Book

The Syrian Jihad

Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency

Charles Lister
Release Date: November 16, 2015

Content from the Brookings Doha Center is now archived. In September 2021, after 14 years of impactful partnership, Brookings and the Brookings Doha Center announced that they were ending their affiliation. The Brookings Doha Center is now the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, a separate public policy institution based in Qatar.

Charles Lister’s new book assesses and explains the emergence of Sunni jihadi organisations in Syria’s fledgling insurgency since 2011, charts their evolution and situates them within the global Islamist project. Unprecedented numbers of foreign fighters have joined such groups, who will almost certainly continue to host them. External factors are scrutinized, including the strategic and tactical lessons learned from other jihadist conflict zones and the complex interplay between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and how it has influenced the jihadist sphere in Syria. Tensions between and conflict within such groups also feature in this indispensable volume.

Authors