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DEGAS’S DEPTH
BALLET WORK
ADORED ANEW
WHISKEY WAR
HOW DISTILLERY
DEAL WENT SOUR
SUICIDE CHOICE
INDIA NEEDS
LAW OVERHAUL
PAGE 8
PAGE 15
PAGE 6
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CULTURE
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BUSINESS
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OPINION
....
MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2014
U.S. searches
for secrets
to power of
Islamic State
No answers
as flight to
Singapore
disappears
WASHINGTON
BANGKOK
General turns to experts
outside Pentagon in
push to counter ideology
Darkness suspends hunt
for AirAsia jet that left
Indonesia carrying 162
BY ERIC SCHMITT
BY THOMAS FULLER
Earlier this summer, Maj. Gen. Michael
K. Nagata, commander of American Special Operations forces in the Middle East,
sought help in solving an urgent problem
for the American military: What makes
the Islamic State so dangerous?
Trying to decipher this complex enemy
— a hybrid terrorist organization and a
conventional army — is such a conundrum that General Nagata assembled an
unofficial brain trust outside the traditional realms of expertise within the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence
agencies, in search of fresh ideas and inspiration. Business professors, for example, are examining the Islamic State’s
marketing and branding strategies.
‘‘We do not understand the movement and until we do, we are not going
to defeat it,’’ he said, according to the
confidential minutes of a conference call
he held with the experts. ‘‘We have not
defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea.’’
General Nagata’s frustration is shared
by other American officials. Even as
President Obama and his civilian and
military aides express confidence that
Iraqi troops backed by allied airstrikes
have blunted the Islamic State’s momentum on the ground in Iraq and undermined its base of support in Syria,
other officials acknowledge that they
have barely made a dent in the larger,
longer-term campaign to kill the ideology
that animates the terrorist movement.
Four months after his first session with
the outside advisers, General Nagata —
one of the military’s rising stars and the
man Mr. Obama has tapped to train a
Pentagon-backed army of Syrian rebels
to fight the Islamic State — is still searching for answers. ‘‘Those questions and
observations are my way of probing and
questioning,’’ General Nagata said in a
brief email this month, declining on orders from his superiors to say more
The minutes of internal conference
calls between General Nagata and more
than three dozen experts he convened
through Pentagon channels in August
Search-and-rescue teams were mobilized from across Southeast Asia on Sunday after a commercial airliner with 162
people on board lost contact with ground
controllers off the coast of Borneo, a
search effort that evoked a distressingly
familiar mix of grief and mystery nine
months after a Malaysia Airlines jetliner
disappeared over the Indian Ocean.
This plane, too, had Malaysian connections: The Airbus A320-200 was operated by the Indonesian affiliate of AirAsia, a regional budget carrier based in
Malaysia.
And while it seemed premature to
make such comparisons, the Indonesian authorities could not explain on
Sunday why the AirAsia jet disappeared
from radar screens about 40 minutes
after leaving the Indonesian city of
Surabaya around 5:30 a.m.
By nightfall, more than 12 hours later,
searchers facing bad weather had found
no sign of the wreckage and the search
was called off for the night, Indonesian
officials said.
The weather along the path of Flight
8501 to Singapore was cloudy, and a
United States-based weather monitoring service reported a number of lightning strikes along the way.
But the monsoon conditions did not
seem insurmountable for a modern airliner.
The route was a well-traveled part of
the Indonesian archipelago; six other
aircraft were in the vicinity of Flight
8501 when it disappeared according to
data by Flightradar24, an organization
that tracks aircraft.
ISLAMIC STATE, PAGE 5
DAUGHTERS LOST TO JIHAD
After their daughters left England for
Syria to join the Islamic State, a family
felt shunned by their community. PAGE 3
SIM CHI YIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Working at a coal factory near Lüliang, in central China. Rich deposits of coal in the area helped fueled the country’s economic boom, turning owners of mines into millionaires.
China city faces life after graft crackdown
LÜLIANG, CHINA
President’s campaign
challenges ties between
coal barons and officials
BY IAN JOHNSON
For 10 fat years, this mountainous
corner of central China was synonymous with the nation’s energy-hungry
economic takeoff. Its rich deposits of
coal fueled the most frenetic era of the
Chinese boom, turning owners of small
mines into millionaires and dirty towns
into gleaming cities.
Now, Lüliang is at the center of one of
the most sweeping political and economic purges in recent Chinese history.
As President Xi Jinping’s campaign
against corruption enters its second
year, the Communist Party authorities
have made an example of this district of
3.7 million, taking down much of its political and business elite in a flurry of
headline-grabbing arrests.
Seven of the 13 party bosses who run
Shanxi Province, where Lüliang is located, have been stripped of power or
thrown in jail, and party propaganda
outlets have trumpeted the crackdown
in the region as proof that Mr. Xi is serious about rooting out corruption.
On Friday, state news media reported
a new wave of arrests, with nine more
Lüliang officials detained. The reports
said the arrests were part of a new emphasis on cleaning up local governments, where officials have extensive
powers and few restraints.
Among those who have been held up
for national humiliation here are Xing
Libin, a coal baron who reportedly spent
$11 million on his daughter’s wedding,
and Zhang Zhongsheng, a local apparatchik accused of using illegal gains to
build hilltop mansions. Interviews in
Lüliang and in state news reports put
the two men at the center of an incestuous network of entrepreneurs and party
officials who bought and sold govern-
Corruption and coal brought
prosperity. But the rules are
changing, with consequences
for the economy uncertain.
ment posts to maintain control of the
area’s lucrative coal mines and to finance lavish lifestyles.
The downfall of men like Mr. Xing and
Mr. Zhang has been cheered by much of
the Chinese public, which is outraged by
the runaway, often illicit concentration
of wealth that has characterized China’s
embrace of capitalism.
But in Lüliang and elsewhere, Mr. Xi’s
prolonged, nationwide crackdown on
corruption has also unsettled the party
establishment and its allies in business.
Even among ordinary residents, there
is concern about what it might mean for
jobs and growth, because private businessmen have been targeted alongside
government and party officials.
‘‘In this part of China, officials are
held in the palms of the coal barons,’’
said one shopkeeper, who asked that his
name not be used so he could speak
freely about a politically sensitive subject. ‘‘But these business leaders were
capable — they made us prosper.’’
For much of China’s growth era, party
officials and businesses have enjoyed a
symbiotic relationship, with policy concessions and market access granted in
exchange for corporate support —
CHINA, PAGE 14
its location in Aleppo.
When he became one of the few to be
released this May, he pressed to meet
with United States officials in Turkey.
‘‘I thought that I had truly important
information that could be used to save
these people,’’ he said. ‘‘But I was
deeply disappointed.’’
A State Department employee and a
contractor were eventually sent to meet
him at a restaurant, but both were assigned to deal with civil society in Syria,
not hostages. Mr. Abo Aljoud grew frustrated, insisting that he could pinpoint
the location of the prison on a map. Instead, he said, he received only vague
assurances that the employees would
pass on the details he had shared and
his contact information to the relevant
investigators.
‘‘It’s my impression that they were
more interested in gathering intelligence, in general, than in saving these
people,’’ he said. ‘‘I could have shown
them the location on Google Maps, but
they weren’t interested.’’
Although the hostages had been
moved by the time he met with the
Boats and planes from at least three
countries had joined the search along a
100-mile stretch of the Java Sea near the
island of Belitung, between the islands
of Borneo and Sumatra, the plane’s last
known location. The search was to continue Monday morning.
Shortly before contact was lost on
Sunday, the cockpit crew informed air
traffic controllers in Jakarta that they
were planning to rise to 38,000 from
32,000 feet to avoid a cloud, Djoko Murjatmodjo, the acting director general of
air transport at the Indonesian Ministry
of Transportation, told reporters at a
news conference in Jakarta.
‘‘At the moment, we don’t know
where the exact location is, except that
this morning at 6:17, we lost contact,’’
Mr. Djoko said. The Singapore authorities said contact was lost at 6:24 a.m.
Jakarta time; the discrepancy has not
been explained.
Mr. Djoko said the authorities had not
detected any emergency distress
beacons that are normally triggered by
an accident.
‘‘Therefore we cannot assume anything yet,’’ he said.
Kompas, a newspaper in Indonesia,
quoted Mr. Djoko as saying that the
plane’s request to divert from its flight
path was approved but that air traffic
controllers denied the request to ascend
to 38,000 feet ‘‘because of traffic.’’ He
did not elaborate.
O N L I N E AT INY T.COM
Economic unknowns for the U.S.
American ransom policy
closes off other options
GAZIANTEP, TURKEY
Ex-captives and Syrians
say U.S. officials failed
to act on information
BY RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
SERGEY PONOMAREV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Chaotic stalemate
Homs, seen from a mosque in June. As Syria’s civil war nears its fourth year, the battleground is divided
between the government and the extremists, leaving many Syrians feeling that their revolution has failed. nytimes.com/world
New York police mourn officer
INSIDE TO DAY ’S PA P E R
Hundreds stranded as ferry burns
Stormy weather hindered the rescue of
nearly 500 passengers traveling to Italy
from Greece. WORLD NEWS, 3
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IN THIS ISSUE
No. 40,992
Books 8
Business 13
Crossword 12
Culture 8
Opinion 6
Sports 10
For a fleeting moment last year, Louai
Abo Aljoud, a Syrian journalist, made
eye contact with the American hostages
being held by the Islamic State militant
group.
One of dozens of prisoners inside a
former potato chip factory in northern
Syria, Mr. Abo Aljoud was taken out of
his cell one day and assigned to deliver
meals to fellow inmates. It was when he
opened the slot to Cell No. 2 that he first
saw them — the gaunt, frightened faces
of James Foley, Steven J. Sotloff and
Peter Kassig.
Mr. Abo Aljoud, a 23-year-old freelance cameraman, said he resolved not
only to save himself but also to help the
other inmates if he could. He memorized the prison’s floor plan and studied
Pinterest gets down to brass tacks
On New Year’s Day, the digital
scrapbook company plans to make its
first money-making product available
to all marketers who want to buy
advertising on the site. BUSINESS, 13
Canada’s bilingual nationhood
For help on immigration, the United
States should look north, where we get
a lot right when it comes to living in a
multilingual, multicultural world,
Chrystia Freeland writes. OPINION, 6
HOSTAGES, PAGE 5
Amazon program angers authors
Some self-published writers say their
income has experienced a large and
rapid decrease under Amazon’s all-youcan-read business model, Kindle
Unlimited. nytimes.com/technology
MASSOUD HOSSAINI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Afghan combat mission ends
The change, greeted with fanfare,
means little in remote areas still
battling the Taliban. WORLD NEWS, 4
ANTARA FOTO/REUTERS
A relative of an AirAsia passenger waited
on Sunday at Surabaya airport, Indonesia.
Governor’s ratings fall at home
As Chris Christie spends more time
outside New Jersey while considering a
run for president, residents’ opinions of
him are at a low. nytimes.com/nyregion
INDONESIA, PAGE 4
As for how the American economy may
perform next year, a handful of factors,
including unemployment and inflation,
will help set the United States’
direction, Justin Wolfers writes on The
Upshot. nytimes.com/business
Coach’s transition far from smooth
Phil Jackson, who hired Derek Fisher
to coach the New York Knicks, has not
always agreed that players should go
right into coaching. And Fisher’s record
may make the point. nytimes.com/sports