Counterterrorism Bookshelf: Review of Farhana Qazi's New Book

PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 Counterterrorism Bookshelf: 30 Books on Terrorism & CounterTerrorism-Related Subjects Reviewed by Joshua Sinai The books reviewed in this column are arranged according to the following topics: “Terrorism – General,” “Suicide Terrorism,” “Boko Haram,” “Islamic State,” “Northern Ireland,” and “Pakistan and Taliban.” Terrorism – General Christopher Deliso, Migration, Terrorism, and the Future of a Divided Europe: A Continent Transformed (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, an Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2017), 284 pp., US $ 75.00 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-1-4408-5524-5. This is a well-informed account of the impact of Europe’s refugee crisis that was generated by the post-Arab Spring conflicts’ population displacements affecting the continent’s changing political climate, economic situation, and levels of crime and terrorism. In terms of terrorism, the author points out that several significant terrorist attacks involved operatives who had entered European countries illegally, such as some members of the cells that had carried out the attacks in Paris (November 2015) and Brussels (March 2016). With regard to future terrorism trends, the author cites Phillip Ingram, a former British intelligence officer, who observed that “Conservative estimates suggest thousands of extremists have managed to slip in through the refugee crisis. And a significant number of them have experience in fighting and in planning not only simple operations, but the kind of complex ones seen in Paris and Brussels” (p. 87). The migration crisis is also affecting Europe’s politics, the author concludes, with “the fault lines of increasingly polarized left- and right-wing partisan ideologies… resulting in earthquakes of various sizes, in Europe and around the world” (p. 214). The author is an American journalist and analyst who runs the “Balkan.com” website and lives in Skopje, Macedonia. Julie Chernov Hwang, Why Terrorists Quit: The Disengagement of Indonesian Jihadists (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018), 230 pp., US $ 39.95 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-1-5017-1082-7. This conceptually important account is based on the author’s extensive field research in Indonesia, where she interviewed fifty-five jihadis from seven Islamist groups in order to examine their disengagement from terrorism. The author’s thesis is that “disengagement is driven by a combination of psychological, emotional, relational, and strategic factors” (p. 8). Specifically, four factors are identified in the disengagement process: “(1) disillusionment with the group’s tactics and leaders; (2) rational assessment, where one comes to analyze the extent to which the context has changed or whether the costs of continued actions outweigh potential benefits; (3) the establishment of an alternative social network of friends, mentors, and sympathetic family members; and (4) a shift in priorities toward gainful employment and family life” (p. 8). Following a discussion of general theories of disengagement, the author explains how the Indonesian case offers “rich opportunities for those seeking to understand why Indonesian jihadists are disengaging from violence” (p. 15). To analyze these issues, the book’s chapters cover topics such as the status of Jemaah Islamiyah, the country’s primary jihadist terrorist group, and five chapters with each one presenting a case study of jihadists who disengaged from terrorism (all of whom are given pseudonyms). The next chapter, “The Role of the State and Civil Society in Disengagement Initiatives,” analyzes the effectiveness of programs by the state and civil society to facilitate disengagement and de-radicalization of Indonesian jihadists. One of the author’s findings is that these programs “lack needs assessments or outcomes assessment” despite the availability of such data, and that it “would also be advisable to prioritize disengagement, reintegration, and aftercare as an end in itself ” (p. 166). The author concludes that “to disengage and reintegrate, one must have a counterbalancing support structure of friends, family, and mentors that constitute an alternative set of loyalties” (p. 184). This book is an important contribution to the theoretical literature as well as to country case studies on the factors involved in de-radicalization and disengagement from terrorism. The author is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Goucher College, in Towson, Maryland. ISSN 2334-3745 62 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 Hans-Joachim Giessmann and Roger Mac Ginty (Eds.), The Elgar Companion to Post-Conflict Transition (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018), 392 pp., US $ 189.00 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-1-78347904-7. This edited volume is an account of regime change – generally defined as a radical replacement or overthrow of a government by another, usually by means of military force, whether internal or external, or resulting from a popular uprising. The volume’s aim is to present an overriding conceptual framework that is examined through a series of country case studies to generate findings. As the editors explain, “to identify patterns, commonalities and disjunctures in contemporary transitions that occur after civil war, secessionist conflict, popular revolution or military rule (p. 3). The case studies are arranged in five clusters of analysis: transitions after civil war (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, and Nepal); transitions after popular revolutions (German Democratic Republic, Iran, and Tunisia); transitions after violent secession (Kosovo, South Sudan, and Northern Cyprus); transitions after military rule (Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Ghana, and Myanmar); and transition after foreign intervention (Afghanistan). The concluding chapter discusses the factors that influence the success of regime change, such as those that are endogenous (e.g., the perceived legitimacy of a new regime in its “ability to provide goods and services to the population ‘under its command’) (p. 326) and exogenous (e.g., impact of international humanitarian aid). Hans-Joachim Giessmann is Executive Director of the Berghof Foundation, Germany, and Roger Mac Ginty is in the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, and the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester, UK. Walter Laqueur and Christopher Wall, The Future of Terrorism: ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Alt-Right (New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2018), 272 pp., US $ 26.99 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-1-25014251-1. This is an insightful and comprehensive account of the latest trends in global terrorism by Walter Laqueur, one of the top veteran experts on terrorism (who, sadly, passed away following the book’s publication at the age of 97 on September 30, 2018), and his co-author Christopher Wall, an instructor on counterterrorism for the United States Navy. Following an introductory overview of terrorism, including a discussion of the changes introduced by the fourth wave of terrorism (based on David Rapoport’s notion of the four waves of modern terrorism), the book is divided into three sections. The first section, “History and the Invention of Terrorism,” is a history of the evolution of terrorism, beginning with the French Revolution, anarchism in Russia (and the notion of terrorism as ‘propaganda by the deed’), through the end of the Second World War, including the use of terrorism by Indian nationalists. The second section, “Contemporary Terrorism,” covers modern terrorism, focusing primarily on the emergence and prevalence of al Qaida as one of the world’s major terrorist groups, as well as the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS), and its rivalry with al Qaida. It recounts the proliferation of Islamist jihadi terrorism in Europe, North America, and in major terrorist battlegrounds such as Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen. The final section, “Reflections on Terrorism,” presents the authors’ findings on the study of terrorism, such as the psychology of terrorism, economic explanations of terrorism, the impact of religious extremism on terrorism, and weaknesses in the arguments presented by what is known as the school of ‘critical terrorism studies’. The section’s final chapter presents the authors’ findings on future trends in terrorism. An Epilogue discusses the impact of Donald Trump’s presidency on terrorism. The book’s numerous important insights include the observation that a group’s strategy of conquering territory “in the shortest amount of time possible” is also one of its significant vulnerabilities because the “‘liberation’ of territories created obvious targets for counterterrorist forces that had not existed before” (p. 13), mainly because “holding territory also means that terrorists must operate out in the open, making them easy targets for the modern air forces of most developed countries” (p. 14). One of the few points on which the authors can, in the view of this reviewer, be criticized is when they refer to Menachem Begin’s (who later became Israel’s Prime Minister) dissident right-wing terrorist group’s July 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem as helping to “establish the modern state of Israel” (p. 130). In fact, it was the mainstream Mapai-led diplomacy and the paramilitary Haganah’s armed force that brought about Israeli statehood in May 1948. The authors insightfully conclude that “terrorism is not an existential threat because of the inferior military capability terrorists normally possess short of their acquiring weapons of mass destruction.” They further observe that a state’s overreaction to terrorism “can pose ISSN 2334-3745 63 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 an existential threat to itself,” for instance, in imposing “punitive and draconian” anti-terrorism programs that impinge on a democratic society’s civil liberties (p. 244). Sue Malvern and Gabriel Koureas (Eds.), Terrorist Transgressions: Gender and the Visual Culture of the Terrorist (New York, NY: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 272 pp., US $ 120.00 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-1-7807-6701-7. The contributors to this volume apply a multi-disciplinary approach to examine the important issue of how terrorists are portrayed in the media and in popular culture, particularly as stereotypical masculine images of terrorists are employed to threaten their targeted societies in many ways. However, with women becoming increasingly active in terrorist operations, including as suicide bombers, using their bodies as weapons, such attacks, the editors explain, are subverting the accepted “cultural construction of masculinity and femininity” resulting in repercussions for the gendering of the profile of terrorists. To examine these issues, the volume’s chapters discuss topics such as the “sartorial code” of Anders Behring Breivik, and how “adversarial masculinities” were portrayed in two works of fiction (Jean Larteguy’s 1960 novel The Centurions and Fox’s television counter-terrorism series 24), and how insurgents were portrayed in some of Britain’s colonial wars. Sue Malvern is Senior Lecturer in History of Art, University of Reading, and Gabriel Koureas is Lecturer in Visual and material Culture at Birbeck, University of London. Witold Mucha, Why Do Some Civil Wars Not Happen? Peru and Bolivia Compared (New York, NY: Columbia University Press/Barbara Budrich Publishers, 2017), 300 pp., US $ 53.00 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-3-8638-87360. This is a conceptually innovative examination of why civil wars occur in some countries but not others. The case studies of Peru (1980-1995), where civil war broke out, and Bolivia (2000-2008), where it did not, provide the study’s empirical data. An overarching research question is examined for both countries: what were the highintensity and low intensity “conflict-fueling and conflict-inhibiting factors that determined violence escalation intensity” (p. 9). Quantitative and qualitative data and interviews with experts and secondary literature are used to answer this question. In the concluding chapter, the author finds that the major difference between the potential onset of violent civil war in Peru and Bolivia was the organizational strength of the Sendero Luminoso (SL – ‘Shining Path’), which was “fostered by the failed policies” of the Peruvian state. The author concludes that an “irregular armed rebel group could not emerge in Bolivia because of the lack of underlying conditions and powerful actors making use of these factors” (p. 181). Strategic mistakes by SL, on the other hand, contributed to the group’s defeat and the de-escalation of the conflict. This was due to three major failures: “the alienation of rural peasantry because of indiscriminate SL violence; a failed urban warfare strategy; and the overconcentration on Guzman as charismatic leader” (p. 185). A final section provides a valuable discussion of future directions in peace and conflict studies. The author is Research Fellow, Heinrich-Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany. Todd Sandler, Terrorism: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018), 208 pp., US $ 16.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-0-1908-4585-8. This book provides concisely written, authoritative and insightful overviews of significant topics in the study of terrorism and counterterrorism in a question-and-answer format. It is divided into seven sections: (1) “A Primer on Terrorism” (e.g., defining terrorism, the history and evolution of terrorism, the distinction between transnational terrorism and domestic terrorism, the rationality of terrorism, and metrics to assess the effectiveness of terrorism; (2) “Causes of Terrorism” (e.g., globalization, poverty, religion, foreign policy, and failed states, as well as whether the causes differ for domestic and transnational terrorism); (3) “Role of Terrorist Groups” (e.g., what is a terrorist group, how do terrorist groups recruit members, how are terrorist groups organized, how do leaders exercise control, why do some groups choose to conduct suicide attacks while others do not, how do terrorist groups end, and what is the nature of state sponsorship of terrorist groups; (4) “Effectiveness of Counterterrorism” (what are the measures employed in counterterrorism, what is the nature of proactive and defensive measures in counterterrorism, how effective is retaliation, should concessions be made to resolve terrorist kidnappings, and how effective is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security); (5) “Asymmetries and Terrorism” (e.g., what is the nature of the asymmetric competition between terrorist groups ISSN 2334-3745 64 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 and their stronger government adversaries, and why do certain terrorist groups cooperate with each other ; (6) “Economic Consequences of Terrorism” (e.g., why do terrorist groups aim to cause economic damages to their government adversaries, and what is the impact of targeting certain economic sectors, such as transportation and tourism); and (7) “The Future of Terrorism” (e.g., can future trends in terrorist warfare be forecasted, the role of intelligence in anticipating terrorist warfare, what new types of terrorist warfare are likely, ranging from cyberterrorism to weapons of mass destruction, and what are likely future “hotspots” for terrorist outbreaks). Written by a veteran academic expert on terrorism and counterterrorism, the book provides numerous insights. These include the observation that success in terrorist groups’ warfare can be defined as the “ability to inflict damage and gain visibility for their cause. Alternatively, success can hinge on the groups’ ability to secure some or all of their demands” (p. 22). The author also expects low-tech attacks to “remain the most prevalent kind of terrorist attack” because they “can kill at relatively low cost,” they “can be performed by loosely knit cells” and lone actors, and the casualty impacts “are sufficiently large to attract the world-wide attention” that terrorists seek (pp. 141-142). The author is the Vibhooti Shukla Professor of Economics and Political Economy at the University of Texas at Dallas, Texas. Laura Scaife, Social Networks as the New Frontier of Terrorism (New York, NY: Routledge, 2017), 202 pp., US $ 124.00 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-1-1389-5053-5. This is a carefully analyzed examination of the interaction between terrorists’ use of the Internet’s social media and privacy law, freedom of expression, data protection and governments’ surveillance legislation. To examine these issues, the book’s chapters cover topics such as defining terrorism, including its legal definition and the distinction between terrorism and guerrilla warfare; terrorists’ use of social media; counter-measures by governments, such as requests to social media companies to take down extremists’ sites; assessing the effectiveness of counter-narratives against extremists’ messages; and the impact of extremists’ use of social media on journalism. The author concludes that “in order for an appropriate balance to be struck, those operating at the intersection of these interests and rights must ensure that they remain attuned not only to the complex laws that govern this area, but also to the constantly evolving social and media environment” (p. 192). The author is a privacy and data protection solicitor in London, England, UK. Sandra Scham, Extremism, Ancient and Modern: Insurgency, Terror and Empire in the Middle East (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018), 212 pp., US $ 120.00 [Hardcover], US $ 31.96 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-0-41578839-7. This is an examination of the historical and cultural factors in the Middle East and how they can contribute to a better understanding of current extremist narratives in the Middle East. The author applies a critical discourse analysis within the framework of Hayden White’s views on narratives as well as Johan Galtung’s theories on structural and cultural violence, combined with elements of auto-ethnography. A number of the author’s conclusions can be questioned, including the following assertion: “Their modern-day avatars, Kurds, Bedouin, Palestinians, militant settlers, Hutus and Berbers, have already created their own collective grand narrative that Western powers have denigrated as terrorist” (p. 199). Throughout the text, the author appears to disregard the difference between legitimate armed insurgent and resistance movements adhering by and large to international and humanitarian law principles in their efforts to overthrow illegitimate regimes and terrorist groups that primarily target civilian populations and do not respect the immunity of non-combatants. The book is jargon-filled and full of statements that make no sense to this reviewer, e.g., “If modern Western history can be characterized as ironically structured and satirically emplotted, we may be seeing a harbinger of what traditional historians liked to characterize as ‘decline’ or collapse” (p. 201). The author is Adjunct Associate Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology at Catholic University, in Washington, DC. John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker (Eds.), The Rise of the Narco State (Mafia States) (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2018), 972 pp., US $ 23.99 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-9845-4392-9. This comprehensive volume is the sixth in a series of the Small Wars Journal-El Centro anthologies that examine the subject of criminal and state interactions in Mexico as well as Central and South America, including its spill-over into other countries such as the United States. As the editors explain in their introductory overview, ISSN 2334-3745 65 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 while the previous volumes examined the violent competition for power and profit between criminal cartels and states within a framework of ‘criminal insurgency’ where cartels and criminals exploit weaknesses in states to control the turf in which criminal enterprises operate, the contributors to the present volume examine how some state actors also succeed in penetrating, dominating, and co-opting criminal groups and networks as they transform their countries into narco/mafia states for their own illicit financial gains. These topics are discussed in the volume’s 54 chapters, foreword, introductory overview, postscript, afterword, and appendices. The volume’s chapters cover topics such as “Review of Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America,” “America’s Unacknowledged Insurgency: Addressing Street Gangs as Threats to National Security,” “Bullets for Ballots: A History of Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration in Colombia,” “Coke Zero: FARC’s End and the Future of Colombian Cocaine,” “Developing Military Forces to Counter Hybrid Threats: Mexico’s Marines,” “Criminal Networks: A Gateway for Terrorists,” “Gangs in El Salvador: A New Type of Insurgency?,” “Crime, Drugs, Terror and Money: Time for Hybrids,” and “The Shining Path of Peru: An Analysis of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Tactics.” John P. Sullivan served as a Lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff ’s Department and is a Senior Fellow with Small Wars Journal--El Centro. Robert J. Bunker is an Adjunct Research Professor, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA and a Senior Fellow with Small Wars Journal--El Centro. Suicide Terrorism Gideon Aran, The Smile of the Human Bomb: New Perspectives on Suicide Terrorism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018), 376 pp., US $ 34.95 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-1-5017-2475-6. This is a conceptually innovative examination of suicide terrorism in general, and Palestinian suicide terrorism in Israel during the second Intifada, which lasted from September 2000 to February 2005, in particular. One of the book’s unique contributions is its analysis of suicide terrorism from an anthropological-sociological perspective, based on the author’s extensive field research in Israel and the West Bank focusing “on the site of the act of suicide terrorism in real time” (pp. xxiv-xxv). This field research included the author’s role as participantobserver in suicide terrorism scenes by being embedded with the ultra-Orthodox ZAKA volunteers who arrive in the immediate aftermath of suicide terrorist incidents to deal with the bodies of victims, and who also work with emergency medical responders in treating the wounded. Such direct involvement in managing the incidents’ aftermaths leads the author to contend that “suicide terrorism is exceptional in that it breaks down the fundamental distinction between aggressor and victims” (p. xxv) and to understand “the human bomb and those who dispatched him before the explosion” (p. xxiii). Following an introductory overview, the book’s conceptual framework is applied to examine topics such as the complexity of profiling Palestinian suicide bombers, including how potential candidates are recruited; the anatomy of a suicide bombing operations, including several case studies; the preparatory phases prior to an attack; the religiously-based views of martyrdom sacrifice involved in targeting the oppressor victimizer; the research methodology involved in investigating suicide terrorism; and concluding findings. With the decline in the incidents of Palestinian suicide bombing attacks in the current period due to a spectrum of factors, including upgraded Israeli defensive measures, the book would have benefited from a discussion of the transformation in terrorist tactics, for instance, the increasing use of rockets and mortars, shootings and stabbings, but it is still an important contribution to the literature on suicide bombing attacks. The author is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Dominic Janes and Alex Houen (Eds.), Martyrdom and Terrorism: Pre-Modern to Contemporary Perspectives (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014), 366 pp., US $ 115.00 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-01999-5987-7. The contributors to this edited volume examine the historical role of martyrdom and terrorism in relation to the traditions of Christianity in Europe and Islam in the Middle East. The book is divided into three parts. The chapters in Part One, “Pre- and Early Modern Violence and Martyrdom,” examine the writings on martyrdom in early Christianity and Islam, including how Protestants and Catholics viewed the role of Church and State in ISSN 2334-3745 66 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 early modern England. The Second Part, “The French Revolution and the Invention of Terrorism,” examines the rhetoric of martyrdom-type sacrifice by leading figures in the French Revolution. The third part, “Martyrdom, Terrorism, and the Modern West,” explores how patterns of religious thinking have influenced contemporary expressions of martyrdom sacrifice and terrorism. These more recent manifestations include the martyrdomterrorism nexus in Ireland prior to independence; terrorism and martyrdom in contemporary Britain in the form of al Qaida-linked Islamist terrorism by the July 7, 2005 terrorist cell that carried out the attacks against London’s transportation system and others; martyrdom and hostage executions by Islamist extremist terrorists in the Iraq War; and how the “screen media” has “cast individuals as terrorists or martyrs” (p. 20). Dominic Janes is Reader in Cultural History and Visual Studies at Birbeck, University of London, and Alex Houen is Senior University Lecturer in Modern Literature in the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Pembroke College. Updesh Kumar and Manas K. Mandal (Eds.), Understanding Suicide Terrorism: Psychological Dynamics (New Delhi, India/Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2014), 300 pp., US $ 59.99 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-9-3515-0034-6. The contributors to this volume apply multi-disciplinary approaches to examine suicide terrorism in all its dimensions. Following the editors’ introductory overview, the volume is divided into two sections. Section I, “Suicide Terrorism: A Phenomenon,” applies psychosocial, evolutionary psychological, and military disciplines to examine suicide terrorism. This section is accompanied by an analysis of the terrorist operatives who had carried out the November 2008 Mumbai attacks in India. Section II, “Suicide Terrorism: A Process,” continues the discussion of the psychology of suicide terrorism, including whether such actors are indeed ‘suicidal,’ the militant jihadi ideology that motivates such actors, the “use and abuse” of children and youth in terrorism and suicide bombing attacks, and the measures required to deter suicide terrorism. What makes this edited volume especially important is the collaboration of American, Israeli, Dutch, and Indian experts on suicide terrorism. Farhana Qazi, Invisible Martyrs: Inside the Secret World of Female Radicals (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018), 216 pages, US $ 19.99 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-6265-6790-0. This is a conceptually innovative and highly-informed account of the appeal of violent extremism to the tiny minority of Muslim women who leave their homes, especially in Western countries, to join foreign terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State (IS). What makes this account especially important is the author’s personal background as a Pakistani Muslim immigrant to America, her extensive experience as a government expert at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and her field research, which included interviewing female Muslim extremists. To explain this phenomenon, the author formulates an analytic framework based on the ‘Three Cs’: culture (e.g., the strongly held religious beliefs and religious rights and wrongs promulgated by violent Islamist extremists, including the appeal of entering paradise by conducting martyrdom operations), context (e.g., the “push and pull” factors for radicalization, such as their perceived sense of injustice done to the Muslim community in overseas conflicts affecting their brethren that need to be avenged), and capability (e.g., their competence in attaining the ability to become violent extremists, such as traveling to join a jihadist struggle in a conflict zone such as Syria for training in firearms to carry out their attacks). This framework is applied to examining several cases of Muslim female extremists who had decided to embark on violent trajectories into terrorism, such as Tashfeen Malik, who had carried out a terrorist attack with her husband, Syed Farook, in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015; Shannon Maureen Conley, a convert to Islam from Arvada, Colorado, who was arrested at Denver International Airport during her attempt to travel to Syria to join the IS on July 2, 2014; and others, including several extremist British females who had joined IS in Syria where they married jihadi fighters who later died in battle. What can be done to defeat such violent extremism? The burden, the author concludes, primarily lies with the Muslim world “to eradicate the conditions that lead to radical recruitment,” including teaching a more moderate and tolerant form of Islam and promoting “active female participation, rebuilding civil society, legislating educational reform, accounting for human rights abuses, and abetting Muslim women’s organizations” (p. 161). The author is a gender expert instructor at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, and a Research Fellow at the Center for Global Policy. ISSN 2334-3745 67 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 Boko Haram Abdulbasit Kassim and Michael Nwankpa (Eds.), The Boko Haram Reader: From Nigerian Preachers to the Islamic State (London, England, UK: Hurst & Company/New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018), 384 pp., US $ 34.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-8490-4884-2. This is a comprehensive collection of primary source documents, audio and video transcripts of pronouncements by Boko Haram preachers and other officials that were translated by the volume’s editors. Following an insightful introductory overview on the history and nature of Boko Haram by David Cook, the volume is divided into five parts: Part One, ‘Nigerian Preachers (2006-2008)”; Part Two, “Reaching a Verdict (20082009)”; Part Three, “Making Nigeria Ungovernable (2009-2012)”; Part Four, “Boko Haram State (2013-2015)”; and Part Five, “West African Islamic State (2015-2016).” Each part is introduced by a short overview from the hand of one of the editors. Abdulbasit Kassim is a Ph.D student at Rice University, Houston, Texas, where David Cook is Associate Professor of Religion. Michael Nwankpa has a Ph.D in Sociology from the University of Roehampton, London, England, UK. Islamic State Feisal al-Istrabadi and Sumit Ganguly (Eds.), The Future of ISIS: Regional and International Implications (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2018), 300 pp., US $ 45.99 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-0-81573216-7. As explained by the editors’ introductory overview, this book attempts to “fill a niche” by focusing on “the lessons learned and pitfalls to be avoided in the future” in dealing with the Islamic State (ISIS) “as a strategic issue going forward, from the perspectives of the regional powers as well as the United States and its engagement in the region” (p. 4). To examine these issues, the book is divided into five parts. Part I, “Ideology and Externalities,” provides the editors’ introductory overview and a chapter on ISIS’s “revolutionary revanchism.” Part II, “Intelligence Failures,” discusses the American intelligence community’s failure to anticipate the rise of ISIS and theoretical observations about how such intelligence failure came about. Part III, “Local Actors,” examines ISIS and other groups in Syria and Iraq, including the emergence of the Islamic State – Khorasan in the Afghanistan/Central Asia region. Part IV, “Joint Action: U.S. and Regional Powers,” discusses international and regional responses against ISIS. Part V, “U.S. Interests,” presents a chapter on the risk of ISIS’s attacks in the United States. It also offer suggestions on how to defeat ISIS as a state, as a transnational insurgency, and a revolutionary movement. This book, which is informed by its contributors’ veteran expertise in national security, is an important contribution to understanding the components involved in countering the threats posed by the Islamic State. Fawaz A. Gerges, A History of ISIS (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), 392 pp., US $ 17.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-0-6911-7579-9. This is a well-informed account of the conditions that produced the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS, and its Arabic acronym, Da’esh), and what it portends for the Middle East’s future. The book’s chapters cover topics such as ISIS’s world view; its origins (from its founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to its current leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi); the impact of Iraq’s “broken politics” and Iraqi Ba’athists (especially their former military officers) in fueling ISIS’s revival; the role of the Syrian civil war in empowering ISIS’s control of geographical territory; the rivalry between al Qaida and ISIS (which the author describes as an extension of al Qaida in Iraq) over redefining Salafi Jihadism; the factors underpinning ISIS’s appeal to Western Muslim youth (such as its social media postings that promise “a higher cause to fight for and a more promising life under the self-proclaimed caliphate” – p. 229); and the future of ISIS. The author views ISIS as having: “a totalitarian, millenarian worldview that eschews political pluralism, competition, and diversity of thought. Baghdadi and his associates criminalize and excommunicate adherents of freedom of thought, and the idea of an ‘other’ who deserves respect is alien to their messianic ideology. Any Muslim or co-jihadist who does not accept ISIS’s ISSN 2334-3745 68 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 interpretation of the Islamic doctrine is an apostate who deserves death” (p. 27). With regard to ISIS’s future, the author highlights its vulnerabilities, which include “the absence of a positive blueprint for governance and a debilitating vacuum of ideas” (p. 279). Another vulnerability, in comparative historical terms, is that it is “more like the Taliban in Afghanistan than the great revolutionary movements such as the Bolshevik Revolution and the Chinese Communist Revolution” (p. 288). Regarding ISIS’s future, one of the author’s conclusions is that “ISIS is a product of an organic crisis in Arab politics. Therefore, the decline and demise of the group will depend on the reconstruction of fragile state institutions and genuine political reconciliation among warring ethnic and religious communities, a complex and difficult process that will take years to materialize” (p. 290). It is such insights that make this book an important contribution to the literature on ISIS. The author teaches international relations and is professor in Contemporary Middle East Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, England, UK. Northern Ireland Lorenzo Bosi and Giancluca De Fazio (Eds.), The Troubles in Northern Ireland and Theories of Social Movements (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press, 2017), 244 pp., Euro 95.00 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-9-0896-4959-1. The contributors to this conceptually innovative volume examine various aspects of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland through the lenses of social movement theory. As explained by the volume’s editors, several related questions are examined which apply to the conflict in Northern Ireland as well as other divided societies: “How does non-violent mobilization emerge and persist in deeply divided societies? What are the trajectories of participation in violent groups in these societies? What is the relationship between overt mobilization, clandestine operations, and protests among political prisoners? What is the role of media coverage and identity politics? Can there be non-sectarian collective mobilization in deeply divided societies?” (p. 12). The book’s chapters are divided into four sections: the relationship between the civil rights movement (CRM) and the larger political and media context, including the transition from protest to violence; social mobilization by the Protestant community, including Ulster loyalist accounts of mobilization, demobilization and decommissioning; social mobilization by the Irish Republican movement, including the mobilization movement outside prisons, using the H-Block hunger strike as a case study; and social movements in Northern Ireland that do not align with the traditional ethnonational divisions by operating from a non-sectarian platform. Lorenzo Bosi is an Assistant Professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore and Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Movement Studies (COSMOS), Florence, Italy. Gianluca De Fazio is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Justice Studies at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. Edward Burke, An Army of Tribes: British Army Cohesion, Deviancy and Murder in Northern Ireland (Liverpool, England, UK/Distributed by Oxford University Press, 2018), 400 pp., US $ 120.00 [Hardcover], US $ 39.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-7869-4097-1. This is an interesting conceptual as well as empirically-based account of the behaviors and motivations of British soldiers during the early period of their deployment in the Northern Ireland conflict from 1971 to 1972. As the author explains, his conceptual framework applies a ‘bottom up’ approach to study the conduct of such small groups of soldiers over a brief period of time “to capture and examine these soldiers’ orientations, loyalties, rationale, confusion, motivation and fears during a period of profound tactical confusion regarding aims and the conduct of operations” (p. 5). This framework is applied to examine the activities of the British Army’s Scots Guards and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders units in Northern Ireland during the period of 1971 to 1972. The author is Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Nottingham, England, UK. ISSN 2334-3745 69 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 P.M. Currie and Max Taylor (Eds.), Dissident Irish Republicanism (New York, NY: Bloomsbury/Continuum, 2011), 208 pp., US $ 31.46 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-4411-5467-5. The contributors to this volume examine the factors causing violent activity by mostly republican and some loyalist dissidents in Northern Ireland and the methods required to mitigate such threats. A series of questions were posed to the volume’s contributors, which is the product of an experts workshop held by the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) at the University of St Andrews, such as who are the dissident republicans and what distinguishes them from the rest of society, what are their political objectives, why are they committed to engage in physical violence, how are they radicalized into violent extremism, and how can disengagement from violence be promoted? (p. 7). Among the volume’s important insights is the chapter by John Nalton, Gilbert Ramsey, and Max Taylor on “Radicalization and Internet Propaganda by Dissident Republican Groups in Northern Ireland since 2008.” It cites an article by P. Brantingham and F.A. Faust (1976) in identifying three types of crime prevention initiatives, which apply to countering terrorism: primary prevention, which focuses on stopping a crime prior to its occurrence; secondary prevention, which focuses on individuals considered to be at high risk of committing a crime; and tertiary prevention, which focuses on “known offenders” (p. 136). It also presents a highly useful typology of radicalizing Internet sites as “international – high profile,” international – low profile,” “local – known,” and “local – unknown,” with appropriate countering extremism activities directed at each category.(p. 138) In the concluding chapter, coeditor P.M. Currie’s findings include the observation that countering violent dissident republicanism requires “a more effective counter-narrative to point up the criminality, cruelty and hypocrisy of dissident communications and activity, to undermine the appeal of fictionalized accounts of violent attacks and to promote understanding of the significant achievements of the peace process and the injustices and suffering that went before” (p. 173). This volume is an important contribution to the literature on the challenges presented by dissident terrorist groups that emerge in the aftermath of peace agreements and the measures required to mitigate such threats. The authors were, at the time of publication, both associated with the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Richard Doherty, The Thin Green Line: The History of the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC, 1922-2001 (Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, UK: Pen & Sword, 2004/2012), 320 pp., US $ 32.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-8488-4863-4. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was established in June 1922, following the secession of the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom. This new police force incorporated the organizational culture, uniform and badges of its predecessor, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The RUC served as Northern Ireland’s primary police force over the next eighty years, and, following the peace agreement that brought an end to the province’s protracted conflict, it was subsumed into the Police Service of Northern Ireland in November 2001. This book is an extensively researched, comprehensive, and authoritative history of the RUC, especially in the years following the intensification of the conflict in Northern Ireland in 1969. How effective was the RUC? The author observes that as a policing force the RUC “discharged its responsibilities well, providing an effective deterrent against crime and having an excellent detection rate, so much so that even in the worst years of the ‘troubles’ the crime clearance rate in Northern Ireland was higher than that of many forces in Great Britain” (p. 266). Attempting to manage the Province’s ‘troubles’ by the Republican and Loyalist terrorists who attacked police officers was more troublesome, however, and “placed an enormous strain” on RUC officers, while “the risk of injury or death was the highest in any European police force and one of the highest in the world. In the eighty of years of the force’s history, 314 officers lost their lives to those who believed in using violence for political ends; all but twelve died between 1969 and 1998” (p. 271). Richard Doherty is one of Ireland’s leading military history authors with more than a dozen monographs to his credit. Sean Hartnett, Charlie One: The True Story of an Irishman in the British Army and his Role in Covert Counter-Terrorism Operations in Northern Ireland (Newbridge, Co. Kildare, Ireland: Merrion Press, 2016), 214 pp., US $ 19.99 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-7853-7085-4. This is the author’s dramatic personal account as a Catholic from Cork, Ireland, who, rather than joining the IRA in 1995, became a member of the British Armed Forces. In 2001, as explained in the book’s back cover, ISSN 2334-3745 70 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 the author returned to Ireland as a member of the Army’s covert counter-terrorist unit in Northern Ireland, Joint Communications Unit Northern Ireland aka JCU-NI, the FRU, 14 Intelligence Company (known as “The Det”). For the next three years, the author was involved in numerous high-profile operations, including the arrest of IRA bomber John Paul Hannan, who was wanted by British authorities for engaging in a bombing campaign in London and Birmingham in 2001, and in the prevention of an assassination attempt on loyalist leader Johnny Adare. In 2004, the author decided to leave the British Army, with one of the cited reasons his suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and move back to South Africa. Thomas Hennessey, Hunger Strike: Margaret Thatcher’s Battle with the IRA, 1980-1981 (Sallins, Co. Kildare, Ireland: Irish Academic Press, 2014), 496 pp., US $ 39.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-0-7165-3176-0. This is a comprehensive and extensively detailed history of the background and aftermath of the dispute that led to the hunger strikes by the IRA prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh (later known as HM Prison Maze) in 1980-81. The prisoners’ demand was to overturn the British government’s policy of criminalizing terrorist prisoners (with the IRA’s operatives viewing themselves as “paramilitaries”) by granting them ‘special category status’ and distinguishing them from other prisoners who were sentenced for non-political criminal offenses. To examine these issues the author utilizes a wide array of newly released archival material to address topics such as the role of prisons in the conflict from 1972 to 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Northern Ireland policy, the conditions that gave rise to the two hunger strikes and the attempts to negotiate a deal, the “war of attrition” between the IRA and the British security forces, and the end to the conflict with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement of April 10, 1998. The author is Professor of Modern British and Irish History at Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, England, UK. J.B.E. Hittle, Michael Collins and the Anglo-Irish War: Britain’s Counterinsurgency Failure (Washington, DC: Potomac Books/University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 320 pp., US $ 27.50 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-1-59797535-3. This is an interesting account of Britain’s intelligence and counterinsurgency campaign in Ireland from 1919 to 1921, which is known as the Anglo-Irish War. Although the book’s central figure is Michael Collins, the charismatic Irish revolutionary who was a leading figure in the Irish struggle for independence and had served as Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 until his assassination in August 1922, the author’s primary focus is to use the 1919 to 1921 period “as a case study of intelligence management under conditions of low-intensity conflict” (p. xiii). In the conclusion, the author finds that in responding to the Irish insurgency, British intelligence failed due to strategic, operational, tactical, and administrative mistakes, which were taken advantage of by Collins, whom the author describes as “a natural intelligence officer and political genius” (p. 228). The author finds that Collins “was a desperate physical-force nationalist and determined warrior who exploited a weak British security policy to wage a ruthless and bloody intelligence contest and guerrilla war. Collins’s greatest achievement, therefore, was to maneuver the British into this hopeless political dilemma, not in eliminating British forces” (p. 228). The author is a retired veteran of U.S. intelligence, including serving as a case officer in the National Clandestine Service. Kenneth Lesley-Dixon, Northern Ireland: The Troubles: From the Provos to the Det, 1968-1998 (Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, UK: Pen & Sword, 2018), 128 pp., US $ 22.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-5267-2917-0. During the Northern Ireland civil war from 1968 to 1998, known as “The Troubles,” a spectrum of adversarial Roman Catholic “Republican” and Protestant “Loyalist” terrorist groups operated in the province. This book focuses on the British government’s counterterrorism’s response measures, discussing how its military, police and intelligence special units were formed, their mandates, how their operatives were recruited, how they operated and their most significant operations. To examine these issues, Mr. Lesley-Dixon’s book with numerous photographs that illustrate the text - is divided into three parts. The first part, “Nationalist Paramilitary Organizations,” focuses primarily on the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). It operated from 1970 to 1998 with Sinn Fein, its non-violent political front contesting the U.K.’s parliamentary elections. The PIRA, the author explains, committed the largest number of terrorist attacks, which aimed “to foster urban ISSN 2334-3745 71 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 insurgency, civil disorder [to] seriously exercise and strain routine policing and thus create a threat to national security and advance their desire for a one-Ireland island” (p. 26). It also aimed to disrupt the province’s civil order by bombing local businesses “to deter inward investment and job creation in the province” (p. 27). Some of its major terrorist operations involved a bombing assassination of Lord Louis Mountbatten on Aug. 27, 1979 while he was on vacation in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, and bombing the Grand Hotel in Brighton on Oct. 12, 1984, where politicians, including Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, were staying for the Conservative Party’s annual conference. While Thatcher was not hurt, five people were killed, and 34 others were wounded. “Loyalist Paramilitary Organizations,” the second part, examines the origins and operations of groups such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Their operations were “intent on championing Unionism, protecting Protestant communities and ruthlessly retaliating against Republican violence” (p. 45). As a continuous “dirty war,” the British security forces had to deal with contentious and challenging rules of engagement issues, with one of the most controversial the shoot-to-kill policy when faced with threatening insurgents. This was the case in March 1988 when British intelligence uncovered information of a PIRA plot to attack a parade of British military bands in Gibraltar. When confronted by this terrorist cell, the responding Special Air Service (SAS) team killed its three members. This became highly controversial, as the author writes that “Despite initial praise for averting mass murder, controversy was not far behind when it was realized that none of the three IRA members had been armed and no remote bomb trigger was to be found” (p. 91). The operations of other British security forces covered in dramatic detail include the Military Reaction Force (MRF), the Special Reconnaissance Unit (also known as the 14 Field Security and Intelligence Company - “The Det”), as well as MI5, Special Branch, and the Joint Support Group (JSG). This highly informative account would have benefited from an additional concluding chapter that updated the status of these terrorist and government security forces in the aftermath of the peace process, especially the demobilization of the Republican and Loyalist forces and the integration of their personnel into civilian society. [This is a condensed version of the book review editor’s longer review, which appeared in The Washington Times. Reprinted by permission.] Gerard Noonan, The IRA in Britain, 1919-1923: ‘In the Heart of Enemy Lines’ (Liverpool, England, UK/ Distributed by Oxford University Press, 2014), 385 pp., US $ 120.00 [Hardcover], US $ 34.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-7813-8150-2. This is a well-researched account of the activities of insurgent organizations such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in Britain during the period of the outbreak of the war of independence in 1919 to the end of the civil war in 1923. As the author notes, these organizations’ operatives were “nurtured by the culture of Irish immigrants who settled in England, Scotland and Wales in the nineteenth century” whose population reached an estimated 524,000 at the height of republican activity in Britain in 1921. (p. 1). Believing that “only violence could achieve Irish independence” (p. 1), their insurgent activities involved fundraising, gunrunning and smuggling of ammunitions into Ireland, arson bombings of property, and assassinations. This book’s importance also lies in placing IRA (and PIRA) terrorism, which during this period involved relatively low-level violence, within its later historical contexts of heightened violence in Britain in 1939-40 and 1972-2001, when the violent campaigns were “a means of forcing the British to withdraw from Northern Ireland” (p. 323). The importance of focusing on these terrorism-related activities in Britain during this period, the author concludes, is that “The war of independence and the civil war were ultimately won and lost by the actions of actors in Ireland, but republicans in Britain played a noteworthy role in the drama” (p. 328). This book is based on the author’s Ph.D dissertation which earned him a doctorate in history from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Desmond Rea and Robin Masefield, Policing in Northern Ireland: Delivering the New Beginning? (Liverpool, England, UK/Distributed by Oxford University Press, 2014), 670 pp., US $ 29.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-17813-8026-0. This is an insider’s account of the history of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Northern ISSN 2334-3745 72 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 Ireland Policing Board, focusing on the accountability of a police force to the community it serves in a democracy. The PSNI was the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) which was reformed and renamed in 2001 as a result of the Belfast Agreement, which was part of the Northern Ireland peace process. To examine the effectiveness of the reformed police force, the book’s chapters discuss topics such as the September 1999 Report of The Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland; the Policing Board’s membership, modus operandi and accountability; policing at the district and community levels; civil unrest and public order policing (including policing during polarizing community parades); as well as issues involved in dealing with contentious past issues. Sir Desmond Rea is former Chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, 20012009, and former Chairman of the Northern Ireland Labour Relations Agency, 1996-2002. Robin Masefield, CBE, is former Director General of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, 2004-2010. John Wilsey, The Ulster Tales: A Tribute to Those Who Served 1969-2000 (Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, UK: Pen & Sword, 2011), 224 pp., US $ 39.95 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-1-8488-4524-4. In this book, the author, who became General Officer Commanding (GOC) and Director of Operations in Northern Ireland in 1990, eventually retiring from the British Army as a General in 1996, presents an insider’s account of the experiences of ten Britons who were prominently involved in the Northern Ireland ‘troubles’ between 1969 and 2000. As the author explains, these accounts are not intended to provide a history of the ‘troubles’, but to “give an illustrative flavor of the lives and experiences of some British soldiers, policemen, officials and civilians, with whom I worked, over those difficult years in a beautiful but troubled place” (p. xi). The tales by these Britons, with each chapter introduced by the author’s well-informed overview, include Simon Hoggart, a veteran journalist at The Guardian newspaper who had covered the Province for many years; Graham Crossland who had joined the British Army’s Green Howards regiment in August 1965, which was deployed in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s; Peter Jones, who had served in military intelligence; Tom King, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the time of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, who was the target of an IRA assassination attempt; Sir John Blelloch, a top civil servant, who was involved in managing the 1981 Hunger Strike; Chris Albiston, a former Metropolitan Police officer who had joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary, eventually becoming Chief Constable; and John Deverell, Director and Coordinator of Intelligence at Stormont, who was responsible for managing intelligence operations in Northern Ireland. In a Postscript, the author concludes that the Britons profiled in the book represent the overall British effort in which “the military, in conjunction with their colleagues in the police and security services, created the opportunity for peace to take hold. They confronted the violence; they underpinned law and order; and they sustained the community; giving politicians and civil servants the time to develop the processes and understanding necessary for progress” (p. 177). Pakistan and Taliban William J. Topich, Pakistan: The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the Rise of Terrorism (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, an Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2018), 217 pp., US $ 75.00 [Hardcover], ISBN: 978-14408-3760-9. This is an excellent and up-to-date account of the latest developments in Pakistan, focusing in particular on the impact of religiously extremist terrorism presented by groups such as al Qaida, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Taliban on the country’s political trajectory. To examine these issues, the book’s chapters discuss the internal and external origins of extremism in Pakistan; Pakistan during the Musharraf years, 1999-2002; the role of the ungovernable tribal region on the proliferation of terrorism; the “Talibanization” of Pakistan; and future trends of extremism in Pakistan. The final chapter, which also discusses the arrival of the Islamic State in Pakistan, insightfully concludes that “If Pakistan can embrace diversity and gear the educational system and grass-roots civil society in positive directions, the terrorism problem can become manageable, at the very least. Until change occurs, the country will remain a troubled land” (p. 200). The author is chair of the Department of Social Science at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas. ISSN 2334-3745 73 October 2018 PERSPECTI VES O N TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5 Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn (Eds.), The Taliban Reader: War, Islam and Politics (London, England, UK: Hurst & Company/New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018), 320 pp., US $ 34.95 [Paperback], ISBN: 978-1-8490-4809-5. This is an important and comprehensive collection of primary sources, including newspaper and websites with published statements that are translated into English by those associated with the Afghanistan- and Pakistanbased Taliban movement. Following the editors’ introductory overview, the volume is divided into three parts: Part 1, “Mujahedeen and Topakiyaan (1979-1994)”; Part 2, “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1994-2001)”; and Part 3: “Insurgency (2001 - ).” A useful glossary and bibliography are also included. Both editors are veteran academic experts on the Taliban, with Alex Strick Van Linschoten being based in Amman, Jordan, and Felix Kuehn based in Berlin, Germany. About the Reviewer: Joshua Sinai, Ph. D., is the Book Reviews Editor of ‘Perspectives on Terrorism’. He can be reached at: [email protected]. ISSN 2334-3745 74 October 2018