Middle East War

An essential document of the first American war of the new century. During this journey into war, Rodgers and his crew embraced the dangers, the numbing fatigue, and the moments of stark fear of the young armored cavalrymen they lived with twenty-four hours each day, an experience that created for them the lifelong bond that only soldiers serving together under fire share.

Informed by unparalleled access to still-secret documents, interviews with top field commanders, and a review of the military's own internal after-action reports, Cobra II is the definitive chronicle of America's invasion and occupation of Iraq, a conflict that could not be lost but one that the United States failed to win decisively. From the Pentagon to the White House to the American command centers in the field, the book reveals the inside story of how the war was actually planned and fought.

Eight years ago we chased the Taliban from Kabul and forced al-Qaeda to find a new home. One by one the militants crossed the border into Pakistan and settled in its tribal areas, building alliances with locals and terrorizing or bribing their way to power. This place---Pakistan's lawless frontier---is now the epicenter of global terrorism. It is where young American and British jihadists go to be trained, where the kidnapped are stowed away, and where plots are hatched for deadly attacks all over the world.

A family secret revealed 40 years ago by a grandmother to her grandson is now an acclaimed Russian historical fiction novel. A Hundred Sweet Promises is the tale of the author’s grandfather, Nasrosoltan, a famed composer, who on the eve of World War I travels from Persia to Russia to study classical music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with such masters as Rimsky-Korsakov.

Gallipoli: the mere name summons the story of this well-known campaign of the First World War. And the story of Gallipoli, where in August 1915 the Allied forces made their last valiant effort against the Turks, is one of infamous might-have-beens. If only the Allies had held out a little longer, pushed a little harder, had better luck, Gallipoli might have been the decisive triumph that knocked the Ottoman Empire out of the First World War.

Using previously unpublished documents, Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, exposes how the deeply ingrained hatred that has provoked the new terrorism has its roots in Saudi Arabia's dominant religious creed, a radical Islamic offshoot known as Wahhabism.

En unik inblick i återtagandet av Mosul från terrorsekten IS en osminkad och detaljrik berättelse om hur ett specialförband opererar i strid, våldsam död, kamratskap i främsta linjen och krigets oskyldiga offer. Svenske elitsoldaten Axel Stål är tillbaka i stridens hetta. Som nybefordrad överstelötjnant i kurdiska säkerhetstjänsten blir hans uppgift att hjälpa till med återtagandet av Mosul från terrorsekten Islamiska Staten. Men trots hans långa karriär som operatör runt om i världens värsta oroshärdar visar sig uppdraget bli långt blodigare och svårare än vad Axel någonsin tidigare varit med om.

Iran and Iraq served as the first WWII theater in which the US, the UK, and the USSR fought alongside each other. Historian Ashley Jackson charts the intense Allied military activity in Iran and Iraq and reveals how deeply the war impacted common people's lives. He also provides revelations about the true nature of Anglo-American relations in the region, the beginnings of the Cold War, and the continuing corrosive legacy of Western influence in these lands.

On October 7th, 2023, David-Seth Kirshner woke up excited to celebrate his 50th birthday. Instead of eating cake, Rabbi Kirshner was glued to the news as the horrible attack by Hamas upon innocent Israelis began to unfold. Emotions flooded him from all directions. Anger, rage, surprise, fear, hope, frustration, anxiety, confidence and grief were just some of what inhabited his mind and body.

Born to Palestinian refugees, Kassem Eid grew up in the small town of Moadamiya on the outskirts of the ancient city of Damascus. The streets that he and his many siblings played on were perfumed with jasmine. A precocious child, he excelled at school and had a natural gift for languages. But it didn't take long for Kassem to realise that he was treated differently at school because of his family's resistance to the brutal government regime.

Their nickname was the Magnificent Bastards and they were warriors without a war. Kept stateside after 9/11 and left floating in the Pacific during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the thousand Marines of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment were told they were bench-warmers as America sent troops into combat. But war was waiting. Iraq would explode in violence exactly one year after a U.S.-led Coalition swept into Baghdad and the Magnificent Bastards would find themselves at the epicenter.

After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, First Sergeant Daniel Hendrex was dispatched along with his unit, Dragon Company, to Husaybah, a small town bordering Syria in the Sunni-dominated Al Anbar province of Iraq. It was at this checkpoint, amidst relentless attacks, that Daniel and his men found the most effective ally of the war effort in the most unlikely of sources.

In early 2022, veteran journalist Andrew North was kidnapped by the Taliban. By the time he found himself imprisoned in a jail cell, he had been reporting from Afghanistan for two decades, coming to know hundreds of Afghans along the way. This book brings together both his and their stories.

As the US occupation of Iraq rages, novelist Mortada Gzar, a student at the University of Baghdad, has a chance encounter with Morise, an African American soldier. It’s love at first sight, a threat to them both, and a moment of self-discovery. Challenged by society’s rejection and Morise’s return to the US, Mortada takes to the page to understand himself. In his affecting memoir, Mortada interweaves tales of his childhood work as a scrap-metal collector in a war zone and the indignities faced by openly gay artists in Iraq with his impossible love story and journey to the US.

David Headley, the American Pakistani also known as Daood Gilani, lived a double life. One day he would stroll through Central Park in his tailored Armani suit as a true New Yorker, and the next he would browse in the bazaar in Lahore wearing traditional Pakistani clothes. One day he would drink champagne at the most extravagant clubs; on another he would prostrate himself in prayer in remote Pakistan and pledge fidelity to Allah.

Bigger than Watergate! Bigger than Iran-Contra! Ten times bigger than both, said one representative. The Bengahzi scandal may have been covered up by the White House, but the truth is about to come out. The Real Benghazi Story is a groundbreaking investigative work that finally exposes some of the most significant issues related to the murderous September 11, 2012, attack - information with current national security implications.

In a 2010 terrorist plot, Al-Qaeda hid a bomb in a FedEx shipment addressed to Reynald de Chatillon, a knight who had died centuries ago in the Crusades. A reviled figure in Islamic history, often portrayed as the very epitome of brutality, Reynald remains as controversial - and as vividly present in the minds of many in the Middle East - as the story of the Crusades themselves.

Most Americans think of the Taliban and al Qaeda as a bunch of bearded fanatics fighting an Islamic crusade from caves in Afghanistan. But that doesn't explain their astonishing comeback along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Why is it that eight years after we invaded Afghanistan, the CIA says that these groups are better armed and better funded than ever? Seeds of Terror will reshape the way you think about America's enemies, revealing them less as ideologues and more as criminals.

The "Lackawanna Six" were young men, born of Yemeni families long settled in upstate New York, who took a trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan and spent time in an al-Qaeda training camp long before the specter of 9/11, before most people had even heard of Osama Bin Laden, and before the existence of the Homeland Security Act.

Terrorism expert Erick Stakelbeck pulls back the curtain on ISIS, the violent terrorist organization spreading death and hate in the Middle East. The rise of ISIS took the White House by complete surprise: President Obama called the group "JV" then was forced to reassess when ISIS began executing innocent American journalists. Now radicalized Americans and Europeans are joining ISIS' ranks.