Black Flags

Adventure novelist Joby Warrick exposes a deadly strain of radical Islam that began in a remote Jordanian jail after an American military action inadvertently released a terrorist mastermind. Jordan's King Abdullah pardoned a group of political prisoners in 1999, among them Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who would go on to lead an Islamist organization set on controlling the Middle East. From a base in northern Iraq, al-Zarqawi orchestrated hotel bombings and killings in Jordan. It was only when America invaded Iraq in 2003 that al-Zarqawi was able to gain the power he craved.