The ISIS Beat: Why Caliphate and Everyone Else Got it Wrong
Excerpt: In March 2019, I arrived in eastern Syria to witness the demise of the Islamic State. The movement had been largely defeated, having surrendered major cities like Raqqa and Mosul. All that was left of the Caliphate, which had gripped our collective fears for the past six years, were a few square miles of desert along the Iraqi–Syrian border. The towns here appeared to be deserted. Car doors were left wide open, and clothes were still hanging on lines. Minarets and domes were etched with bullet holes. Concrete foundations of razed houses jutted out from the ground.