A Revelatory Look Inside the World's Most Dangerous Terrorist Group
With brutal force and horrific beheading of hostages, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has shocked the world. They have conquered massive territories in both countries—equal to the size of Great Britain—and promise to create a new Muslim caliphate under the strict dictates of Sharia law.
In ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, American journalist Michael Weiss and Syrian analyst Hassan Hassan explains how these violent extremists evolved from a nearly defeated Iraqi insurgent group into a jihadi army of international volunteers who, with slickly produced murder videos, are spreading violence and mayhem across the Middle East. Beginning with the early days of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of ISIS's first incarnation as "al-Qaeda in Iraq," Weiss and Hassan explain who the key players are—from their elusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to the former Saddam Baathists in their ranks—where they come from, how they have attracted both local and global support, and how they operate—from their social media strategy to illicit oil revenues.
Political and military maneuvering by the United States, Iraq, Iran, and Syria have fueled ISIS's astonishing and explosive expansion. Drawing on original interviews with former US military officials and current ISIS fighters, the authors also reveal the internecine struggles within the movement itself, as well as ISIS's bloody hatred of Shiite Muslims, which is generating another sectarian war in the region—just like the one the US thought it had stopped in 2011 in Iraq. A new generation of terror has dawned in the world and to understand how to stop it, we must understand who they are.
