ReviewBook review: Black Flags details the rise of Islamic State from the ruins of Iraq and Syria
Joby Warrick offers a clear account of the origins of the Middle East terror state in a neighbourhood of violent ideological struggles
“Once, during a raid in Ramadi, the GIs rounded up several men from a suspected safe house and forced them to lie face down on the concrete with their hands behind their heads. From inside the house appeared a small boy of about four years. Seeing his father lying on the ground, the boy walked between the rows of prostrate men and, without a word, lay down next to his father, placing his tiny hands behind his head.”
This is a wrenching aside in a book that aims to explain how Islamic State came to be. It’s clear and well told, a good guide to the crumbling of Iraq and Syria over the past dozen years.
Black Flags focuses on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of what became al-Qaeda in Iraq and its vicious new form of terror: beheadings, attacks on Shiite mosques and car bombings whose targets included children. This is the man that al-Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, admonished for harming the organisation’s brand.
The book tracks Zarqawi from poorly educated brawler in Jordan to architect of a wave of bombings in Baghdad that hollowed out the Bush administration’s declaration of victory in Iraq and lit new waves of hatred there.
Black Flags also follows the sparks that kept the brutal movement going even after Zarqawi was killed in a US airstrike in 2006. His successors carry the violence into neighbouring Syria as its chaos grows. Those who would like a good summary of how Syria has collapsed can find it here.