From Middle East Eye, Nafeez Ahmed on how Islamic State is the cancer of modern capitalism. Marc Lynch on Islamism in the IS age. An intelligence vet explains ISIS, Yemen, and “the Dick Cheney of Iraq”: William M. Arkin interviews Malcolm Nance. The hidden hand behind the Islamic State militants? Saddam Hussein’s. Saladin Ahmed on what ISIS really wants (according to the Islamophobia industry). Why would an American college student run away to Syria and join ISIS? Meet Hoda, a 20-year-old woman from Alabama — and the devastated father she left behind. Want to be an Islamic State suicide bomber? Get in line. Malise Ruthven on the lure of the Caliphate. The pursuit of power: Ian Leslie on why Isis loves spreadsheets and mafia bosses build chapels. The terror strategist: Secret files reveal the structure of Islamic State. Preaching to the choir: ISIS’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, sounds like a Republican candidate for president. Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is incapacitated with suspected spinal injuries after air strike. C.J. Chivers on where the Islamic State gets its weapons. Anonymous as told to Sulome Anderson: “I was an ISIS hostage for 5 months”. UN official Zainab Bangura says ISIS is “institutionalizing sexual violence”.
From The Monkey Cage, Nathaniel Allen on the Islamic State, Boko Haram and the evolution of international jihad; and Barak Mendelsohn on the jihadi threat to international order. Nicolas Pelham on ISIS and the Shia revival in Iraq. Bobby Ghosh on how ISIL is disrupting online jihad. Reyko Huang on the Islamic State as an ordinary insurgency. The Islamic State Brings the war to Saudi Arabia: With the deadly suicide bombing of a Saudi mosque, the Islamic State may be debuting a new strategy — lone-wolf attacks inside the kingdom. With victories, ISIS dispels hope of a swift decline: In its conquest of Ramadi and new control of Palmyra, the Islamic State has shown how dedication to its core principles helped it regain traction. It’s had some military success, but the Islamic State is no existential threat. ISIS “not a passing fad”: Andrea O Suilleabhain interviews Mahmoud Mohamedou of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Is it time to change the strategy against ISIS? Chas Danner wonders. Rosa Brooks on why there’s no such thing as peacetime: We've spent years believing the war on terror will end and civil liberties will be safe again; it's time to accept that the war will go on forever — and take steps to protect life and liberty in the new normal.
