Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State

<p>A compelling, definitive account of how and why bin Laden's ideology keeps rising from the dead.</p><p>When Osama bin Laden was killed by a U.S. Navy SEAL, many prophesied al-Qaeda's imminent demise. In reality the opposite has occurred. Why?</p><p>Watching the Arab Spring from his Pakistani safe house, bin Laden had seen an historic opportunity: &quot;The next stage will be the return of the caliphate.&quot; In the six years since bin Laden's death, al-Qaeda's affiliates metastasized, and the Islamic State, its most brutal spinoff, proclaimed itself the reborn caliphate bin Laden had foreseen.</p><p>Anatomy of Terror is told through the stories of the flagbearers of today's Islamic radicalism, including a Jordanian drug dealer, an air force colonel who served Saddam Hussein, a reclusive Iraqi bookworm, and one of bin Laden's own sons. Ali H. Soufan, a top counterterrorism operative, lays bare the psychology and inner workings of al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their spawn and shows how the propagation of terrorism can be stopped.</p>