud appeared to be
“of midlevel stature,” and that “ISIL-core will exploit his
quote-unquote ‘talents’” while seeing him as “disposable, expendable.”
This matched what his townspeople described — the Dawood Brigade’s
movement across the Islamic State’s Syrian territory on a range of
shifting missions. Based on where his fighters have been killed, they
said, Mr. Aboud has fought in Kobani, Aleppo, near Raqqa, near Homs and
for the Shaer gas field and the capture of Palmyra.
The brigade has also been accused, without public evidence, of
assassinating the leadership of Ahrar al-Sham, and of holding the
abducted journalist James Foley before turning him over to ISIS. (ISIS
beheaded Mr. Foley in 2014. Claims of a Dawood Brigade role in his
detention, made in news reports and echoed on social media, do not align
with facts known of his case.)
One sighting of Mr. Aboud occurred in June in Palmyra. Khaled al-Homsi,
an activist, said he was briefly imprisoned there, and Mr. Aboud toured
the jail on crutches. “He met me privately in a room,” he said, “to
convince me to pledge allegiance.”
After the Islamic State consolidated control in Palmyra, he added, some
of the staff in the courts were from the Dawood Brigade, suggesting Mr.
Aboud was trying to govern.
Efforts to reach Mr. Aboud this fall were unsuccessful. But former
associates said they expected he would fail at such aspirations.
Mr. Aasi said Mr. Aboud’s role was obvious — as an enforcer, an
instrument of purposeful violence to help ISIS gain territory and rule
by fear. “With ISIS there are no limits, and you can abduct and kill
whomever you like,” he said. “Hassan Aboud does not have a problem with
killing. He likes it.”
The rebels’ former ally, he said, “is sick in his mind.”
Mr. Dugheim, the cleric, said Mr. Aboud left Sham Falcons for an even
more complicated game, and had peaked. “Regardless of his title, he
cannot make a decision,” he said, because ISIS limits the authority of
its Syrian commanders.
Another American military official who analyzes ISIS said that under the
pressure of airstrikes and internal strife, members with titles like
emir and wali now gain rank through attrition, not design. “We watch the
deck shuffle constantly, as they attempt to determine who will fit a
role that has been vacated,” he said, “vacated” being a euphemism for
“killed.”
Whatever Mr. Aboud’s eventual fate, his relative said, much of the
legacy was already known. The recording of Mr. Aboud singing — coolly in
tune as he described killing old friends — was a marker of a man lost to
crime, a revolution soured and a people betrayed.
“His violence, his assassinations, his killing people — he is really
behind this,” he said. “It is a mess now. Everything we have is a mess.”
Karam Shoumali contributed reporting from Istanbul, and Hwaida Saad from
Beirut, Lebanon.
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