Author Description

<b>Fully Revised & Updated Edition of the <i>New York Times</i> Bestselling and Highly Praised Book on ISIS</b><br> <br> <b>With newly added material and breaking news including:</b><br> <b>—Interview with a former ISIS spymaster</b><br> <b>—Why ISIS is targeting Europe and the US</b><br> <b>—What Russia wants in Syria</b><br> <b>—Revelations on the brutal ideology of ISIS</b><br><br>With brutal attacks in last year across the globe—Brussels, Paris, Beirut, Egypt, Turkey—the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has proved itself the greatest terrorist threat in the world today. They have conquered massive territories in Syria and Iraq in a bid to create a new Muslim caliphate under the strict dictates of Sharia law. <br> <br>In this fully revised and updated edition of <i>ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror</i>, American journalist Michael Weiss and Syrian analyst Hassan Hassan explain 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 globe. Beginning with the early days of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of ISIS’s first incarnation, Weiss and Hassan explain who the key players are—from their 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 their illicit oil revenues. As money and matériel continue to flow into the region to combat the ISIS’s spreading terror, other forces—Assad’s regime, Russian planes, Iranian Quds Forces, and other Shiite militias—are gaining power and using the fight against ISIS as a means to leverage their agenda in the region.<br> <br>Political and military maneuvering by the United States, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Russia have fueled ISIS’s explosive expansion. In five new chapters, the authors delve further into the inner wo