by Joby Warrick
First published 2016
In 1999, Jordan released Abu Musab al-Zarqawi from prison under a general amnesty. That decision helped launch one of the most destructive militant movements in modern history. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick reconstructs how Zarqawi built a terror network from a base in northern Iraq, how the 2003 American invasion handed him a mass recruitment opportunity, and how U.S. officials accidentally amplified his reputation by falsely linking him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Warrick draws on direct access to CIA and Jordanian intelligence sources, weaving together operational details with the accounts of diplomats, generals, and spies who watched the threat grow and struggled to contain it. The book tracks Zarqawi's movement through his death in a 2006 airstrike and forward into the Syrian civil war, where his followers seized ungoverned territory and raised their flag over large parts of Iraq and Syria. Black Flags won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and offers readers a ground-level account of how ISIS went from a prison yard idea to a self-declared caliphate.
Genres: biography, history, non-fiction, 21st-century, journalism, current-affairs
Vibes: geopolitical, investigative, meticulously-researched, thought-provoking, urgent
Tropes: historical-reconstruction, insider-perspective, rise-and-fall
Setting: Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Middle East
Period: 1999, 2003, 2006, 2010s, 21st century
353 pages · Paperback · Anchor
Content warnings: violence, war