The book under review investigates the ideology of the ISIS and its worldview, its recruitment strategy, its financial system and its appeal. It also studies the war against ISIS and its challenges. Edna Fernandez argues that the ISIS aims to destroy the ‘greyzone’ (a place where the Muslim and non-Muslims live together). It wants to paint the world black, by annihilating democratic values. It wants to continue its battle for identity that would culminate with the destruction of the greyzones. For them there is no religious coexistence, the only Islam known to them is militant, violent and based on fear. Fernandez studies the stories of western youngsters who were once attracted by the ISIS ideology but returned to tell the stories of horror.
She adds that lone wolf terrorism was the new terrorism being waged by the Islamic state. It required little planning and no indication of what was coming. It aimed at creating
regions of ‘savage chaos’ across the world by embarking upon a series of manifold attacks against the interests of the US and its allies.
Unlike Al Qaeda, the ISIS was comfortable with killing not just civilians but Muslims as well, both Sunni and Shia, as well as other religious groups. Whereas, Al Qaeda had recruited surreptitiously, ISIS issued an open invitation to everyone to join. In the West, economic and cultural marginalization contributed to a sense of disconnect, making people vulnerable to the revolutionary message of the ISIS. In the Middle East, to these factors, were added the factors of political disenfranchisement and years of totalitarianism. For these people, the ISIS gave an identity, a cause and power to take revenge on everything that ever rejected them. It created an insolent embryonic terrorist state, with self financing, an efficient propaganda machine and global reach into the minds of the confused, disenfranchised youths around the world.