Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

In a thrilling dramatic narrative, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joby Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread to become the world's greatest threat. When the government of Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. In Black Flags, an unprecedented character-driven account of the rise of ISIS, Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Western governments led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swathes of Syria and Iraq. Zarqawi began by directing terror attacks from a base in northern Iraq, but it was the allied invasion in 2003 that catapulted him to the head of a vast insurgency. By falsely identifying him as the link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, Western officials inadvertently spurred like-minded radicals to rally to his cause. Their wave of brutal beheadings and suicide bombings persisted until American and Jordanian intellig

About the Author :
JOBY WARRICK has been a reporter for The Washington Post since 1996. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, and the author of The Triple Agent.

Review :
"A deeply reported book of remarkable clarity showing how the flawed rationale for the Iraq War led to the explosive growth of the Islamic State." Pulitzer Prize committee "Compelling and authoritative, with the narrative drive of a thriller." Guardian "Joby Warrick moves easily through the intelligence warrens of Washington and the shattered landscape of the Middle East to tell this insightful narrative of the rise of the Islamic State. Black Flags is an invaluable guide to an unfolding tragedy that must be understood before it can be ended." Lawrence Wright, author of Thirteen Days in September and The Looming Tower "A deep, well-balanced and thought-provoking account with a genuine feel for Middle Eastern realities." Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens "Warrick uses very compelling first-hand testimony to reconstruct Zarqawi's short, violent life." Literary Review "This is journalism at its best: clear, readable and enlightening." The Irish Times "Joby Warrick is one of America's leading national security reporters, so it's no surprise that Black Flags is the most deeply reported and well-written account we have about ISIS and its terrorist army." Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad "Invaluable for anyone struggling to understand the gruesome excesses and inexplicable appeal of ISIS. As this seminal book makes alarmingly clear, Zarqawi's appalling legacy won't fade any time soon." -- Bob Drogin Los Angeles Times "Gripping ... Warrick has a gift for constructing narratives with a novelistic energy and detail, and in this volume he creates the most revealing portrait yet laid out in a book of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the founding father of the organization that would become the Islamic State... For readers interested in the roots of the Islamic State and the evil genius of its godfather, there is no better book to begin with than Black Flags." The New York Times "Gripping ... a zippy, atmospheric and character-led narrative. It offers a necessary and important backstory to the unfurling of black flags across Syria and Iraq today." -- Shiraz Maher New Statesman "A page-turner and a flat-out great book. This is the inside account of how we ended up with the Islamic State, with one revelation after another. If you read one book on ISIS, this is it." Robert Baer, author of See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism "Drawing on his unrivaled sources and access, Joby Warrick has written a profoundly important and groundbreaking book, one that reads like a novel, riveting from the first page to the last. If you want to know the story behind ISIS, and all of us should, this is the book you must read." Martha Raddatz, Chief Global Affairs Correspondent, ABC News, and author of The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family "Riveting and detailed... Warrick's book might be the most thorough and nuanced account of the birth and growth of ISIS published so far. Black Flags is full of personalities, but it keeps its gaze carefully focused on the wider arc of history." -- Thanassis Cambanis Boston Globe "Joby Warrick is an exceptional storyteller, and Black Flags is both illuminating and spellbinding. No book better explains the miscalculations, wrong turns, and bad luck that led to the rise of ISIS." Rick Atkinson, author of The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 "Joby Warrick weaves Black Flags with the tradecraft of a spy, the mind of an investigative reporter, and the pen of a novelist." Dana Priest, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter and author of Top Secret America "Compulsively readable. What makes Warrick's book unique is its focus on the group's roots, especially the evolution of its founder." -- Jessica Stern Washington Post "Warrick charts Zarqawi's rise from booze-swilling Jordanian street tough to one of the most brutal jihadists in the world." The New Yorker "[A] crisply written, chilling account ... Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Warrick confidently weaves a cohesive narrative from an array of players-American officials, CIA officers, Jordanian royalty and security operatives, religious figures, and terrorists-producing an important geopolitical overview with the grisly punch of true-crime nonfiction ... The author focuses on dramatic flashpoints and the roles of key players, creating an exciting tale with a rueful tone, emphasizing how the Iraq invasion's folly birthed ISIS and created many missed opportunities to stop al-Zarqawi quickly." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) "A revealing, riveting and exquisitely detailed account of the life and death of Zarqawi, the improbable terrorist mastermind, and the rise of the movement now known as the Islamic State." San Francisco Chronicle "A detailed, step-by-step narrative demonstrating how repeated miscalculations wound up empowering the Islamic State ... Black Flags provides answers in this still-unfolding history." Dallas Morning News