ISIS Book Summary - ISIS Book explained in key points

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ISIS summary

Name: ISIS
Rating: 4.1 (37 reviews)
Author: Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan

Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan

Inside the Army of Terror

4.1 (37 ratings)

27 mins

Table of Contents

ISIS
summarized in 11 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Understand the rise of ISIS and why the West seems helpless against it.

Over the recent decade, a well-trained and ruthless group of militant jihadists have burned across Iraq and Syria, taking advantage of civil war and chaos to conquer lands in the name of an Islamic state, a caliphate with self-proclaimed authority over Muslims worldwide.

This is ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham. For those in the West, this terrorist group seems to have emerged from nowhere to dominate in a short time major cities and peoples.

Yet as these blinks will show, ISIS’s power has been long in coming, through cunning plans and fragile alliances, as well as relentless terror and aggression. While we might not know how this story will end, understanding the beginnings of ISIS just might help the world find a way to stop the growth of this fanatical force in the Middle East.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

why members of al-Qaeda and ISIS were at each others’ throats;
why some ISIS jihadists prefered to stay in prison; and
how slick videos and magazines have helped ISIS recruit.

ISIS recruits fanatics to feed its growing militant organization, inspired by terror and jihad.

You can’t turn on the nightly news without hearing about the latest atrocities committed by a group called ISIS. But who exactly is ISIS?

ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, is a militant group currently active in the Middle East. In a short period of time, the group’s soldiers have conquered a territory nearly the size of Great Britain through ruthless tactics or outright terror.

As of 2014, the group renamed itself the Islamic State following the announcement that the land under its occupation was a caliphate.

Much of the group’s power has come from its intelligence-gathering prowess and infiltration of competing groups. ISIS’s top brass consists of many former advisors from the toppled Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

The group has essentially branded itself as a defender of Sunni minorities in the Middle East, whom it feels are in need of protection from enemies such as the United States and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.

For many, ISIS is considered one of most rigorous, well-disciplined and organized militant groups in the world. But how did it establish this reputation?

Although ISIS has only a few thousand members spread across Syria and Iraq, it attracts fanatical and committed people who are more than willing to fight for its ideals.

Abdelaziz is one such fighter. Born in Bahrain in 1995, he became interested in jihadism in late 2011. After joining several moderate rebel groups in the fight against Syria’s Bashar Assad, Abdelaziz became disillusioned, feeling that these groups weren’t sufficiently rigorous.

Eventually, he found his way to ISIS.

Abdelaziz quickly moved up the ranks, proving himself a dedicated fighter and participating in filmed beheadings, and even earning the right to own a sex slave.

He soon found the martyrdom he sought when he was shot and killed in 2014 by a Syrian sniper.

With ISIS, a man like Abdelaziz is the rule, not the exception. ISIS only recruits fanatics and as a result, is a real, constant threat to the resident populations in Iraq, Syria and the surrounding area.

The goal of ISIS is to establish a caliphate, an Islamic state in which sharia law is supreme.

What exactly are the goals of ISIS? What are these fanatics fighting for?

ISIS has stated that it wants to abolish the concept of nation-states. In its early days, the group sought only to gain territory within Iraq and Syria, but quickly revised its goals to building a caliphate, or an Islamic state. This is why the group now self-identifies as the Islamic State, or IS.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the seed from which the jihadist aspirations of the future ISIS grew.

ISIS began with a man named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Zarqawi was born in a small town in northern Jordan, and had a troubled childhood. Lacking an education and being only semi-literate in Arabic, he was often violent and unruly. His mother enrolled him in religious courses, with the hope that this would give his life structure.

The uneasy partnership between al-Zarqawi and bin Laden set the groundwork for ISIS.

Even though al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, his name still inspires terror.

This famous jihadi was the financial muscle behind a number of terrorist groups and training camps. But how did he and al-Zarqawi form their deadly partnership?

In Iraq, al-Zarqawi found many disenfranchised Baathists who would later be faithful to ISIS.

The US invasion of Iraq pushed many former Baathist party members into the hands of the Salafists and even al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Yet before the war, Saddam Hussein had feared tensions between the country’s Shia majority and its ruling Sunni minority could ignite a civil war. He began a campaign to educate state workers about Islam, and had political allies infiltrate mosques.

After al-Zarqawi was killed in a bomb strike, his legacy was the foundation for the birth of ISIS.

Al-Zarqawi organized election boycotts, pursued the death of leading Shia Muslims and orchestrated beheadings as well as terror attacks, all with the goal of uniting Sunni Muslims under his banner of jihad. But some of his tactics backfired.

Concerned about the ongoing violence, local tribes soon began to withdraw their commitment to al-Zarqawi’s cause. During a boycott of the 2005 election, al-Zarqawi’s tactics seemed successful, as attacks on Shias intensified and few Sunnis went to the polls.

While al-Qaeda got kicked out of Iraq, ISIS played a waiting game and built its networks slowly.

As ISIS grew, the group decided to base its operations in Iraq, where it could continue to recruit and build toward a grander strategy.

But ISIS miscalculated the amount of support it had from the Sons of Iraq, a coalition of tribes in the country. As a result, Iraqis began to revolt against many jihadist groups, ISIS included.

Syria was the crucible for ISIS’s early power in the region, once the break with al-Qaeda was final.

Once al-Qaeda was out of Iraq, ISIS reorganized and turned the growing hatred against American soldiers and the Iraqi government to its favor.

Beginning in 2011, ISIS began to show the full extent of its power, starting in Syria.

Effective propaganda and relentless media coverage has helped swell ISIS’s ranks.

Public beheadings. A sinister black flag, flying over scenes of destruction. Much of ISIS’s power has come from its imagery and the effectiveness of those images to recruit others to its cause.

ISIS’s propaganda campaign clearly has a particular appeal for men (and women) who decide to give their lives to the goals of the Islamic State.

ISIS uses a variety of well-crafted, patient strategies to conquer and control its territory.

Recruiting foreign fighters is just one element of ISIS’s strategy. Tactics on the ground in particular have made this jihadist organization unusually effective.

Crucially, ISIS leaders understood the tribal structure of Syria and used it to their advantage.

America’s approach to fighting ISIS has largely been uninformed and inconsequential.

Over a decade ago, the United States invaded Iraq, igniting the fires of a regional religious and social conflict that had been smoldering for decades.

The events and the “end” of the war created ever more enemies for the United States, yet it is now clear that the US government had no idea what it was getting into when it invaded.

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What is ISIS about?

ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (2015) charts the rapid rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East, from its early beginnings to its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Grippingly told, the story of ISIS’s domination over al-Qaeda in Iraq and its slow but ruthless push in Syria also shines light on the failings of the West in dealing with this fanatical yet disciplined jihadi group.

Best quote from ISIS

Al-Zarqawis trademark earned him the name, Sheikh of the Slaughterers.

—Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan

Who should read ISIS?

People interested in international politics and the rise of terrorism
Historians or students of Middle Eastern studies
Anyone with an interest in examples of religious extremism

About the Author

Hassan Hassan is an Middle East analyst with a focus on Syria, Iraq and the Gulf States and a columnist for The National in Abu Dhabi. His work has also appeared in the Guardian, Foreign Policy and the New York Times.

Columnist Michael Weiss has written for publications such as Foreign Policy, The Daily Beast and NOW Lebanon. He is a fellow at the Institute of Modern Russia and serves as editor-in-chief of that organization's online news journal, The Interpreter.

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