The Islamic State Versus The West An Ongoing War

FOR the third time in as many decades America is leading a powerful coalition to war in the Middle East. On September 23rd the offensive expanded dramatically as coalition aircraft and missiles struck in Syria, widening the theatre beyond its initial arena in Iraq. Their target is a radical jihadist group that has grabbed headlines since June, when its black-clad gunmen burst beyond territory they had captured during Syria's civil war and seized big chunks of Iraq, including the country's second biggest city, Mosul. Alarm has grown as they have massacred hundreds of prisoners, sometimes with grisly televised beheadings, and hounded thousands of Christians and other minorities from their homes. Nearly everyone shares a desire to destroy this scourge, yet they cannot seem to agree on what to call it. The group has been variously dubbed ISIS, ISIL, IS, SIC and Da'ish. Why the alphabet soup?

On the 29th of June 2014 ISIS declared the establishment of a caliphate stretching across territories in Iraq and Syria. In response, Operation Inherent Resolve, a US-led 77 nation coalition, was launched to respond to the threat of Islamic State. The West's War Against Islamic State offers the first history of Operation Inherent Resolve and the West's war against ISIS, from its inception in 2014 to the fall of Raqqa in 2017. Andrew Mumford offers a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the military campaign deployed against ISIS in Syria and Iraq by examining the West's strategic objectives as well as the conflicting interests of rival powers, namely Russia, Iran and Turkey. By examining individual operational components of this military engagement such as drone usage, cyber warfare, special forces operations and sponsorship of guerrilla forces, this book offers a unique insight into the nature of modern warfare.

"On the 29th of June 2014 ISIS declared the establishment of a caliphate stretching across territories in Iraq and Syria. In response, Operation Inherent Resolve, a US-led 77 nation coalition, was launched to respond to the threat of Islamic State. The West's War Against Islamic State offers the first history of Operation Inherent Resolve and the West's war against ISIS, from its inception in 2014 to the fall of Raqqa in 2017. Andrew Mumford offers a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the military campaign deployed against ISIS in Syria and Iraq by examining the West's strategic objectives as well as the conflicting interests of rival powers, namely Russia, Iran and Turkey. By examining individual operational components of this military engagement such as drone usage, cyber warfare, special forces operations and sponsorship of guerrilla forces, this book offers a unique insight into the nature of modern warfare."--

In 2019, Islamic State lost its last remaining sliver of territory in Syria, and its Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed. These setbacks seemed to herald the Caliphate's death knell, and many now forecast its imminent demise. Yet its affiliates endure, particularly in Africa: nearly all of Islamic State's cells on the continent have reaffirmed their allegiance, attacks have continued in its name, many groups have been reinvigorated, and a new province has emerged. Why, in Africa, did the two major setbacks of 2019 have so little impact on support for Islamic State? The Islamic State in Africa suggests that this puzzle can be explained by the emergence and evolution of Islamic State's provinces in Africa, which it calls 'sovereign subordinates'. By examining the rise and development of eight Islamic State 'cells', the authors show how, having pledged allegiance to IS Central, cells evolved mostly autonomously, using the IS brand as a means for accrual of power, but, in practice, receiving relatively little if any direction or material support from central command. Given this pattern, IS Central's relative decline has had little impact on its African affiliates-who are likely to remain committed to the Caliphate's cause for the foreseeable future.

Though capable of staging spectacular attacks like 9/11, jihadist organizations were not a significant force on the ground when they first became notorious in the shape of al-Qa'ida at the turn of century. //Today, that's changed. Exploiting the missteps of the West's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, as well as its misjudgments in relation to Syria and the uprisings of the Arab Spring, jihadist organizations, of which ISIS is the most important, are swiftly expanding. They now control a geographical territory greater in size than Britain or Michigan, stretching from the Sunni heartlands in the north and west of Iraq through a broad swath of north-east Syria. On the back of their capture of Mosul and much of northern Iraq in June 2014, the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been declared the head of a new caliphate that demands the allegiance of all Muslims. The secular, democratic politics that were supposedly at the fore of the Arab Spring have been buried by the return of the jihadis writing with customary calmness and clarity, and drawing on unrivaled experience as a reporter in the region, Cockburn analyzes the unfolding of one of the West's greatest foreign policy debacles and the rise of the new jihadis.//Patrick Cockburn is currently a Middle East correspondent for the Independent. His book on Iraq's recent history, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, was a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Awards. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, and the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009. He was named Foreign Commentator of the Year by the Comment Awards in 2013.

The events of September 11, 2001, forever changed the world as we knew it. In their wake, the quest for international order has prompted a reshuffling of global aims and priorities. In a fresh approach, Gilles Kepel focuses on the Middle East as a nexus of international disorder and decodes the complex language of war, propaganda, and terrorism that holds the region in its thrall. The breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 2000 was the first turn in a downward spiral of violence and retribution. Meanwhile, a neo-conservative revolution in Washington unsettled U.S. Mideast policy, which traditionally rested on the twin pillars of Israeli security and access to Gulf oil. In Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, a transformation of the radical Islamist doctrine of Bin Laden and Zawahiri relocated the arena of terrorist action from Muslim lands to the West; Islamist radicals proclaimed jihad against their enemies worldwide. Kepel examines the impact of global terrorism and the ensuing military operations to stem its tide. He questions the United States' ability to address the Middle East challenge with Cold War rhetoric, while revealing the fault lines in terrorist ideology and tactics. Finally, he proposes the way out of the Middle East quagmire that triangulates the interests of Islamists, the West, and the Arab and Muslim ruling elites. Kepel delineates the conditions for the acceptance of Israel, for the democratization of Islamist and Arab societies, and for winning the minds and hearts of Muslims in the West.

In Blood Year, he provides a wide-angle view of the current situation in the Middle East and analyzes how America and the West ended up in such dire circumstances. Whereas in 2008 it appeared that the U.S. might pull a modest stalemate from the jaws of defeat in Iraq, six years later the situation had reversed. After America pulled out of Iraq completely in 2011, the Shi'ite president cut Sunnis out of the power structure and allowed Iranian influence to grow. And from the debris of Assad's Syria arose an extremist Sunni organization even more radical than Al Qaeda. Unlike Al Qaeda, ISIS was intent on establishing its own state, and within a remarkably short time they did. Interestingly, Kilcullen highlights how embittered former Iraqi Ba'athist military officers were key contributors to ISIS's military successes.

CNN's terrorism analyst examines Osama bin Laden's global terrorist network, al-Queda, discussing its operations and mission, the planning and execution of specific terrorist acts, and future threats from militant Islamic movements.