NO SHADOWS IN THE DESERT

Middle East security expert Katz offers a revealing account of how Jordan, the United States, and global allies engaged in covert acts of vengeance to eliminate top leaders of the Islamic State group.

In 2014, a young Jordanian Air Force pilot was captured and burned to death by terrorists after his fighter aircraft crashed near Raqqa, Syria, during a combat sortie aimed at destroying an arsenal and other targets. In the carefully staged and filmed execution, the airman was caged, covered with gasoline, and set afire. Terrorists hoped the “horrifying” death, later broadcast widely, would rally Muslims to their cause. Instead, writes Katz, it prompted retribution that lit “the fuse of the Islamic State’s destruction.” In this absorbing narrative, the author uses the story of the pilot and the subsequent killing of top IS leaders responsible for his capture and murder (including the war minister and the social media guru) as a way to explore the inner workings of the international anti-terror alliance, especially the close military intelligence ties between the CIA and Jordan, deemed a “buffer that helped an unstable region maintain periods of peace and status quo.” Against the background of the terrorist organization, which “caught everyone by surprise,” Katz details the fall of oil-rich Mosul; the complex relationships within the multinational anti-terror coalition, with its many air forces held together by electronic communication; and the coalition’s combat sorties against terrorist targets in Iraq and Syria. The author draws on interviews with soldiers and intelligence officials to recount decision-making inside the CIA “espionage hub” at Amman Station, Jordan’s top-flight anti-terrorist agency the General Intelligence Directorate, and the ruling council of IS, whose massive media operation (“likened to CNN and Britain’s BBC”) worked ceaselessly to win Muslim allies and recruit “middle-class jobless college-educated sons in the kingdom.”

An authoritative book that captures a critical moment in the war against IS and underscores the group’s ruthlessness.