The Rise of ISIS and How Islamic State Hashtags

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Abdel Bari Atwan is the editor in chief of the London-based news site Rai al-Youm and was, from 1989 to June 2013, the founder and editor in chief of al-Quds al-Arabi, the independent, pan-Arab daily newspaper. Atwan is the author of The Secret History of al-Qa’ida, A Country of Words, his memoir, After bin Laden: al-Qa’ida, the Next Generation and his latest book, Islamic State: Digital Caliphate (Saqi Books). He is a regular contributor to a number of UK, US, Middle Eastern and Turkish publications including The Guardian, The Scottish Herald, Gulf News and Star Gazet.

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.      In his latest book, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS (Doubleday) Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents. Drawing on unique high-level access to CIA and Jordanian sources, Warrick weaves gripping, moment-by-moment operational details with the perspectives of diplomats and spies, generals and heads of state, many of whom foresaw a menace worse than al Qaeda and tried desperately to stop it. Black Flags is a definitive history that reveals the long arc of today’s most dangerous extremist threat.