Description

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How did ISIS - a widely hated, massively outnumbered and ludicrously outgunned organisation - manage to occupy over 120 cities, towns and villages from the Southern Philippines to Western Libya? Seeking to understand ISIS's combat effectiveness, Omar Ashour analyses the military and tactical innovations of ISIS and their predecessors in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. He shows how their capacity to mix conventional military tactics with innovative guerrilla warfare and urban terrorism strategies allowed ISIS to expand and endure beyond expectations.

About the Author

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Omar Ashour is a Professor of Security and Military Studies and the Founding Chair of the Critical Security Studies Programme at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He is the author of How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements (Routledge, 2009), as well as the editor of Bullets to Ballots: Collective De-Radicalisation of Armed Movements (Edinburgh University Press, 2021).