Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

by Joby Warrick

A member of the group had volunteered to plant explosives inside a local adult cinema called the Salwa. After a few minutes in the theater, the would-be assailant had become so engrossed in the film that he forgot about his bomb. As he sat, glued to the screen, the device detonated under his feet. No patrons were hurt, but the bomber lost both his legs.

To serve as ruler of a Middle Eastern country is to give up any expectation of dying of old age.

political leaders tended to choose selectively from a menu of classified material in order to present a skewed, self-serving version of reality to the voting public. All presidents had indulged in the practice, though some perhaps more than others.

It was one of the great ironies of the age, Abu Hanieh said. In deciding to use the unsung Zarqawi as an excuse for launching a new front in the war against terrorism, the White House had managed to launch the career of one of the century’s great terrorists.

If Abu Musab al-Zarqawi could have dictated a U.S. strategy for Iraq that suited his own designs for building a terrorist network, he could hardly have come up with one that surpassed what the Americans themselves put in place over the spring and summer of 2003.

“The combination of American jets and Arab jails was the critical fulcrum around which al-Qaeda and ISIS could germinate.”