IRAQ ABLAZE: INSIDE THE INSURGENCY

the long version

"The battle for Iraq is the most misunderstood struggle of our times. Very few observers are able to travel outside the American-controlled Green Zone, let alone meet members of the resistance. Internationally renowned Arab Journalist Zaki Chehab, however, is different. Having grown up in a refugee camp in Lebanon, he knows how to talk the language of people who consider themselves under foreign occupation. As a result, he has been able to penetrate the inner structures of Saddam loyalists and Islamist radicals as well as reach out to ordinary people struggling to get by. phenomenally well-connected, Chehab is the only journalist to have interviewed both the leadership and the rank and file of the resistance. Now, for the first time, we are able to see an authoritative picture of the Iraqi insurgency in all its complexity, ferocity and passion." "Reading the graffiti on what the locals call 'RPG-7 Alley' in Tikrit, sitting down with the leaders of the most secret Islamic militias operating out of Kurdistan, and breaking out after curfew to traipse across tomato fields with idealistic young fighters in Ramadi, Chehab reveals the very different characters, motivations and strategies of the groups which make up the insurgency. He offers the first insider account of developments which left the onlooking world confused: why the rebels' tactics shifted from conventional guerilla warfare to suicide bombing, why the Najaf uprising subsided so quickly, and how the insurgency spread to Kurdistan."--Jacket.