Overview

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.

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9781474438223

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Clearly, the Islamic State's particular brand of brutality derives from the deeply dysfunctional and violent politics of the Arab states it has fought in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. The special irony, however, is that it proved far more adept than these foes at demonstrating strategic flexibility and at systematically instilling tactical autonomy, initiative, and unceasing offensive action among its fighters down to the lowest rank. Ashour's excellent, methodical dissection of this fluid interaction of strategy and tactics provides a compelling explanation of how Islamic State fighters repeatedly won and endured against overwhelming odds.--Yezid Sayigh Carnegie Middle East Center How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt greatly enhances our understanding of the group by focusing on the hitherto neglected dimension of its remarkable--and fortunately, ephmeral--tactical military successes. In a relatively short span of time, ISIS emerged as a major regional and then global threat. Omar Ashour masterfully explains ISIS's ways of war on battlefields that extended from Sirte to Mosul and from Raqqa to Sharm el-Sheikh. This an important book that fills a conspicuous gap in the literature.--Prof Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown Universit Author of Inside Terrorism

"Clearly, the Islamic State's particular brand of brutality derives from the deeply dysfunctional and violent politics of the Arab states it has fought in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. The special irony, however, is that it proved far more adept than these foes at demonstrating strategic flexibility and at systematically instilling tactical autonomy, initiative, and unceasing offensive action among its fighters down to the lowest rank.　Ashour's excellent,　methodical dissection of　this fluid interaction of strategy and tactics provides a compelling explanation of how Islamic State fighters repeatedly won　and endured　against overwhelming odds.--Yezid Sayigh ""Carnegie Middle East Center "" How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt　greatly enhances our understanding of the group by focusing on the hitherto neglected dimension of its remarkable--and fortunately, ephmeral--tactical military successes. In a relatively short span of time, ISIS emerged as a major regional and then global threat. Omar Ashour masterfully explains ISIS's ways of war on battlefields that extended from Sirte to Mosul and from Raqqa to Sharm el-Sheikh. This an important book that fills a conspicuous gap in the literature.--Prof Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown Universit ""Author of Inside Terrorism """

Author Information

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).

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