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Editors at the Book Review choose bestfiction and nonfiction of 2021, from a“prose poem” by a debut novelist to abiography of Sylvia Plath. PAGE 14
BOOK REVIEW
The Year’s Top 10 BooksThe 1993 killing of a woman near Buf-falo is drawing scrutiny amid fears thatthe state was wrong when two menwere convicted of the crime. PAGE 1
METROPOLITAN
Old Murder, New MysteryNo burnishing here: The Tesla founderseems to take immense pleasure inusing his identity as a philanthropist toantagonize the public. PAGE 1
SUNDAY BUSINESS
Elon Musk’s Troll Philanthropy Peter Coy PAGE 4
SUNDAY REVIEW
A single top secret Americanstrike cell launched tens of thou-sands of bombs and missilesagainst the Islamic State in Syria,but in the process of hammering avicious enemy, the shadowy forcesidestepped safeguards and re-peatedly killed civilians, accord-ing to multiple current and formermilitary and intelligence officials.
The unit was called Talon Anvil,and it worked in three shiftsaround the clock between 2014and 2019, pinpointing targets forthe United States’ formidable airpower to hit: convoys, car bombs,command centers and squads ofenemy fighters.
But people who worked with thestrike cell say in the rush to de-stroy enemies, it circumventedrules imposed to protect noncom-batants, and alarmed its partnersin the military and the C.I.A. bykilling people who had no role inthe conflict: farmers trying to har-vest, children in the street, fam-ilies fleeing fighting, and villagerssheltering in buildings.
Talon Anvil was small — attimes fewer than 20 people oper-ating from anonymous roomscluttered with flat screens — but itplayed an outsize role in the112,000 bombs and missileslaunched against the IslamicState, in part because it embraceda loose interpretation of the mili-tary’s rules of engagement.
“They were ruthlessly efficientand good at their jobs,” said oneformer Air Force intelligence offi-cer who worked on hundreds ofclassified Talon Anvil missions
from 2016 to 2018. “But they alsomade a lot of bad strikes.”
The military billed the air waragainst the Islamic State as themost precise and humane in mili-tary history, and said strict rulesand oversight by top leaders keptcivilian deaths to a minimum de-spite a ferocious pace of bombing.In reality, four current and formermilitary officials say, the majorityof strikes were ordered not by topleaders but by relatively low-ranking U.S. Army Delta Forcecommandos in Talon Anvil.
The New York Times reportedlast month that a Special Opera-tions bombing run in 2019 killeddozens of women and children,and that the aftermath was con-cealed from the public and top mil-itary leaders. In November, De-fense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin IIIordered a high-level investigationinto the strike, which was carriedout by Talon Anvil.
But people who saw the taskforce operate firsthand say the2019 strike was part of a pattern ofreckless strikes that started yearsearlier.
When presented with TheTimes’s findings, several currentand former senior Special Opera-tions officers denied any wide-spread pattern of recklessairstrikes by the strike cell anddisregard for limiting civilian cas-ualties. Capt. Bill Urban, a spokes-man for the military’s CentralCommand, which oversees opera-tions in Syria, declined to com-ment.
As bad strikes mounted, thefour military officials said, Talon
Civilian Deaths MountedAs Secret Unit Struck ISIS
U.S. Force Alarmed Officers by SidesteppingRules Protecting Noncombatants
This article is by Dave Philipps,Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti.
Continued on Page 14
BRACKETTVILLE, Texas —Magdaleno Ruiz Jimenez huddledunder a waxing moon in the roughbrush of a Texas ranch. His jour-ney to the small border communi-ty of Brackettville had been long,about 1,300 miles from his home inMexico. But now a drone wasbuzzing overhead.
A lone officer, Sgt. Ryan Glenn,emerged from the darkness. He
had a flashlight and a screen withcoordinates for where Mr. Jime-nez and six other men could befound on the cold caliche, blobs ofheat visible to an infrared cameraon the overhead drone. More offi-cers soon arrived.
“I spent everything to get here,”Mr. Jimenez said after the officerswrested him and the other menfrom the brush.
The men assumed they hadbeen detained by immigration of-
ficers for illegally crossing intothe United States. They werewrong. Instead, they were ar-rested on charges of trespassingon a vast private ranch by officersfrom the Texas state police.
For several months now, Texashas been engaged in an effort torepurpose the tools of state lawenforcement to stem the increaseof people crossing illegally.
To do this, Texas officials led by
A group of migrants was apprehended by officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety.KIRSTEN LUCE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Inside Texas’ Unusual Effort to Arrest MigrantsBy J. DAVID GOODMAN
Continued on Page 22
MAYFIELD, Ky. — Rescueworkers across the middle of thecountry combed through wreck-age for survivors on Saturday af-ter a horde of tornadoes ripped acatastrophic swath from Arkan-sas through Kentucky. Scores ofpeople were killed in the storms,and officials warned that the tollwas almost certain to rise as theysifted through the ruins.
The tornadoes tore through atleast six states on Friday night, in-cluding Arkansas, Illinois, Ken-tucky, Mississippi, Missouri andTennessee, said Bill Bunting, theoperations chief at the Storm Pre-diction Center, part of the NationalWeather Service. They crumbledmetal like paper, swatted downconcrete buildings and threw afreight train off its track.
The tornado outbreak killedpeople who were working the Fri-day night shifts at a candle factoryin Kentucky, where scores are be-lieved to have died, and at an Am-azon warehouse in Illinois, whereat least six people were killed andwhere recovery operations werecontinuing. Officials said on Sat-urday that they did not know howmany workers at the warehousewere unaccounted for but thatthey expected recovery efforts tocontinue for three more days.
Hundreds of thousands of peo-ple were without power on Satur-day, according to reports com-piled by PowerOutage.us. Many ofthem were customers in states atthe heart of the outbreak, butclose to a half million customers inother states, including Michiganand Ohio, also lost power in thesprawling weather system.
In a speech on Saturday after-noon in Delaware, where he wasspending the weekend, PresidentBiden said his administrationwould do “everything it can possi-bly do to help” the states that hadsustained serious damage in thetornado outbreak.
“This is likely to be one of thelargest tornado outbreaks in ourhistory,” he said, adding that hehad approved the emergency dec-
Antoine Hawkins said the bathtub saved his life Friday night when a tornado tore apart his apartment building in Mayfield, Ky.WILLIAM DESHAZER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Toll May Pass 100From Midwest
to the South
This article is by Rick Rojas, Jam-ie McGee, Laura Faith Kebede andCampbell Robertson.
Continued on Page 20
TORNADO OUTBREAK PUMMELS SIX STATES
ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. —When thousands of Trump sup-porters gathered in Washingtonon Jan. 6 for the Stop the Stealrally that led to the storming of theU.S. Capitol, one of them was apastor and substitute teacherfrom Elizabethtown, Pa., namedStephen Lindemuth.
Mr. Lindemuth had traveledwith a religious group from Eliza-bethtown to join in protesting thecertification of Joseph R. Biden’svictory. In a Facebook post threedays later, he said that “Mediacoverage has focused solely on thenegative aspect of the day’sevents,” and said he had been inWashington simply “standing forthe truth to be heard.”
Shortly after, he declared hiscandidacy for judge of elections, alocal Pennsylvania office that ad-ministers polling on Election Day,in the local jurisdiction of MountJoy Township.
Mr. Lindemuth’s victory in No-vember in this conservative ruralcommunity is a milestone of sortsin American politics: the arrival ofthe first class of political activistswho, galvanized by Donald J.Trump’s false claim of a stolenelection in 2020, have begun seek-ing offices supervising the elec-tion systems that they believerobbed Mr. Trump of a secondterm. According to a MayReuters/Ipsos poll, more than 60percent of Republicans now be-lieve the 2020 election was stolen.
This belief has informed a waveof mobilization at both grass-roots
Continued on Page 18
Trump LoyalistsSpeed Into JobsOverseeing Vote
By CHARLES HOMANS
Late Edition
VOL. CLXXI . . . No. 59,270 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2021
NGWERERE, Zambia — Fourpeople turned up at a health clinictucked in a sprawl of commercialmaize farms on a recent morning,looking for Covid-19 vaccines. Thestaff had vials of the Johnson &Johnson vaccine stashed in thefridge. But the staff membersapologetically declined to vacci-nate the four and suggested theytry another day.
A vial of the Johnson & Johnsonvaccine holds five doses, and thestaff was under orders not towaste a single one.
Ida Musonda, the nurse who su-pervises the vaccination effort,suspected that her team mighthave found more takers if theypacked the vials in Styrofoamcoolers and headed out to marketsand churches. “But we have nofuel for the vehicle to take the vac-cines there,” she said.
They did vaccinate 100 peopleon their last trip to a farm; therecords from that trip sat in a pa-per heap in the clinic because the
Many ObstaclesEven as Doses
Flow to AfricaBy STEPHANIE NOLEN
Continued on Page 6
A clinic in Zambia, a countrylacking practice in adult shots.
JOÃO SILVA/THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAYFIELD, Ky. — Churcheswere reduced to rubble. Thecourthouse was wiped out. Abuilding where the utility com-pany parked its trucks had seem-ingly vaporized, taking the vehi-cles with it.
And the candle factory wasnothing more than a spread of as-sorted debris. The only indicationof what it once was: The scents ofvanilla and lavender, along witharomas that conjured up spring-time and fresh laundry — all from
the chemicals used in the candles— were picked up by powerfulwinds.
“I don’t know how Mayfield willrebound,” Joe Crenshaw, 37, saidas he stood along the perimeter ofthe factory on Saturday after-noon, hoping to help, somehow,with efforts to find survivors inthe rubble.
Mayfield, a city of roughly10,000 people perched in the west-
ern corner of the state, is a com-munity in shock. One person afterthe next told harrowing accountsof hiding as the tornado rippedthrough the town, sounding like afreight train. Gov. Andy Beshearof Kentucky called it the worst tor-nado disaster in the state’s his-tory. Of the 110 people working inthe candle factory when the tor-nado hit, he said, just 40 have beenrescued.
But amid anguish and worry,there was also gratitude amongthose who survived.
“By the grace of God, I woke uplate,” said Jamal Morgan, 25, who
Grief, and Gratitude, in a Small Kentucky Town
By RICK ROJASand JAMIE MCGEE
Continued on Page 20
Close-Knit CommunityShattered by Storm
Bryce Young, the Crimson Tide’s sopho-more quarterback, led his team to theCollege Football Playoff despite playingbehind a leaky offensive line. PAGE 31
SPORTS 31-33
Alabama Star Wins Heisman
Today, mostly sunny, brisk, cooler,high 49. Tonight, clear, seasonablychilly, low 38. Tomorrow, plenty ofsunshine, a bit milder, high 52.Weather map appears on Page 26.
$6.00
