Joby Warrick

A book well worth reading. Before there was ISIS or ISIL, there was a street thug serving in a Jordanian prison providing muscle for an Islamic theologian. The bulk of this book is about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the Jordanian general intelligence service, or Mukhabarat. The author's writing style gives a definite suspense thriller tone to the book. It's been quite some time since I have felt so compelled to keep reading page after page of a book. As those who know the built in news spoilers for this book, Zarqawi, after a series of actions and adjustments, meets his end. There is then a shift as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi assumes command of Zarqawi's followers, finds a new marketing package, so to speak, and the more familiar ISIS labeling takes over. What had been mostly President Bush's problem now was more President Obama's. The tone of the book perhaps loses some of its narrative tension at this point, as more reporting is taken up about the adjustments in the group while keeping the basic thrust of the group's founder. At this point, I should mention that the original book was published in 2015, but a newer version was released with a new Afterword a year later, which is worth reading. Having said that, more spoiler news about the "end" of Baghdadi comes after publication. About half way through my reading of this book, the third leader of what we now know as ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, also found his end. It's a bit amazing that history so recently written could already have a very readable book seem out-of-date so quickly. And that is my primary reason for not rating this book higher. It is informative and stimulating all the same. I would happily welcome an update from the author.… (altro)

In 2009 Jordanian intelligence, the Mukhabarat, arrested, then seemingly recruited, a young medical doctor of Palestinian descent, Humam al-Balawi. Balawi was a widely known radical Islamic blogger, although not by his true name. Nearly a year later, after teasing the Jordanians and the CIA into thinking he was going to provide information on high-level al-Qaeda officials, Balawi blew himself up, along with seven CIA operatives at his initial meeting at the CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan.

Joby Warrick documents the operation that led to the disaster from the beginning to the post-mortems and investigations. An investigative commission called it a failure of imagination. The agency was used to being led on, scammed and lied to, but never imagined that a potential informer would do this.

Also noted, in the epilogue, is the tracking and killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011; the result of a decade of work, some of it performed by the officers who died at Khost. This is a well-written, edited and researched book that flows from beginning to end.… (altro)